Self-Driving Cars Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Self-Driving Cars - Research Paper Example From this paper it is clear that in 1939, a General Motors (GM)’s sponsored exhibit, Futurama designed by Norman Bel Geddes, was unveiled at the world Trade Fair. The electromagnetic fields generated by the embedded circuits in the highway provided propulsion while control was radio based. Bel later outlined his mission in a book entitled Magic Motorways in 1940. These developments prompted the improvements in highway design and transportation. In 1923, Radio Corporation America (RCA) labs successfully built a miniature controlled by wires laid on the laboratory floor. It was an experimental system that jerked the imagination of a traffic engineer in Nebraska called Leland Hancock.This study highlights that during the same time, London under United Kingdom’s Transport and Roads Research Lab tested Citron Ds, a driverless car that interacted with magnetic cables embedded in the roads. Citron cruised through a test track at a steady speed of 130 kilometers per hour withou t signs of deviation in any weather condition. In 1980s, Ernst Dickmann and his team of engineers in Bundeswehr University Munich in Germany designed a vision-guided Mercedes Benz robotic van. The van moved at a speed of 63 kilometers per hour on the streets without traffic jam. EUREKA also conducted a multi-million Prometheus Project on autonomous vehicles from 1987 to 1995.  The United States Congress passed the Transportation Automation Bill in 1991 that instructed the United States Department of Transportation to demonstrate self-driving vehicles and highway systems by 1997.