things we know about the Google Car project so far
1. It started in 2009, using Google technology installed in a first-generation Toyota Prius. Since then, the project has amassed more than 1.5million test miles, latterly in Lexus SUVs and electric Google city cars.
2. Google driverless technology is based around LiDAR, a system using all-round laser beams that bounce off surrounding objects to create a digitised 3D virtual representation of the real world for the AI to navigate.
3. The system also assimilates radar, camera and GPS feeds to build a highly complex picture of the Google Car’s environment.
4. Astonishingly complex algorithms are required to predict movements of other cars, pedestrians, cyclists - and stray dogs.
5. As you’d expect, Google maps and traffic info is used to tell the Google car which way to go.
6. Latest Google Car prototypes unveiled for testing in 2014, are fully electric with a range of 100 miles, are speed limited to 25mph, and are designed for urban use.
7. A generally accepted date for autonomous technology to start becoming widely available is 2020. But don’t expect fully self-driving cars to be legal by then, even if they appear to be viable from a technical point-of-view.
8. Google feels its technology is beginning to mature, as signalled by the creation of Waymo