Robomobili will be able to ride around California in April

Cars with robotic control have long been a welcome guest on the roads of any country. Of course, there are some technical difficulties in the implementation of such a project, in addition, there are legislative problems. So far, anywhere in the world robomobili can not drive without a human driver. Be sure to drive someone must be in order in case of a problem to take control.

In some places cars may be without a driver, but they must be controlled by the remote operator. But since April, this situation may change. The fact is that in California, the United States, they are going to allow roadside robots without drivers and without the participation of remote operators. Machines can be free completely autonomous.

If a company starts working as a roboticaxi operator, then it will be allowed to release the entire fleet of robots (of course, a strictly established model - a model, a set of equipment, etc.) on the roads of California cities. And it seems that all this is beginning to change the scope of commercial passenger and freight traffic. If systems without operators show themselves well, then, most likely, companies will gradually begin to replace cars with people with cars without people. This removes a number of problems, including the need for employment, payroll, social guarantees, etc.

A robotized car is not a cheap pleasure in itself, but as their number and scale of production increase, the price will fall, therefore roboomobili will be able to acquire a much wider range of companies than it is now. California law requires the monitoring of cars, but there is no longer a guide to remote control. Operators will monitor the movements of machines and if something goes wrong (accidents are still not excluded), inform the rapid response team.

All this is great news for companies like Phantom Auto, who plan to replace cars with drivers with robotic systems. In the short term, Phantom Auto plans to reduce the number of accidents on the roads. The fact is that the number of accidents with the participation of robomobiles is extremely small. On the one hand, this can be explained by the fact that there are still not too many vehicles with an autonomous control system, but on the other hand, they rarely get into problem situations. And if they fall, then the fault of the driver of another vehicle.

Ideally, the robotaxy service operates in a completely autonomous mode, and only occasionally does the operator contact passengers to provide advice or assistance. Tracking the parameters of the vehicle and its location is carried out using a system of specialized sensors and sensors that transmit information to the center.

It is clear that Phantom Auto is not the only company that plans to launch robotic cars on California roads. Other companies are interested in this, including Google ( Waymo ), General Motors, Uber and others. It is worth noting that Waymo launched its robomobils in a limited test "race" in November 2017. So far, the company's cars show themselves perfectly.

At present, General Motors is planning to launch its own service of such machines, and these are not plans in a vacuum, but quite a real project. Everything will start with a small number of cars, and if things go smoothly, then several robotic taxi services and freight services will appear in California, where people drivers will not work. At GM, the Cruise division is engaged in this task. The first pilot project of the company will work in San Francisco (test runs have already taken place), and then GM plans to launch the service in New York.



According to many experts, the robotization of passenger and freight traffic will help reduce the cost of services of transport companies, and very significantly. Cars will be able to drive around on the roads around the clock, not knowing fatigue and not requiring breaks. In addition, if there will be few accidents, the amount of operating expenses that are usually used to service damaged machines affected by incidents will decrease.

At the moment, 50 companies have already received permission to test their work on the roads of different regions in the “field conditions”.