Experiments have been conducted on automated driving systems (ADS) since at least the 1920s, trials began in the 1950s. The first semi-automated car was developed in 1977, by Japan's Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, which required specially marked streets that were interpreted by two cameras on the vehicle and an analog computer. The vehicle reached speeds up to 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) with the support of an elevated rail.
And now 100 years have passed since the first ideas. Let's take a look at the results.
Among the innovative ideas, self-driving cars is perhaps the most popular. Almost all major auto concerns and IT companies try to develop it. Lots of so-called startups. If you read their plans, then they all copy each other and each of them claims that they are about to release a finished product and a bunch of car drivers will be left without work.
From a technical point of view, car autonomous movement looks very simple and promising. After all, the computer will not stray from the route and will not get tired, it will not come out to piss, a crossing a dangerous road and depriving itself of life, that will also cause difficulties for other road users. Will not test the car for strength and reliability, as well as irritate other road users. Traffic will become as predictable as on a conveyor belt at a factory, and at any time you can say who, where and when will be. Looks like a perfect future doesn't it.
And this is exactly how all the developers of Autonomous Transport draw it in their presentations, not knowing that the projects of ideal states, cities, societies and smaller objects have existed and still exist today. Only now no one pays special attention to them.
They also do not understand that all teams are essentially doing the same thing. Hence the result is the same for everyone. Some even claim to have launched the first self-driving vehicle, but these examples work in very limited places with no chance of widespread use.
It is even funnier to read the articles about autonomous cars of journalists from year to year, practically unchanged. Except for a growing number of examples, each of which, however, does not show any progress.
Hence the conclusion that despite all the forecasts with the current pace of research on this topic, we will never achieve large-scale use of Autonomous Transport.
And if developers of self-driving cars think that we just need time to adopt technology, it's very big delusion. And when we faced driverless car tech revolution, we will be surprised by contr-revolution by jobless drivers who will quikly revolt and return everything to as it was before.
