Waymo's self-driving car hits the road without a control driver

That a self-driving car hits the road for a test drive is nothing new. But doing so without a person performing a control action at the wheel is indeed something new. Waymo has been working on this technology for eight years, so it considers that it has advanced enough to do without the presence of a human driver. That is why it has sent one of its cars to drive around the streets of Phoenix, a car that belongs to a small fleet that will operate in this city and its surroundings.

Over time, the aim is to expand this geographic area so as to gradually add autonomous journeys and kilometres, testing the system’s capabilities in a variety of real traffic situations. Waymo’s vehicles have been on the road since 2009, when they began driving autonomously, starting at a more basic level, and have progressively raised the demands placed on autonomous driving until reaching the milestone it has achieved these days.

Throughout this time, Waymo’s vehicles have covered 5.6 million kilometres during these tests. The company has subjected its cars to 20,000 different situations on its test tracks, measuring all the results obtained and improving the self-driving system by fixing the problems. In addition to these tests on controlled tracks, the company’s software runs simulations in which simulated cars drive 16 million kilometres every day.

In the video you can see how the system works on the streets of the American city and how it handles the many and very complex manoeuvres of everyday driving. The company says there is no problem if any incident arises, because it has backup systems for steering, braking, power and computing, so that if an incident occurs, the car stops and prevents risky situations from developing. From here on, Waymo will invite several users to take part in its self-driving programme, in order to test the systems it offers thoroughly. Are we really ready for this?

https://youtu.be/aaOB-ErYq6Y