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Autonomous Applications
| Applications | |
|---|---|
| Title | Autonomous Applications |
| Author(s) | GMV. |
| Level | Medium |
| Year of Publication | 2011 |
Driverless cars are ubiquitous in imagined future scenarios. Autonomous vehicles technology is a multi-disciplinary technology where different engineering areas are required. One of these areas is Navigation and GNSS systems where revolutionary in this area by providing positioning and navigation capabilities to the autonomous vehicles. With precise positioning, GNSS can be used for lane or track determination (for road and rail vehicles) and attitude determination by using multiple antennas.
Autonomous vehicle technology is still at its infancy but currently the first laboratory prototypes are being tested and demonstrated. GNSS has been one of the key drivers for the recent developments in this area.
Autonomous Driving
The main drivers for achieving autonomous driving is the reduction of traffic accidents by eliminating human error, increasing road capacity and traffic flow by reducing distance between cars and making use of traffic management information, relieving the car occupants from driving and navigation activities and allowing them to engage in other activities or rest[1].
A driverless car will have be combinations of several techniques among which GNSS that will be able to guide a land vehicle from one point to another autonomously using public roads. In autonomous driving, GNSS can be used for navigation being used to determine the vehicle location, vehicle velocity and current. This information will then be used to decide the vehicle route using digital maps. If the accuracy is good enough GNSS can be used also for lane determination and even for attitude determination. If the location information is shared among cars, GNSS could theoretically be used for short-range situation awareness although it is not expected that GNSS will be used in the future as sole means of information for short-range situation awareness.
Detailed information about Autonomous Driving can be found here.
Autonomous Flying
Detailed information about Autonomous Flying can be found here.
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