How do car companies plan on
informing pedestrians and other drivers to what their self-driving car is going
to do? Nissan has a plan, and that is to display messages on the windshield and
light patterns on the bumpers. That’s at least how they envision it working
out.
That is the main challenge that
Nissan is facing, finding a way to have their self-driving cars interact safely
with humans on the streets and in their vehicles. One of the concerns is say
when a car approaches a red light and plans to make a right hand turn, the car
needs to be aware of of all of the traffic so it can turn safely. The
self-driving cars must also follow socially acceptable practice, what is
acceptable in one country might not be acceptable somewhere else.
Nissan is trying to address this
problem by coming up with a way for their self-driving car to communicate with
other drivers and cars. One of the ideas they have is to install lighting into
the car that would flash certain colors to tell other drivers what they intend
to do. It would be similar to how people recognize and react to traffic lights.
The other is to have a message display on the windshield to tell pedestrians
directly what they are doing, for example the windshield may read After You to a pedestrian to let the pedestrian know
they are safe to cross the road.
Another
concern that automakers are having regarding the autonomous self-driving car is
what happens in a power failure. In traditional vehicles, you still can control
the steering and braking to prevent accidents. But with an autonomous vehicle,
all the mechanics run through a central computer, and a power failure could
spell disaster. However knowing Nissan, they with extensively test all options
before they make it available to the public.
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