Self-Driving Cars
Fikayo Ariremako, Joseph Gudger, Oluwatomisin Olutimehin and Dr. Jawad Drissi
Cameron University
Abstract: This presentation describes the
implementation of autonomous vehicles
(AVs) or self-driving cars into our society
from developments in the past, the present
and the expected safety of self-driving cars
technologies. Remote controlled vehicles
have been around since 1926. In 1980,
major advances in autonomous vehicle
technology was made by Mercedes-Benz
with the advent of its vision guided
Mercedes-Benz robotic Van with the focus
being on the vision guided systems using
LiDAR (radar, GPS and computer vision) to
control the vehicle. The technology
developed from this autonomous vehicle
help advance the technologies in the present
modern semi self-driving cars like adaptive
cruise control, anti-locking braking system,
blind spot vehicle detection, steering assist,
lane parking, and other new features. In this
presentation, we also describe some safety
issues dealing with how AVs must learn
how to negotiate driving pattern involving
both human drivers and other AVs, the
decision-making systems, and cybersecurity
concerns.
Keywords: Self-Driving Cars, autonomous
vehicles, AVs, LiDAR, algorithm.
I. Introduction
A self-driving car is a car that can sense its
surrounding and navigate without any
human input. Self-driving cars are also
known as autonomous cars, driverless cars,
or robotic cars. When talking about self-
driving cars there are five different levels
that self-driving cars fall into. Even though
we are not fully autonomous yet, some self-
driving or autonomous cars have already
been allowed on the roads, but fully
autonomous cars are yet to be authorized.
Self-driving cars have come a long way
from initially being controlled by radio
transmitters to now being equipped with
cameras that tracks the objects around the
car and incorporated in-car computers that
interact with the environment to study and
make decisions on behalf of the cars.
II. Past of Autonomous Vehicles
Figure 1: The Linriccan Wonder
In August 1925, the Huodina Radio Control
company operated a 1926 Chandler
nicknamed “The Linriccan Wonder”. This
would eventually become one of the earliest
prototypes for autonomous vehicles. It was
radio operated, the 1926 Chandler was
modified with a transmitting antenna, the car
received radio signals from another car
which followed it closely with a transmitter.
The radio signals received controlled small
electric motors that in turn controlled the
movement of the car. The demonstration
would take place in the presence of heavy
traffic, with the car impressively turning
corners, speeding up, and even honking its
horn (Bimbraw, 2015). According to the
New York Times, the demonstration would
eventually end whenever it crashed into
another vehicle that was conveying
photographers who were documenting the
event.
Figure 2: Newspaper publication on the
Linriccan Wonder
In 1926, The Phantom Motor Car, which
also implemented the Radio Control system
was also showcased. It was reported that it
could be operated from as far as five miles
away.
In 1939, during the New York FUTURAM
Exhibition by General Motors, electric cars
powered by circuits embedded in the
roadway and controlled by radio would be
demonstrated.
In 1953, the RCA Laboratories would
develop a prototype which was guided by
wires laid in a pattern on a laboratory floor.
It would later be tested on a larger scale in
Lincoln Nebraska. This utilized detector
circuits embedded in the pavements which
sent out impulses that helped the car
determine the presence and speed of any of
any other metallic vehicle on its path.
In the 1980s, Germany’s Ernest Dickmanns
would lead the Promtetheus Project which
created a robotic Mercedes-Benz van named
the VaMoRs that was equipped with
cameras and sensors. The van worked by
observing the white lines on the world and
the color disparities in mages received.
Figure 3: The VaMoRs
By the late 1990s, the Defense Advanced
Research Project Agency introduced
challenges in which a lot of research teams
from top universities such as Carnegie
Mellon University, the University of
Maryland, etc. participated in (Baude et al,
2019).
Figure 4: DARPA Challenge Poster
III. Self-Driving Cars Levels
When talking about self-driving cars, some
people think that they all fall into one
category. But they do not. Vehicles that are
on the road today all fall into different levels
when it comes to self-driving vehicles. The
figure below illustrates the different levels
of vehicles and what makes it a self-driving
vehicle or autonomous vehicle.
Figure 4: Levels of Self Driving Cars
There are five level that self-driving cars can
be divided into. Level 0 no features. Level 1
can handle one task at a time like ABS
braking. Level 2 would have at least two
automated function like ABS brakes and
basic cruise control. Level 3, 4, and 5 are the
levels were self-driving cars start to evolve.
Level 3 can handle “dynamic driving tasks”
like lane changing and object detection.
Level 4 are officially a driverless in a
geofenced area. All level up to now still
need drivers to be alert in case of system
failure. Level 5 is fully self-driving with no
human driver, steering wheel, brakes, or
joystick. Currently we are level 3, but in
some areas with geofencing, level 4 and a
small amount of level 5 cars are being
tested.
III. Hardware and Sensors
Self-driving cars use all kinds of hardware
and software to help it operate on the road.
Figure 5: Hardware and Sensors
In figure 5 is a list of hardware and software
that are needed that a self-driving car would
use to operate on the road. GPS helps with
the accurate location and positioning of the
vehicle on the ground. The Ultrasonic
sensors measure how close other objects are
to the vehicle and their positions. LiDAR
monitors and build a 3D map of the
vehicle’s surroundings to include the roads,
pedestrians, bicycle riders, and other
vehicles. Data connectivity provide updates
for IoT through cellular networks for maps
of software. Radar sensors also help other
sensors monitor the vehicle’s surroundings.
Then the most important hardware would be
the Central ECU (Engine Control Unit),
along with NVIDIA graphic cards. The
Central ECU analyzes all the sensors
information and compare them to the
algorithm and applies the rules of the road to
operate all the functions of the vehicle.
The LiDAR stands for Light Detection
Ranging. LiDAR was first used in 1960 to
measure the distance between the earth and
the moon. LiDAR serves as the eyes of the
self-driving car by sending 150,000 pulse
per second and covers 200-220 meters of
distance in a 360 degree of direction. As you
can see in figure 6, the laser and detector are
two of the major components, with the use
of the principal of time of flight, from which
the distance is calculated. Plus, with the use
of timing electronics, accurate timing is of
the essence in the LiDAR system as the
entire operation is built on time.
Figure 6: LiDAR process
LiDAR timing electronics represents the
sub-system that record the exact time the
pulse leaves and returns to the scanner as
illustrated in figure 7. The Central ECU
serves as the brain of the system and
manages the input from all the other
components and aid the LiDAR in creating a
3D map of the surroundings.

Figure 8: Time of Flight Scanning LiDAR

Figure 7: How LiDAR works
There are two types of LiDAR pictured in
figure 8 and in figure 9. The first one in
figure 8, is the Time of flight scanning
LiDAR, by contrast to a scanning lidar, a
flash lidar is a truly "no-moving-parts"
solid-state lidar that disposes of the scanning
process altogether and operates more like a
flash camera. A laser beam is expanded to
illuminate the entire scene, in a series of 2D
flashes or 3D flashes. The time of flight
point cloud is thus constructed either one
horizontal plane at a time or the entire 3D
point cloud in one flash, as opposed to the
point-by-point construction in a scanning
lidar. This clearly presents the advantage of
eliminating timing issues raised by rapidly
changing target scenes due to either motion
of the target or motion of the lidar unit itself.
It measures the roundtrip time travelled by
the proton from the laser to the target and
back, and then converts it to distance
(Rablau, 2019).
The second LiDAR is the coherent LiDAR.
Its laser transmitter emits light and the light
reflected from the object helps with object
location. The direction of the object is
measured by the angle at which the signal is
returned. It is more effective than the Time
of Flight LiDAR because it offers a unique
range of high dynamic range, high
sensitivity and total interference rejection.
The high dynamic range lets the sensor
identify dim or bright objects without
necessarily having to adjust the detector
gain.
Figure 9: How the LiDAR works.
IV. Algorithms Implemented
One of the main tasks of any machine
learning algorithm in the self-driving car is a
continuous rendering of the surrounding
environment and the prediction of possible
changes to those surroundings. In figure 10,
you can see that the vehicle in the middle is
scanning the surrounding environment for
any changes as it is traveling down the road.
Figure 10: Car scanning surrounding.
These tasks are mainly divided into four
sub-tasks: Object detection, Object
identification or recognition, Object
classification, Object localization and
prediction of movement.
Figure 11: Algorithms Implemented
There are four sub-tasks or classes of
algorithm implementation.
Regression analysis is a powerful statistical
method that allows you to examine the
relationship between two or more variables
of interest. It is useful for predicting events.
When used repeatedly in an environment, it
can create a statistical model of the
relationships between the positions of the
given objects in an image. This statistical
model enables faster image detection.
Clustering is the task of grouping a set of
objects in such a way that objects in the
same group are more like each other than to
those in other groups. Whenever the car
acquires images, those images might not be
clear, this makes location and detection of
object difficult. The probable reasons for
this are discontinuous data, very few data
points or low-resolution images.
Pattern recognition is the automated
recognition of patterns and regularities in
data. The Advanced Driver Assistance
System supplies images. This data needs to
be filtered to relevant images which contain
a specific category of objects. This process
rules out datapoints which are not necessary,
it reduces dataset edges, lines and circular
arcs to edges. It helps to recognize familiar
patterns quickly and accurately. It is also
useful in recognizing objects that are not
familiar.
Decision matrix algorithms use
independently trained multiple decision
models whose predictions are combined to
generate the overall prediction while
minimizing the possibility of errors. They
help to recognize, classify and to predict the
next movements of objects, this influences
the decision a car makes, whether to brake,
accelerate, or to make a turn.
V. Conclusion
Self-Driving cars are the future. But we are
not there yet. The highest level of self-
driving cars to date is level 4 that is being
tested in curtain areas that uses geofencing.
More and more companies are trying to be
the first to have autonomous vehicles on the
road and available to the public. The
hardware and software are becoming less
expensive as technology evolves and
making buying a self-driving car more
affordable to own. Knowing more about
self-driving cars will help you in the future
with deciding on if self-driving cars are for
you.
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