After years of listening to Silicon Valley bang on about disrupting the auto industry, it looks like autonomous cars are about to reach the UK for real.

By 2030, the industry could generate as many as 320,000 jobs with a £51 billion boost to the nation’s economy, according to KPMG. Last year, rumours emerged that Google had already held up to five face-to-face meetings with the government to discuss driverless cars.

I got a small taste of this Sleeper-esque future when I flew to Dubai from Heathrow a couple of years ago. After parking my own car miles away from the airport, I hauled my suitcase into a small pod (not unlike the vehicle below) situated on what looked like a tramline and then slowly “drove” the rest of the way to the terminal. Exciting stuff, I know.

sleeper

Turns out the government is spending £8 million publicly trialling the same pods in Greenwich in South East London. Each vehicle will first be driven around the area by a human to map the route in 3D. The pod will then be able to find its way round using built-in lasers, sensors and cameras that check where the car is against the 3D map, whilst detecting obstacles, hazards and pedestrians as well as avoiding public roads.

This is just one of the driverless trials taking place around the UK after the government pledged to allow driverless vehicles on British motorways by 2020. Early next year, a trial of semi-autonomous Volvo XC90s will hit London’s streets; and on a global scale Google, Tesla, Uber and other tech companies are pushing themselves to produce viable, safe self-driving vehicles.

Working Together

Fully connected cars should easily be able to interact with the world around them - and other cars they come across - through sensors and predictive intelligence using technology like SPARKL.

Effective communication between a smart car and its surrounding infrastructure is essential to the smooth running of cities, towns and villages.

Pulling up to a traffic light in congested traffic means that your smart car has to make the right decision at the right time, i.e. coming to a full stop or carry on driving. If an ambulance needs to get through, then the traffic lights could be also be configured to respond automatically through sensors to let it through.

Breakin’ the Law

Another big debate surrounding driverless cars is about liability in the event of an accident. These cars are programmed to obey the law. This might seem like a good idea in theory, but when it comes to getting the car on a chaotic, congested motorway, it may not work out so well.

When it goes wrong, the car could produce an audit trail of events that tells you exactly when, how and what happened, so you can determine who is responsible for whatever incident has occurred.

Programming driverless cars is turning out to be a huge learning curve for everyone, including our beloved tech giants, but above all we have to ensure that smart cars and smart infrastructure can work together.

Image courtesy of MGM Studios.