Off to the Races

Abstract

This article is on the efforts that are being made to manufacture and launch automatic cars successfully. Chris Gerdes and his team have been doing research and putting lot of efforts in designing self-driving cars that can handle emergencies even better than the very best human drivers. The research team studies professional race car drivers to learn minutest details for their algorithms and measurements. In a way, the research team analysts teach a car to drive like a race car driver - to calculate when to brake before a turn, how much to let up on the brake entering a turn, and how much to throttle coming out of it. Impressive for a car with no driver, however, Gerdes and his team want to raise the stakes. However, the team’s autonomous cars have operated alone on the tracks or roads. Now, Gerdes is ready to test them in traffic and on icy roads that will force the automated cars to adapt driving tactics midstream.