Augmented Reality in Self-Driving Cars.
Augmented Reality or AR is an escalated version of the real physical world that can also be accessed through digital devices. Imagine visualizing elements, sounds, and other sensory stimuli is possible sitting at home.
Some trending games like Pokémon GO used Augmented Reality to show their characters hidden near you, the camera captures it and that’s how the game works ahead.
But not only games, but the vehicle industry is also using Augmented Reality. Like Tesla, self-driving cars it is only possible through AR. ABI Research, a research and consulting firm specializing in emerging technologies produced a report about Augmented and Virtual Reality in Automotive. It discussed that AR will create more advancement in the driving experience and help ease consumers into the transition toward autonomous driving.
How has AR helped the autonomous system?
In self-driving cars, there is a lack of long term road testing because of which accidents can take place. If a human drives their reaction time is smarter like they can immediately react if something comes in the middle of the road. But in autonomous cars, it takes time. This is where AR was used, it created an environment and test the cars with various situations which have upgraded their reaction time.
So far, they have designed and implemented two testing scenarios using a custom-built simulation environment. the first test runs like this: the test car perceives a virtual train projected into its real purview through augmented reality, as though a robot were wearing augmented reality glasses. The virtual train comes upon a rail-crossing in the virtual city. The goal is to test if the car will stop in time and wait for the train to pass.
The second scenario has the car react to changing traffic lights and vehicles in its environment that run red lights unexpectedly. The test car is supposed to tell what colour the signal is turning and decide what to do: stop or go. If a nearby virtual vehicle runs a red light, then the car should be able to calculate its position relative to the virtual car that unexpectedly ran the light. It should do this well enough to avoid a crash.
The researchers have tried almost all situations like how drivers actually behave on a jam-packed road to look out for kids on school road; to prevent accidents and failures while driving. AR was the only way autonomous cars can drive almost like a human driver