Technology | DOI: 10.1145/1965724.1965731
Alex Wright
Automotive Autonomy
Self-driving cars are inching closer to the assembly line, thanks
to promising new projects from Google and the European Union.

At the 1939 World’s Fair, General Motors’fabled Fu- turama exhibitintroduced the company’s vision for a new breed of car “ controlled by the push of a button.” The self-driving automobile would travel along a network of “magic motorways” outfitted with electrical conductors, while its occupants would glide along in comfort without ever touching the steering wheel. “Your grandchildren will snap across the continent in 24 hours,” promised Norman Bel Geddes, the project’s chief architect.

Seventy years later, those grandchildren are still waiting for their self-driving cars to roll off the assembly lines. Most analysts agree that commercially viable self-driving cars remain at least a decade away, but the vision is finally coming closer to reality, thanks to the advent of advanced sensors and onboard computers equipped with increasingly sophisticated driving algorithms.

In theory, self-driving cars hold out enormous promise: lower accident rates, reduced traffic congestion, and

one of Google’s seven self-driving, robotic Toyota Priuses steers its way through a tight, closed circuit course.

The European
union-sponsored
SARTRE project
is developing
technologies to allow
cars to join organized
platoons, with
a lead car operated
by a human driver.

improved fuel economy—not to mention the productivity gains in countless hours reclaimed by workers otherwise trapped in the purgatory of highway gridlock. Before self-driving cars make it to the showroom, however, car manufacturers will need to clear a series of formidable regulatory and manufacturing hurdles. In the meantime, engineers are making big strides toward proving the concept’s technological viability.

For the past year, Bay Area residents have noticed a fleet of seven curious-looking Toyota Priuses outfitted with an array of sensors, sometimes spotted driving the highways and city streets of San Francisco, occasionally even swerving their way down the notoriously serpentine Lombard Street.

Designed by Sebastian Thrun, di-
rector of Stanford University’s AI Lab-
oratory currently on leave to work at
Google, the curious-looking Priuses
could easily be mistaken for one of
Google’s more familiar Street View
cars. The Googlized Prius contains far
more advanced technology, however,
including a high-powered Velodyne
laser rangefinder and an array of addi-
tional radar sensors.