Self-Driven Car Waymo - How it covered 8 Million Miles in the Real World!

Image Source : Techcrunch.com

Waymo is the former self-driving project of Google which is now directly under its parent company - Alphabet. Before we get into the details of the figures published by Waymo, let us try and understand how the Technology in Waymo works:

The Waymo cars are fitted with numerous sensors and are powered by software that enables it to detect pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, road work and more. This is achieved by LiDAR technology which can create a 3D image of the environment of the Car up to three football fields away coupled with powerful Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning algorithms.

The LiDAR technology works by releasing millions of laser beams per second in all required directions and using the time required for the laser beams to bounce back to its sensor to calculate the distance to the obstacles. The principal is exactly the same as in Radar, the difference being that Lasers are used in LiDAR instead of radio waves. This technology can give extremely accurate distance measurements (+-2Cm).

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The illustration demonstrates how Waymo detects all Cars, cyclists and pedestrians at a crossing. It also illustrates how it uses its machine learning capabilities, which relies on 8 Million Miles/12.87 Million Kilometers (you read that correct) of real world experience, to predict the behaviour of all the road users it has detected.

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In this example, Waymo says that the sensors detect the outstretched left arm of the cyclist and its software is able to predict from this that the Cyclist will be moving to the left side of the lane. On the basis of this prediction the software then makes the Car slow down allowing the cyclist to pass safely in front of it.

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Waymo published that it has driven 8 Million Miles/12.87 Million Kilometers since 2009, which averages at 25,000 Miles/40,000 Kilometers per day. The total distance mentioned would take an average American 300 years to cover. These numbers have been put out by Waymo since everybody knows that Machine learning, much like human learning, gets better and better with experience but unlike us humans, it never forgets what it learns. Waymo presently has a fleet of 600 self-driven minivans in 25 American cities.

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400 residents of Phoenix have already been trialing an app to hail Waymo's Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivans and this has received much attention. The company is further looking to apply its technology to three other areas - logistics, public transportation and personally owned vehicles.

Here is a list of very informative FAQ's published by them : https://waymo.com/faq/

Check out Zoox, another promising self-driving car company that aims to rival Uber with a completely new approach to autonomous cars. 

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