It’s (self) driving Miss Mary!
SOON you may be able to drink as many pints as you want – while your self-driving car waits outside the door to bring you home safely.
Shane Gilroy, a lecturer in connected and autonomous vehicles at Sligo IT, has told the Irish Mail on Sunday that the technological capabilities are almost there with testing, and legislation will be the biggest barrier.
Mr Gilroy is spearheading a new online master’s course in connected and autonomous Vehicles at Sligo IT, the first online course of its kind anywhere. Twenty-one students signed up in September.
At the launch was Enterprise and Innovation Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor, who posed for the cameras sitting in the driver’s seat but with her hands off the wheel. Ms Mitchell O’Connor said: ‘Autonomous vehicles are the future of the motor industry and IT Sligo is at the forefront of online education in Ireland.’
‘In tech terms, we’re almost there’
Mr Gilroy told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘In terms of technical capability, we’re almost there. The thing that will hold it up is legislation. Realistically, we could have full self-driving capability by 2030.’ Legislation is being drafted to allow for a network of roads in the west of Ireland to be used for high- and lowspeed testing of autonomous cars. The wide variety of weather conditions and road materials associated with the west of Ireland are seen as beneficial for test scenarios.
A large number of employers are already operating in the sector in Ireland, including Jaguar and BMW. However, they are struggling to find suitably qualified engineers.
‘We’re well advanced in this already,’ added Mr Gilroy. ‘If you buy a Volvo today, it has a certain amount of semiautonomous features. We’re not as early as people perceive (in the process).
‘It’s the fear of full autonomy, or the vehicle taking full control, that people are thinking we are in an early stage,’ he said.
A number of safety features designed to augment autonomous driving are already in development, Mr Gilroy said. The technological advances, he said, ‘will apply the brakes, adjust the steering if necessary – if we fall asleep at the wheel, if we’re drunk at the wheel… any of these accidents that are about to happen, they can take over in these conditions and this is going to be the side effect of this development.’
He said: ‘The more safety features we bring in, the better. The goal is to bring down the number of road deaths each year. Ideally, one day we’re going to step out of the pub into the car, and it’ll take us home safely.’