Pre-Collision Technology

I was driving to a mall today and I noticed a car which escaped a major collision.The driver of that averted a major accident by veering sharply to one side. He had noticed an obscure road divider at the last moment. Thankfully no one was injured but imagine if there had been another oncoming truck? The crash would have been fatal. Thus the  bringing of Pre-Collision Technology again sprang to my mind.
Althogh this technology has been in the market since 2013, it is surprising that only a few countries and car companies around the globe encourage collision avoidance systems in cars. In India, I see only a handful of cars equipped with this tecnology to avoid bumps and road dividers. I have till now not encountered a car with a proper collision avoidance technology.

Anyhow, the question, first of all, is -what exactly is pre-collision tech?  Well, as the name suggests , it is a safety system for automobiles to reduce the severity of  collision. It often uses radar to determine the trajectory of your car and to alert you if you are going too fast or if your current speed will lead to collision ( a camera or laser sensor may also be used except that they are not functional in rainy weather).  For cars with lower speeds (less than 50km/h) the sensor alerts the driver to brake in order to avoid collision. For higher speeds the sensor tells them the best way to steer clear of the crash by using brakes and steering. A survey conducted in the U.S shows that using pre-collision tech can avoid about 28,000 collisions and save over 1,000 lives which are lost in car crashes.
The working of a pre collision system is simple. The radar sends out waves which on rebounding predict the distance of an oncoming object. It is simiar to an echo sensor. The sensors are always active and hence are called "active safety warning system". Some systems alert their driver by beeping or by souding an alarm; however, there are some cars which automatically start braking while alerting the driver, thus avoiding a possibly dangerous collision. Car companies like Ford, Audi, Toyota, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz have installed such systems in their vehicles.
So my verdict on this automobile tech is that it should be adopted by more and more countries and car companies. It is a good and advantageous technology which contributes to your safety and to that of others.

A typical radar and camera sensing combo in a car to detect
a possibilty of a collision

THE FIA-GT 1 racing championship

Most of us have come across games such as Real Racing 3 or Shift 2 unleashed and they have written in their description that these games involve the thrilling experience of FIA GT 1 racing. Ever wondered what this racing was? All of us have heard of major league racing such as Formula 1(F-1), Dirt racing or even of the now non-existing Formula 2 racing. However, FIA GT 1 racing is not given so much newspaper or media coverage thus not many people are even aware of such a racing.

(the logo of the GT 1)

So first of all this was a world championship sports car racing which was started by FIA in 2010. It lasted till 2012, a rather short lived time period, but attracted much thrill. The best part about this was that the sports car we see were able to actually "race" to their full potential.
Originally, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, And Maserati brought cars into this. Later; however, companies like Ford, Nissan, Lamborghini, McLaren, Audi, etc. ventured in.
The races were originally held in three continents i.e. North America, Europe, Asia. The 'Yas Marina' circuit was the only circuit representing Middle east. The South American circuits included 'Portero de los Funes' in Argentina and 'Interlagos' in Brazil. The European circuit included the famous and sometimes notorious Nurburgring circuit of Germany. China also had many tracks in the GT1.
The cars which recieved the most attention in the final season of the GT1 were the Nissan GT-R Nismo, The R8 LMS, McLaren MP4-12C, The Lamborghini Galardo and Murcialago, The Aston Martin DB series, the chevy corvette, Ford GT, BMW Z-4.
Now the GT1 series have been dissolved into the Gt series which continue to thrill audiences.

(THE 2012 GT1 RACING)

The Nissan GT-R in The GT1

(The Audi R8)

(The Aston Martin)

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The Google Driverless Car

One major breakthrough about which I got to learn was the Google's new driverless car.
The internet giant is already famous for its various services and now has ventured into the automated car technology.This revolutionary technology has been developed by Google X
and the software installed in it is called the Chauffeur, a pretty interesting name in my opinion.
Many states in the U.S. have passed legislation to allow people to use these cars on the road. However, majority of them are still thinking whether to introduce the tech.
No doubt that this is a huge change in which people commute, there is still a question mark about the complete trust of people in these vehicles.
The positive and much desired features that it provides are 1) Using of the LIDAR tech and a special camera known as "Velodyne 64-beam laser" to map the trajectory and the connect with the maps to form a high resolution 3D trajectory to drive itself. It is like using google earth feature of street view to map the cars path. 
2)It has an amazing ability to sense obstacles and obtrusions in the path and veer around them as safely as possible. On many road testing incidences it has proved to be more efficacious than experienced drivers.
3)In many testing incidences with the disabled, google has found that people who are legally blind or are unable to drive have heralded this technology as ''pioneer'' not only in cleaner fuel etc., but also in satisfying and really fulfilling the customer.

However, as does every new technology have, this too had some limitations. The most important of them all was that sometimes the sensing ability of the car was not extremely accurate. On one testing incident the car sensed sandbags lying on the road and so it veered to the left to avoid them but instead crashed into an overtaking bus. Further the LIDAR tech is not so well developed as to sense every pothole on the road thus a few bumpy cases will always exist.
So, in my view google X has launched a revolutionary product which more and more countries should adopt; however only when the sensing tech will have improved a bit more. No doubt that this car/ a kind of A.I. will change the roads of this world but after a few years.
Google is making groundbreaking discoveries and once it has further perfected its model, the self-driving car will hit the roads in massive numbers.  

First of all I had been absent from my blog for quite a lot of time because my examinations were going on. Anyway, now that they are over, I have a few things on mind that I will post 

in the subsequent articles.