IEEE Future Directions
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Automation has becoming more and more sophisticated, it basically started with the Industrial Revolution with tools carrying out part of the workers activities, and it really boomed with computers. Now it is progressing even faster under three main enabling (broad) technology areas: sensors, actuators and artificial intelligence.
The disruptive technologies available today that are considered by the Imperial College foresight group are Delivery Robots&Passenger Drones and Autonomous Vehicles.
Delivery Robots and Passenger Drones
Several companies in the goods delivery area are experimenting with autonomous delivery robots in various forms. This is changing the way delivery is made and new start ups are joining the pack exploring different delivery means.
Project Wing is developing a complete ecosystem to deliver goods via autonomous drones. The project is developing drones of various sizes and a space control system to coordinate the flight of autonomous drones, an essential component once the number of drones will increase.
Starship (in spite of its name) is looking to use small delivery vehicles that can use sidewalks and it is also developing a system of hubs to dispatch the autonomous carts to pick up and deliver the goods.
Volocopter, a Germany based company, is planning to reinvent urban mobility using semi-autonomous drones as taxi to fly people in Dubai where they have got the permission to operate. Dubai is enjoying a special location, with most of the urban settlement laid along the coast and with a desert parallel to it making it easy to create flying lanes close to the urban settlement yet outside of it. The drones requires a pilot to operate in areas were full autonomous flight is not allowed, however its operation is actually supervised and managed by over 100 computers (microprocessors) with the pilot using a joystick to indicate the direction. Even if the pilot would stop flying it, the copter can safely hoover and land. Wherever autonomous flight is allowed the copter can fly autonomously. It is not a technology issue but a regulatory issue.
Autonomous Vehicles
Fully autonomous vehicles on roads open to public are still at an experimental stage. It does not mean that technology is not available yet, just that the whole ecosystem is not yet prepared to accept fully autonomous vehicles. The recent killing of a woman crossing a road by a Uber vehicle (the vehicle was driving autonomously with a person on board that should have been able to take over in case of need but all happened so suddenly that he was unable to intervene) is surely not going to help in fostering autonomous vehicles on the road. It will happen, eventually, but it is likely that the first autonomous vehicles will start operating outside of crowded space.
eHang is a Chinese company selling drones and aiming at deploying fully autonomous flying taxis. It has developed the eHang 184, an 8 rotors powered drone able to carry a person over a distance of 85km. When you board the flying taxi you input your destination and the computer will identify a suitable place near your destination. That has to be a place that eHang has certified as suitable (and probably that has received approval from the regulatory body in charge). The taxi will take off vertically and then move to its destination at a hight of about 300m over ground. Once reached the destination it will slowly descend to the landing site.
On ground Google has been working for many years now and has a great car from a technology perspective but its cost is too high to win a market. Waymo, the offspring of Google charged to take the technology to the market is still a few years away (my impression) from a mass market product.
An intermediate step can be the deployment of autonomous taxis, something that is pursued by Uber, where the cost of the vehicle would be upset by the much lower operating cost. Clearly the recent accident is going to slow down their plan (at the moment they have announced the stop of all trials).
Several car manufacturers are also investing on self driving cars but their approach is much more gradual, awaiting for the maturity of the ecosystem, particularly regulatory and insurance aspects.
A city where all vehicles are fully autonomous can be a quite different city:
- streets will no longer need to have pre-planned direction of circulation, vehicles can dynamically reconfigure the traffic flow negotiating resources;
- people will change their mindset since they will no longer be driving. A car would be perceived like a public transportation vehicle, rather than a private one (even if a few people may still wish to have their own car).
- “road rage” is likely to disappear, since driving will no longer be involved.
