Even though we are now in the computer age, people still find it difficult to understand that driverless autonomous cars that resemble the ‘Kit’ in Knightrider or the Batmobile in Batman, with their futuristic ability to maneuver themselves They themselves are part of our new reality. Yet for nearly a decade, Internet search giant Google has been busy bringing this very concept to American highways. Google’s self-driving cars have now completed 750,000 miles on the road without any major incidents and the company confidently announces that self-driving car technology, at least as far as cars on the road are concerned, is a reality. . They are confident that their cars can handle almost any scenario that arises on the road. Driverless car technology has become hot news, all major car companies are involved in research in this area. Now Google is testing its driverless car technology in towns and cities, admittedly with a little less success than on the road.

The solution that most people think of when driverless cars are mentioned is that it must be some kind of v2n solution where the vehicles communicate directly with the network through fixed nodal points throughout the city, which can track every car and keep the traffic going by diverting and directing traffic so everything runs smoothly. This type of system would be a natural precursor to a driverless car system. However, Google has gone the diametrically opposite path by relying almost entirely on sensors inside the car that interact and respond to the outside world; these sensors, along with intensive mapping applications and GPS (although currently GPS is only good for 10 meters or so) are used in a combined operation to guide the vehicle. This is probably because a network driverless car solution would involve numerous repeaters and amplifiers and would be prohibitively expensive in terms of power consumption, infrastructure and bandwidth usage. Google should know! However, the technology that Google uses isn’t cheap either, at around $100,000 give or take a few thousand dollars, this doesn’t make it an option for the man in the street. Apart from this, the emphasis placed on sensor input to maneuver the vehicle also makes the technology enormously complicated. The prospects of seeing driverless cars on the streets of cities and towns in the near future do not look very rosy at the moment, although they will probably soon be commonplace on the roads.

Now an Indian company, Trigon, claims to have invented a new driverless car technology that will cost a fraction of Google’s driverless car system and will work almost perfectly in virtually any condition. Any successful driverless car technology will require split-second and excellent coordination and response times to be able to maneuver itself in normal traffic conditions. Instead of trying to solve the problem by uploading a large number of sensors like in the driverless car systems of Google, Mercedes and Toyota. The driverless car solution designed by Trigon uses lidar mapping via diffuse laser projection of the surroundings and a minimal number of small cameras. Detailed information about the route obtained in this way is stored in the cars’ computers. This means that a car would first have to be driven on a given route before it can drive that route on its own. It should be mentioned here that the efficiency and accuracy of 3D LIDAR mapping has kept pace with computers as they have improved their performance. Therefore, it is now possible to achieve 3D mapping in what amounts to real time. However, the company soon came to the conclusion that using only cameras and LIDAR output would be time consuming, inaccurate, and inconsistent; some other solution would have to be found. This is where Trigon has made a breakthrough. The reasoning behind the new Trigon driverless technology is simple; all cars have brake lights, all cars have indicators, locks, license plates, etc. Why not accept the fact that driverless car technology is here, why deny the existence of the technology?

Basically what this means is that since the technology exists and has been proven to exist, why not adjust the infrastructure to accept this fact? What Trigon suggests is that all vehicles such as cars, buses, bicycles, etc., regardless of whether they are equipped with driverless car technology or not, are compulsively equipped with the latest RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Tag) tags that They are capable of transmitting information in real time. These tags will work vehicle-to-vehicle and not vehicle-to-network and therefore will not affect communications or consume unreasonable amounts of bandwidth. In fact, precisely this type of RFID tag is being used to transport nuclear materials. These advanced RFID tags can monitor the temperature, pressure, humidity, and sealing status of nuclear containers and can be read from 100 meters away with no line of sight. The RFID tags that Trigon will use give the dimensions, weight, orientation and speed of the vehicle, no other information will be given, thus preserving privacy. RFID tags can be read from 100 meters away (more if necessary) without line of sight and are powered by car battery supply using negligible amounts (a few milliwatts) of current. What this means is that any car equipped with Trigon driverless car technology would have a 3D image of the traffic immediately around it in real time, with the dimensions, speed, weight and line of approach of these vehicles. These RFID tags would cost less than $20 to install and, if installed in every car, would make driverless technology a doddle. It would be easier and less complicated than the systems used by the post office to sort letters by zip codes or even the baggage handling machinery at airports. This is because instead of the sensors collecting information and analyzing it, all the information relevant to maneuvering the vehicle would reach the vehicle itself; then it’s a simple matter of using software based on the old Newtonian laws of motion to maneuver in the right direction at the right speed. The technology allows up to 2,000 RFID tags to be read simultaneously, which is excessive because cars on the road will interact with at most eight other vehicles in their vicinity at any given time. Also, due to the limited amount of information being transmitted, the problem of clogging bandwidth does not arise, it is a not logical. What this means in effect is that using this system is a good start to bringing driverless car technology to the road. Cars can choose to have the technology installed or not, but any car that opts for the system will have a working system.

This is not a new precedent, for example, when cars were still a novelty, the available roads were found to be too difficult to manoeuvre, which led to people campaigning for the ‘Good Roads Movement’ As a result of the US government beginning to allocate funds to build passable highways, the rest is history. Cell phones had a similar experience, it was the installation of numerous towers and repeaters that made cell phones and communication anywhere in the world a success. Today, mobile phones are as ubiquitous as clothing.

The advantages of implementing a driverless car system of this type are numerous, starting with safety, economy, saving time and virtually maintenance-free driving. This is because cars use Newton’s laws of motion, where it is necessary to know the loaded weight of the car at any stage to calculate the proper speed to travel at, so the system has a clear idea of ​​what the speed is. The car’s ‘normal’ response should be, any deviation from this standard performance would be noted, analyzed, reported and hopefully rectified. Another great advantage of the system is the tremendous fuel savings due to the efficient stopping, starting and running of the cars. Traffic jams would be a thing of the past and huge amounts of fuel would be saved as a result. The preferred driverless car system platform is hybrids like the Toyota Prius or even all electric cars like Tesla.

It is time for the US to once again lead the world and set the standard in pioneering technologies, driverless car technology could be one such technology that can be implemented cost-effectively.