TECHNOLOGY FOCUS Autonomous vehicles
Back to the future – navigating our way to autonomous vehicles
The autonomous car is widely seen as the future of mobility, but as Dr Nick Reed of TRL explains, the concept is nothing new
T
he idea that cars might drive themselves has been with us for many years. Famed designer
and aerodynamicist, Norman Bel Ged- des, provided a prescient vision of the future with radio-controlled, electrically powered cars in the General Motors ‘Futurama’ exhibit at
the 1939 World
Fair. In the 1950s, developments began in earnest; RCA Laboratories and Gen- eral Motors collaborated in trying to turn RCA’s scale models of autonomous road transport systems into a production real- ity. With confidence in these early devel- opments, the Central Power and Light Company launched a US poster advert in 1956 predicting vehicle autonomy stat- ing: “One day your car may speed along an electric super-highway, its speed and
18 steering automatically controlled by
electronic devices embedded in the road.” The poster (above) shows a family of
four sitting in a glass-domed car, each with their seat turned towards a central table where they are playing a board game whilst the car is speeding to them their destination following an electric guideline. This concept is mirrored by the 2014 Rinspeed XchangE concept – a modified Tesla Model S, in which front seat occupants can turn to face those in the rear. The ultimate embodi- ment of this idea has been proposed by Zoox. Company founder, Tim Kentley- Klay sees their 2013 Boz concept vehi- cle as a reimagining of the automobile; in the words of their website, it is “what comes after the car.” Steering wheel,
smarthighways.net
pedals and dashboard are conspicuous by their absence – they are superfluous in a vehicle that always drives itself. In the 1960s, TRL (or the Transport and
Road Research Laboratory as we were known then) made significant progress, producing a driverless Citroën DS19 that was able to follow electric cables embedded on our test track and which was tested up to 80mph. It was reliable, accurate and robust even in challenging weather conditions. Video footage shows the system operating successfully on an entirely snow-covered track. Although the Citroën (above, oppo-
site) was specially chosen for this pur- pose due to its hydraulic power-assisted steering mechanism, the automated driving equipment was eventually fitted
Vol 2 No 1 smartHIGHWAYS
Illustration from 1956 poster advert for the
Central Power and Light Company
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