How Google Auto Drive Car Works and Impacts Society

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Cars Ahead on Road
Credit: pexels.com, Cars Ahead on Road

Google's Auto Drive car uses a combination of sensors, cameras, and radar to navigate the road and make decisions in real-time. These sensors include lidar, which creates a 3D map of the environment, and GPS, which provides location information.

The system can detect and respond to various obstacles, such as pedestrians, other cars, and road signs. Google's engineers have also implemented a system of rules and regulations to ensure the car behaves safely and responsibly.

Google's Auto Drive car can reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour on public roads. This allows it to operate in a variety of environments, from urban streets to highways.

How It Works

To get started with Google's Auto Drive car, simply press the "go" button. The vehicle will take off once you've selected your destination on a Google maps screen.

Google's driverless technology has made significant progress, with its algorithms now trained to handle difficult situations like pedestrians stepping into the path of a car or cars running red lights. This advancement allows the system to navigate autonomously in thousands of situations that would have stumped it two years ago.

The system relies on a combination of sensors and algorithms to operate safely and efficiently. The vehicles will travel at a moderate pace, but the exact speed isn't specified in the article.

Waymo vs Driver Assist

Credit: youtube.com, TV journalist documents wild ride inside Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco

The Waymo Driver is a game-changer in the world of autonomous technology. It's the embodiment of fully autonomous technology that's always in control from pickup to destination.

Unlike many companies that promote 'self-driving' features, Waymo's technology doesn't require a human driver behind the wheel, paying full attention and ready to take over whenever the car encounters a situation it can't handle. This is a huge difference, as it allows passengers to sit in the back seat, relax, and enjoy the ride without worrying about taking control.

Before operating in a new area, the Waymo Driver maps the territory with incredible detail, from lane markers to stop signs to curbs and crosswalks. This custom mapping is crucial for the Waymo Driver's ability to navigate complex roads safely.

The Waymo Driver uses highly detailed custom maps, matched with real-time sensor data and artificial intelligence (AI), to determine its exact road location at all times. This combination of data sources ensures that the Waymo Driver stays on track and adapts to changing road conditions.

Credit: youtube.com, Sense, Solve, and Go: The Magic of the Waymo Driver

The Waymo Driver's perception system takes complex data gathered from its advanced suite of car sensors and deciphers what's around it using AI - from pedestrians to cyclists, vehicles to construction, and more. This level of awareness is essential for safe navigation.

Driving situations can involve hundreds of objects, each with their own unique behaviors and intentions. The Waymo Driver takes all this information into account, using AI to anticipate what other road users might do and plan the best action or route to take.

Here are some key differences between the Waymo Driver and driver assist technology:

  • The Waymo Driver is fully autonomous, while driver assist technology still requires a human driver behind the wheel.
  • The Waymo Driver uses highly detailed custom maps, while driver assist technology relies on external data such as GPS.
  • The Waymo Driver's perception system uses AI to decipher complex data, while driver assist technology may not have this level of awareness.

Just Press Go

Google's driverless prototypes are made of low-impact plastics and foam, and can be activated with the touch of a button. They'll work solely on the touch of a button, after a passenger has selected their destination on a Google maps screen.

Just press go, and the vehicle will take off. This is a natural evolution of current systems like lane-keeping technology, adaptive cruise control, and self-parking, which can all be activated at the touch of a button.

Futuristic autonomous robots delivering packages in an urban setting, showcasing modern technology.
Credit: pexels.com, Futuristic autonomous robots delivering packages in an urban setting, showcasing modern technology.

The prototypes will work solely on the touch of a button, after a passenger has selected their destination on a Google maps screen. This means passengers don't need to know how to drive, they can simply sit back and enjoy the ride.

The Waymo Driver, on the other hand, is the embodiment of fully autonomous technology that is always in control from pickup to destination. It uses highly detailed custom maps, matched with real-time sensor data and artificial intelligence (AI) to determine its exact road location at all times.

Key Technologies

Waymo's system uses a combination of cameras, LiDARs, and RADARs to perceive the world around the vehicle. The system is designed to work together to give the Waymo Driver a comprehensive view of its surroundings.

Lidar sensors are located all around the vehicle and send millions of laser pulses in all directions, measuring how long it takes for them to bounce back off objects. This gives the Waymo Driver a bird's eye view of what's around, even in low-light conditions.

Credit: youtube.com, Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan

There are 29 cameras on Waymo's Jaguar I-PACEs, which provide a 360° view around the vehicle. These cameras are designed with high dynamic range and thermal stability to see in both daylight and low-light conditions.

Here are the key technologies used by Waymo:

  • Lidar: provides a 3D picture of the vehicle's surroundings
  • Cameras: provide a 360° view around the vehicle
  • Radar: provides crucial details like an object's distance and speed

Sensors & Tasks

Waymo's perception system is a complex task that involves a combination of cameras, LiDARs, and RADARs. They use 4 LiDARs, which is quite different from Tesla's system.

Here are the main components of Waymo's perception system:

  • Cameras: provide a 360° view around the vehicle with high dynamic range and thermal stability, allowing them to see in both daylight and low-light conditions.
  • LiDAR: paints a 3D picture of the vehicle's surroundings by sending millions of laser pulses in all directions and measuring how long it takes for them to bounce back off objects.
  • RADAR: uses millimeter wave frequencies to provide crucial details like an object's distance and speed, and is effective in rain, fog, and snow.

Waymo's onboard computer combines the information from these sensors to identify objects and plan a safe route. The system can quickly run into tricky situations, but they've solved many of the problems in the last few years, such as the reflection problem using LiDAR.

Architectures

Waymo's architecture is estimated, not fixed, using a process called neural architecture search (NAS). This means that the best combination of neural networks is determined by an algorithm.

Car On The Road
Credit: pexels.com, Car On The Road

A NAS cell is a building block for neural networks that's repeated in a larger neural network, similar to ResNets. This idea has been adapted into something called AutoML.

The best combination of neural networks is selected from 10,000 architectures, narrowed down to 100 models, and then one final winner is chosen. The criteria for winning are accuracy and inference cost.

Here's a breakdown of the selection process:

The winner of this process is the neural network architecture that strikes the best balance between accuracy and inference cost.

Machine Learning and Data

Google's self-driving car technology relies heavily on machine learning and data. Active learning is a process used to improve the accuracy of these models, where AI systems are sent unlabeled data and only label it if they're uncertain about their prediction.

The process involves sending data to an AI, which then receives an automated label if it's very certain about its prediction, or sends the data to a human labeler if it's less certain. This way, human labelers only label hard data, and the rest is automated.

Credit: youtube.com, Machine Learning in the Google Self-Driving Car

To train their models, Waymo uses TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) and TensorFlow, Google's deep learning framework. Once a release is done, data collection begins, and some data gets selected and annotated by neural networks and human labelers.

Here's an overview of the data collection process:

  • Data collection begins after a release is done.
  • Some data gets selected and is annotated by neural networks and human labelers.
  • The labeled dataset is then sent into the AutoML architecture search, which estimates the best model.
  • The best model is validated, tested, and deployed to a new release.

Behavioral prediction is another crucial aspect of Waymo's self-driving car technology, which uses recurrent neural networks to predict human behaviors based on past information. This allows the system to know exactly what to do and measure its confidence in its predictions.

Datasets & Models

Google uses active learning to train their models, which involves sending unlabeled data to an AI for automated labeling if the AI is very certain about its prediction.

The process starts with sending every piece of unlabeled data to an AI, which then labels it if it's very certain about its prediction.

If the AI is less certain, the data is sent to a human labeler, who only labels hard data, making the process more efficient.

Credit: youtube.com, All Machine Learning Models Explained in 5 Minutes | Types of ML Models Basics

Active learning is used by Waymo to train their models, leveraging TPUs and TensorFlow.

Here's a step-by-step overview of how Waymo trains their models:

  • Data collection begins after a release is done.
  • Some data gets selected and is annotated by neural networks and human labelers.
  • The labeled dataset is then sent into the AutoML architecture search, which estimates the best model.
  • The best model is validated, tested, and deployed to a new release.

Behavioral Prediction

Behavioral prediction is a crucial aspect of Waymo's self-driving car system. It's all about learning human behaviors and anticipating them.

Waymo uses recurrent neural networks to make these predictions, which rely on past information to forecast future behaviors. This allows the system to know exactly what to do and measure its confidence in its predictions.

The system can detect a pedestrian running without watching and increase the risk accordingly. This is made possible by inputting expert bias into the models, combining machine learning with human knowledge of the world.

Human knowledge includes traffic laws and impossible scenarios, such as a human walking or running at 50 km/h. This hybrid approach enables the system to make more accurate predictions.

Behavioral prediction is a key feature of Waymo's self-driving car, allowing it to navigate complex situations with confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Google's self-driving car?

Google's self-driving car project was spun out of Google in 2016 and rebranded as Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet. Waymo later became the first company to offer fully driverless public transportation service in 2020.

How much is a Google self-driving car?

The cost of a Google self-driving car is estimated to be around $150,000 due to the expensive sensors and chips required. However, Google has not made it available for purchase yet.

Walter Brekke

Lead Writer

Walter Brekke is a seasoned writer with a passion for creating informative and engaging content. With a strong background in technology, Walter has established himself as a go-to expert in the field of cloud storage and collaboration. His articles have been widely read and respected, providing valuable insights and solutions to readers.

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