Officials from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) are rethinking their position on self-driving vehicles with the intention of getting more of this emerging technology into the public’s hands.
In 2013, they felt that self-driving vehicles should be limited to testing and not “authorized for use by members of the public for general driving purposes.” In a recent written statement, DOT spokeswoman, Suzanne Emmerling, said that with rapid development of the technology, the federal is being updated.
Industry roadmaps for automated vehicles includes Honda, Volvo, Audi, and Bosch, who have already developed Traffic Jam Assist (includes lane keeping and adaptive cruise control). Mercedes-Benz has already introduced steering assist (includes lane keeping and adaptive cruise control) and intend to develop a self-driving vehicle for sale by 2020. Nissan and General Motors plans to release self-driving vehicles by 2020. Continental is partnering with Google and IBM to develop autonomous driving systems. Toyota is researching a semi-autonomous vehicle designed to keep the driver in the control loop and take over in case of imminent accident. Tesla has already released their semi-autonomous system in Model S vehicles, with several customers documenting near 100% cross-country “hands-off” drives. These self-driving systems rely heavily on radar and optical sensors and is just one more reason why it’s important to fully test these new systems for strict EMC compliance.
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