Waymo- The Driverless car Revolution

 

It’s the year 2020. The year that was supposed to bring flying cars and futuristic machines into our daily lives. But the virus entered are daily life instead, with no sign of any flying car.

Imagine yourself on a Monday morning, going to work in a taxi with a driver that has just watched Fast and Furious, and is ready to drive you to heaven. While you reach your office, clinging to your seat belt and your life, there are people halfway across the world, that safely reach their offices in a car with no one in the driver’s seat!

Yes, you heard me. A fully automatic car, that doesn’t require a driver!

This is 2020, not the year of flying cars, not even the year of the virus, but, the year of Autonomous Vehicles(AVs).

The first question you ask- What are Autonomous Vehicles?

So, simply speaking, these vehicles can drive themselves. A person is not required to press the gas pedal, change gears, and steer left or right. In fact, these vehicles may not even have a steering wheel.

Technically speaking, the vehicle is capable of sensing its surroundings and reacting accordingly without little or no human intervention.

The different levels of AVs

There are 6 so called levels of AVs. Basically, as the level increasing, the level of human intervention or human help needed for the vehicle to run decreases.

1. Level 0: NO AUTOMATION, The vehicle is completely human controlled. Level 0 vehicles are those seen every day on roads.
2. Level 1: DRIVER ASSISTANCE, The human can be assisted with the steering, accelerating or braking operations.. To be more specific, the vehicle has an Advanced Driver Assistance System(ADAS). This system allows the vehicle to reduce human need.
3. Level 2: PARTIAL AUTOMATION, The ADAS does the steering, braking and accelerating. But it requires proper attention from the human. Also the rest of the tasks need to be performed by the human.
4. Level 3: CONDITIONAL AUTOMATION,  In this level, a new system called the Advanced Driver System(ADS) comes into play. Which means that the vehicle can drive itself, but a human is still needed in the driving seat, to regain control whenever requested by the ADS.
5. Level 4: HIGH AUTOMATION, The vehicle can be completely self-driven in certain conditions where human attention is not required at all.
6. Level 5: FULL AUTOMATION, This type of vehicle is supposed to be completely autonomous, in every single condition. No human intervention is supposed to be required. This will be enabled by the use of 5G technology, as the vehicles will be capable of communicating with one another, as well as with the traffic lights and the road itself.

When, where and who?

Believe it or not more than 30 companies are currently working on creating fully autonomous vehicles. However, amongst those at the top, is the company called Waymo. Never heard of it? Actually you have.

In 2009, what started as the Google Self Driving car project, has now turned into the company- Waymo.

A Google self-driving car:

The name Waymo comes from the mission of the company- “a new WAY forward in MObility” 

 

Waymo One

The company Waymo began testing its commercial robo taxi service under the name Waymo One. This venture was supposed to be like a normal cab service, where in you book a cab, and it arrives on the scheduled time, ready to take you to your destination.

But, what makes it different from the regular cab, is the fact that there is no one in the driver’s seat!

The Waymo One taxis are Level 4 Autonomous Vehicles.

On 8^th October 2020(yes, this year, this month), Waymo has finally made its robo taxi available to the public! Where has this begun? Phoenix, Arizona(Unites States).

The Waymo self-driving robo taxi:

Even though the public has access to the service starting this month, these driverless vehicles have roamed the roads of Phoenix since December 2018.

In the beginning however, only those involved in testing these vehicles could avail the robo taxi services. Later on, the company finally launched the Waymo One app for iOS users. These users registered their accounts and then had to wait to be accepted from the waiting list. Only after being accepted could they take their ride in the robo taxi. Finally in April 2019, the company commercialized the service and released the app on the Google Play store as well, so as to reach larger audiences.

Image of the Waymo One app:

 Source: Source URL

To keep functioning during this pandemic, Waymo has introduced certain measures to ensure safety and hygiene. They have been conducting cabin flush after every single car ride, along with urging riders to wear masks and use hand sanitizers.

A ride in the driverless Waymo One robo taxi: Video Link

How does it all work?

How does Waymo get its cars to drive themselves? How does the vehicle know what is around and when to do a particular action?

We’ll look into the sensors and the technology behind Waymo’s self-driving cars in a very basic yet detailed way.

Waymo’s autonomous vehicles have 3 superpowers- the sensors, the customized maps, and the software made by the company itself.

The software can be seen as the brain of the autonomous vehicle.

Firstly the customized maps help the vehicle get acquainted with the surroundings it will soon be in.

When on the road, the sensors are the vehicles eyes, and give it the power to visualise its surroundings.

What the eyes have seen is then sent to the brain. In technical terms here, the sensors send information regarding the objects in the surrounding of the vehicle, to the software.

The software created by Waymo is “smart” enough to predict as to what will happen next. It knows how the pedestrian on the crossing will react, or where the car on the left will turn.

So now, the brain(the software) decides what to do next, and accordingly steers the vehicle left or right, or brings it to a stop.

Let’s take a closer look at the eyes(the sensors) of our autonomous vehicle.

Waymo’s autonomous vehicles use 3 main types of sensors- LIDARs, cameras and RADARs.

1. LIDAR : This sensor helps paint a 3D picture of the vehicle’s surroundings.
   

   The Lidar’s used are of 2 types,

   a.      360 Lidar system- Unlike the fancy name, its working is quite simple. This sensor provides a 360 degree bird’s eye view of the surroundings. So the vehicle knows about the pedestrians as well as the other automobiles on the road.

   Also, it gives the vehicle the ability to sense obstructions or debris hundreds of meters ahead on the road. This way it can be ready with the necessary precautions.

   b.     Perimeter Lidars- These are placed at 4 points around the sides of the vehicles.These sensors are short range, which means they can locate objects nearer to the car in spots where the long range sensor wouldn’t look. 4 of these ensure coverage on each side of the car, and help when navigating in tight areas.

2. CAMERAS : Cameras are present to provide a detailed image, even in extreme driving environments.
1. Long range(500 meters; could be more) cameras are present along with 3D vision system. This system helps the camera to smartly recognise details like pedestrians and stop signs.
2. Perimeter vision system- This system works in correlation with the Perimeter Lidars. Basically they provide a view of the nearby vehicle from a different angle.
3. Peripheral vision system- This helps to cover the area that may have been blocked by large vehicles or parked cars. Also these cameras have the ability to peek around a vehicle to see if the possibility of overtaking is available.
   
   
   
3. RADAR : These sensors have a high range, and can measure the speed as well as the direction of movement of the objects around our vehicle. These sensors have a higher resolution and help the car visualise the wider field around our autonomous vehicle.
   The new Imaging Radar systems introduced by Waymo, allow the vehicle to detect objects and track their movement faster, so that the autonomous vehicle can react on time.

Apart from these 3 sensors, Waymo vehicles have some supplemental sensors as well. These include a GPS to know the vehicle’s location with respect to its surroundings, and an audio detection system to hear police sirens and emergency vehicle sirens.

Also, these vehicles are designed to detect unsuitable weather conditions for driving, like snowstorms.

Waymo’s Autonomous Vehicle reacting in different situations and weather conditions: Video Link

Waymo Via

This venture of the company focuses on being able to create self-driving Class-8 tractor trailers like the one shown below.

 Using the same technology that their cars use, the testing of these autonomous trucks began in 2017 itself, in California and Arizona. Now the company hopes to expand the testing on the roads of Texas and New Mexico.

Other Competitors

Waymo is not alone in trying to create the most efficient and technologically advanced Autonomous Vehicles. Here is a list of some of the competitors in this race,

1. General Motors(GM)
2. Tesla
3. Baidu
4. Argo AI
5. Zoox

You made it this far!

The project that started 11 years ago at Google, and went on to become an AV devoted company in 2015, has driven more than 20 million miles on public roads as of January 2020. Waymo has turned out to be one of the most successful companies to achieve Level 4 autonomous vehicles. However, Waymo CEO John Krafcik believes that Level 5 autonomous vehicles are a bit of a myth.

Hopefully a few years from now, this tech will reach worldwide, and one day, you and I will be sitting in the back seat of a vehicle with no driver, safely reaching our workplaces.

Even the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise may start featuring autonomous Lamborghini and Ferrari, you never know!! 

Writer - Thira Patel 

Researchers - Riya, Kohav, Shreedhar, Aditya, Mustafa