In this blog post, we will examine the current state of autonomous vehicle technology, the social challenges it poses, and how prepared we are for the future.
Autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars, are vehicles that can navigate and drive to their destination without direct human intervention. Since the vehicle can recognize road conditions, make decisions, and determine its route independently, passengers are completely freed from driving and can enjoy more freedom and comfort inside the vehicle.
This technology is attracting attention as the core of future mobility, not only for its convenience but also for its potential to dramatically improve traffic efficiency and reduce traffic accidents. Of course, there are also various concerns surrounding autonomous driving technology. For example, the risk of system intrusion through hacking and legal loopholes regarding who is responsible in the event of an accident remain issues that need to be resolved.
However, autonomous vehicle technology is rapidly entering the commercialization stage thanks to the rapid advancement of cutting-edge engineering technologies such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, electronic control, and sensor fusion. Autonomous driving tests are being conducted across Europe, Asia, and North America, and autonomous driving services are beginning to be piloted in complex urban environments. The era of autonomous driving is no longer a distant future but a reality that is fast approaching.
The history of autonomous vehicle development is relatively short, but its pace is astonishingly fast. In the late 1980s, researchers at the University of Munich in Germany successfully tested an unmanned vehicle capable of traveling at speeds of up to 100 km/h. Subsequently, the European Union laid the foundation for autonomous driving technology through the “Eureka Prometheus Project” from 1987 to 1995. At the time, autonomous driving was tested in relatively standardized environments such as highways, but with the integration of various technologies, it has evolved to the point where it can now navigate complex urban environments. In 2010, a self-driving vehicle successfully completed a 13,000-kilometer journey from Italy to Shanghai, China, and recently, autonomous driving has been successfully demonstrated in the heart of urban areas with pedestrians, bicycles, traffic lights, and numerous unpredictable variables.
For autonomous vehicles to drive safely, it is essential to accurately recognize the situation around the vehicle, make judgments based on that information, and take appropriate measures. To achieve this, various advanced sensors such as LiDAR, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and high-resolution cameras are used. These sensors continuously monitor the vehicle’s 360-degree environment in real time, detecting the distance, speed, direction, and obstacles of vehicles and pedestrians to predict and avoid dangerous situations. In urban driving, where vehicles must recognize various visual information such as road signs, traffic lights, lanes, and crosswalks, advanced computer vision technology and AI-based image processing technology are also utilized.
In addition, it is also very important for vehicles to accurately recognize their location. Since general GPS can have an error of several meters, autonomous vehicles use high-precision maps (HD Maps) in conjunction with centimeter-level precision positioning technology (RTK-GPS, etc.). In addition, communication technologies based on “V2X (Vehicle to Everything),” such as vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communication, are also being actively researched. Through these technologies, autonomous vehicles can share various traffic information in advance, such as intersections, construction zones, and signal changes, enabling safer decision-making.
One of the companies leading the way in autonomous driving technology is Waymo, a subsidiary of Google. Waymo won the 2005 U.S. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Autonomous Vehicle Challenge, led by a team from Stanford University under Professor Sebastian Thrun, and subsequently partnered with Google to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles. Waymo has rapidly improved the perception and autonomous decision-making capabilities of its vehicles by integrating Google’s mapping technology, big data, and Street View. In 2010, it successfully completed a 224,000-kilometer autonomous drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and in 2023, it successfully commercialized a fully autonomous taxi service in San Francisco and Phoenix, California.
Currently, autonomous driving tests are actively underway in several states in the US and major cities in the UK, Germany, and Japan. An interesting autonomous driving technology is Volvo’s “platooning” technology currently under development in Sweden. In this system, only one professional driver is in the lead vehicle, and the following vehicles automatically follow the lead vehicle while maintaining a certain distance.
Vehicles in the platoon can enter or exit autonomously at any time, and platooned vehicles offer significant advantages in terms of fuel efficiency, reduced air resistance, and road safety. Platooning is already being tested on some routes in Europe, mainly in commercial vehicles and logistics transportation.
South Korea is also actively developing autonomous driving technology. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has developed an autonomous electric vehicle called ESTRO and conducted test runs, while leading domestic universities such as the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Kookmin University, and Hanyang University are also actively participating in autonomous driving research. Hyundai Motor Group has been developing autonomous vehicles since the early 2010s, applying various technologies such as lane keeping, automatic stopping, narrow road passage, and obstacle avoidance, and in 2023, it unveiled a mass-produced vehicle equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving capabilities.
The government is also piloting autonomous shuttle and robot taxi services in Sejong, Pangyo, Sangam-dong, Seoul, and Daejeon starting in 2024, while simultaneously revising relevant laws and regulations. However, the widespread adoption of autonomous driving cannot be achieved through technological advancement alone. There are still legal and social issues that need to be resolved. A prime example is the issue of liability in the event of an accident.
When an accident occurs in a situation where no human is driving, clear criteria are needed to determine whether liability lies with the manufacturer, the software developer, or the passenger. Additionally, security threats that may arise if the vehicle is exposed to external hacking cannot be overlooked. Resistance from existing stakeholders such as the transportation industry, insurance companies, and maintenance industries is also an area requiring social consensus.
Nevertheless, the changes that autonomous vehicles will bring are far more positive. They are expected to reduce driver fatigue, alleviate traffic congestion, enhance safety, and provide mobility freedom to those who have difficulty driving, such as the elderly and disabled. From an environmental perspective, efficient driving routes and energy management will contribute to reducing carbon emissions.
Autonomous vehicles are not yet a complete technology that has solved all problems, but they are evolving rapidly and will soon become an integral part of our daily lives. At this pivotal moment of change, we must go beyond vague expectations and concerns about technology and work together to prepare socially and ethically. The day when cars automatically take us to our destinations—something that once seemed like science fiction—is not far off. As autonomous driving technology matures, we will enter an era of safer, more convenient, and more sustainable mobility.
