The idea of self-driving cars has long tickled the imagination of future dreamers for ages, as it has occupied the first places in all artistic works that attempt to imagine a distant future. Therefore, the efforts of scientists across the ages and continents have combined to produce self-driving cars and bring them to the stage where they can be used permanently without… Fear of her.
Although the idea of self-driving cars still seems somewhat futuristic, as we have not yet achieved it completely and without human intervention, we have made many strides in the past years, and you can now own self-driving Tesla cars and use them on the roads.
But should we really chase this dream? What are the risks that could arise in a future dominated by self-driving cars?
The beginning with Da Vinci
The beginning of the idea of self-driving cars without human intervention can be traced back to ancient times, specifically the 16th century, as the Italian thinker and innovator Leonardo da Vinci was the first to chase this dream, and through many attempts he was able to reach a vehicle that could be driven without being pulled or pushed, and replaced energy sources. The vehicle was common in his time by relying on a set of intensely compressed springs. When these springs were released, the vehicle would move forward in the direction that was predetermined by the steering wheel at the front. Some refer to this innovation as the first robot to appear in the world.
Da Vinci’s ideas crossed the ages to find listening ears at the beginning of the 20th century, amid the industrial revolution and the beginning of the development of cars in their usual form, as the innovator Francis Houdina presented in 1925 the first vehicle that could be controlled via radio waves, as he was able to start the car, control the speed transmission, and steer the car. Automatically, although the Hoodina car was the closest to the concept of true self-driving cars, the difficulty of controlling the vehicle and the need for an operator sitting behind the radio made the idea die before it could spread.
In 1939,
General Motors demonstrated the first electric vehicle controlled via a pre-set magnetic field, but this vehicle also required a pilot sitting behind the radio to control its steering.
The second leg of the self-driving car journey was in the middle of the race to the surface of the moon, as innovators began to find different ways and solutions to control vehicles roaming the surface of the moon remotely, which prompted scientist James Adams to invent the Stanford rover, which was equipped with a set of lenses and programmed to track… The land lines are straight, and Adams was the first to think of relying on cameras to guide the car. In 1977, Japan improved and developed the idea by adding an analysis system capable of recognizing images and using the information generated from them, and it could travel at a speed of 32 kilometers per hour.
Of course,
development in the self-driving car sector continued in conjunction with work on developing electric cars until today we reached Tesla’s self-driving cars, in addition to the entry of major manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi into such a field.