Last year, Google announced to the world that it has created a robotic vehicle control system designed to change the way people drive. And already in May of this year, it received the first of its kind license to test unmanned vehicles on the roads of America.
On May 7, 2012, the Nevada Motor Vehicle Administration officially authorized Google to test self-driving cars on the roads of its state, which were a number of Toyota Prius cars, one Lexus RX450h and one Audi TT. To date, such cars have already traveled about 500,000 kilometers without breaking the rules and without getting into traffic accidents.
Vehicles with a robotic control system are oriented in space using a variety of special sensors - security cameras, a navigation system, wheel sensors, a roof-mounted laser radar that determines the distance to objects, and many others. The control system developed by Google is fully responsible for acceleration, braking, steering turns and safe movement on public roads with traffic lights, other cars, pedestrians and intersections.
The first drone tests began in California, then the cars drove to San Francisco along the famous Golden Gate Bridge, rolled along the Pacific coast and along the shores of Lake Tahoe. Today they perform test drives on Nevada city roads. In the future, Google engineers plan to test robotic cars also on repaired and snow-covered roads.
According to the law, during the tests, there must be two people in an unmanned vehicle - one of them must sit in the driver's seat, and the other must insure the steering system in case of failure of the control system. However, the company subsequently wants to obtain permission to drive this car by only one person.
According to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, a license to drive on public roads can only be issued for vehicles that have traveled at least 16,000 kilometers during testing. Also, drones will be given special numbers to distinguish them from the background of conventional vehicles. Thus, experimental cars will receive red license plates with an infinity sign on the left - the symbol of the “car of the future”. And green license plates will be made for the first unmanned vehicles.
