Germans Scientists Unveil Self-Driving Car

 Driverless Audi

Driverless BMW

MIG

 Scientists in Germany unveiling the latest self-driven car on Wednesday said the days of humans behind the wheel are numbered and that their technology can slash accidents and help the environment.
"In the future it will be forbidden for safety reasons for people to drive cars," predicted Raul Rojas, professor at Berlin's Free University (FU). "The cars of today are the horses of yesterday."
"In five to 10 years the technology could be applied in private areas like airports, factories or warehouses. On motorways ... in 10-20 years," Rojas told reporters. "In cities the obstacles could be removed in 20-30 years."
The car, dubbed the "Made in Germany (MIG)" by the FU, uses cameras, laser scanners, heat sensors and satellite navigation -- even in tunnels -- to "see" other vehicles and pedestrians and respond to traffic lights.

The technology will sharply reduce the number of cars on the road because people will no longer need their own vehicle so much, using instead driverless cars pooled in car-share schemes, the MIG's developers believe.
"Autonomous cars are the real 'green' cars," Mexican-born Rojas said. "We could use a fraction of the cars that we now have. If China and India want the same level of mobility as us, then the world is not big enough. The only real solution when it comes to sustainability and preserving resources is car-sharing."

According to the World Health Organization, more than a million people are killed in road accidents worldwide every year and 50 million more are injured. Driverless vehicles can slash this, their proponents say. "Cars that use sensors to recognize other vehicles, pedestrians and bikes will in future drive more safely than people who lose concentration and get tired," the FU said.
"The car has more information at its disposal than a human does now. A person can only see in front. This car can see in all directions at a range of 70 metres (yards)," said Rojas.

The MIG, which from the outside looks like a regular Volkswagen Passat with a camera on top, was put through its paces at Berlin's disused Tempelhof airport on Thursday but it has already been tested on public roads. A human being was inside -- but only in case things went wrong. Nothing did, with the car stopping while a couple with a pram crossed the road, or steering around a parked car -- all without human intervention.

It is by no means the first self-driving car, however. Scientists at Germany's Braunschweig last week demonstrated a driverless car called "Leonie" in real traffic conditions, while other road tests have been conducted in Italy and elsewhere. US technology giant Google said this week that its driverless cars -- but also with a human inside -- have already travelled 140,000 miles (225,000 kilometres) around the San Francisco Bay area.

 The team of German researchers at AutoNOMOS Labs in Berlin's Free University have upped the ante and unveiled the driverless taxi.
Imagine never arguing about the most efficient route or mentally debating the merits of tipping a driver whose ineptitude at the wheel almost killed you. Made in Germany (MIG) is an autonomous Volkswagen Passat cab you hail using an iPad app, and it eliminates the most unappealing aspect of taxis: the driver.
MIG is equipped with GPS navigation, video cameras, laser scanners, sensors and radars that it uses to construct a 3D map of its surroundings. It uses this map to detect pedestrians and other vehicles as it navigates the road. To hail MIG, passengers use an iPad that transmits its GPS location to the vehicle and tells the taxi where to pick them up. The passengers can track the taxi as it navigates toward them, and once in the vehicle they can use the iPad to tell the vehicle their destination.
The advantages of the technology are obvious: safer taxi rides to the airport and no surly drivers yelling at in-laws on cell phones while you're forced to listen to angry talk radio. And tipping is probably not required.

The following video created by the research team shows the driverless taxi in action: