9781422275139

Chapter 1

DRIVERLESS VEHICLES AND CAREER PATHS WHAT ARE DRIVERLESS VEHICLES?

What was once science fiction has become reality. Driverless vehicles are now being tested on roads all over the world. These vehicles employ a wide range of technologies to help them safely navigate city streets and highways without a human driver. Driverless vehicles are also known as “self-driving vehicles” and “autonomous vehicles.” The term “driverless vehicle” is actually misleading because no vehicle is currently available for sale that can drive without the assistance of a human driver to some degree. A fully driverless vehicle that is available to the public is perhaps ten, or even twenty years away, but predictions vary greatly. A better way to classify these computer-driven vehicles is by their level of autonomy (the number of actions something can perform without oversight). A semi- autonomous vehicle is one that can do some tasks without human control, or one that can drive for a period of time before a human driver must retake control. An autonomous vehicle is one that can drive without human control.

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