Uber is in the news for testing their self driving cars. However the results were not as expected, as the tests were quite bumpy. There were certain issues reported during the testing phase which has made the progress of autonomous cars a bit slower. Talking about the self-driving cars of Uber, they have been deployed at Pittsburgh and Phoenix. A self-driving Uber car is not totally autonomous and still needs a person to handle the wheel if required as indicated by the internal documents of Uber.
As per the result results, after every 0.8 miles driven, the Uber driver needs to handle the wheel. Similar results indicated during the first week of February with a little variance – it is 0.9 miles in different locations. But the driver intervention remains as it is.
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Uber uses a metric termed as Miles per intervention that records how many times a safety driver needs to intervene and control the car. Another aspect is the Critical intervention that measures how many time the safety driver had to control to protect the car from causing any harm such as hitting anyone on the road. There are other reasons for a driver to interfere such as unclear weather, wrong turn, unclear markings on a lane etc. The cars are also being tested in the area of Arizona, but the results are quite disappointing. Cars are getting only 0.67 miles before a human needs to interfere and control the cars.
BREAKING: Self-driving Uber vehicle on it’s side after a collision in Tempe, AZ.
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The dream of self-driving cars of Uber is an ambitious plan. They are equipped with laser scanners, radars, and high resolution cameras. Though it has been seen there are improvements in the recent weeks which would solve the issues in the future.
The different metrics used by Uber are-
- The average number of miles driven by the car before the intervention of a driver
- The average number of miles driven between the critical events such as hitting pedestrians, or damage to property
- The average number of miles between bad experiences such as any kind of jerky motions, braking, and discomfort, but without damage.
Even with these reports coming in about Uber’s self-driving cars, there are many hopeful that the company will achieve their dreams and make it possible for driverless cars to be on the roads soon. Let’s hope it is achieved sooner and without any more mishaps.
