영국, 무인카 내년 1월에 주행허가...한국은? UK to allow driverless cars on public roads in January VIDEO
[VIDEO]
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28551069
영국 정부가 일반도로에서 무인차 주행실험을 허용하겠다고 밝혔다.
30일(현지시간) BBC 등 외신에 따르면 영국 상무부는 내년 1월부터 3개 도시 일반도로를 무인차 주행실험 도로로 결정했다고 발표했다. 무인차 테스트는 18~36개월 간 진행된다.
영국 정부는 3개 도시를 지원하기 위해 예산 1000만 파운드(약 137억 원)를 확보한 상황이다. 이와 관련 영국 정부 및 지방자치단체는 무인차 도로주행을 위한 가이드라인을 제공하기 위해 도로 규제에 대해 종합적으로 점검할 방침이다.
앞서 미국 캘리포니아 주, 네바다 주, 플로리다 주와 일본은 일반 도로에서 무인차 주행실험을 허용했다. 유럽에서는 스웨덴 고텐베르그 시가 볼보에 100대의 무인차를 시험주행할 수 있도록 허가했다. 볼보는 2017년부터 시험주행에 돌입할 계획이다. 아직 국내에서는 무인차 도로주행은 불법이다.
글로벌 업체들은 현재 무인차 개발에 총력을 기울이고 있다. 구글은 5월 100대의 무인차를 만들겠다고 발표하고 스티어링휠과 가속 및 브레이크 페달이 없는 무인차 시제품을 공개했다. 구글은 2017년 무인차를 상용화할 계획이다.
메르세데스벤츠, 도요타, 르노, 닛산, 제너럴모터스(GM) 등은 2020년 무인차를 상용화하겠다고 밝혔다. 이달 초엔 중국 검색엔진인 바이두가 "무인차 프로젝트의 아주 초기개발단계"라고 밝히는 등 비(非)자동차업체들의 관심도 뜨겁다.
[기사본문]
http://car.donga.com/home/3/all/20140731/65524197/2
[동아오토]
강유현 기자 yhkang@donga.com
The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year.
It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK's road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013.
Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.
"Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society," he said.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.
The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year.
It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK's road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013.
Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.
"Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society," he said.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.
The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google's driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan's first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.
And in Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 100 driverless cars - although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.
UK cities wanting to host one of the trials have until the start of October to declare their interest.
The tests are then intended to run for between 18 to 36 months.
A £10m fund has been created to cover their costs, with the sum to be divided between the three winners.
Meanwhile, civil servants have been given until the end of this year to publish a review of road regulations.
This will cover the need for self-drive vehicles to comply with safety and traffic laws, and involve changes to the Highway Code, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales.
Two area will be examined by the review: how the rules should apply to vehicles in which the driver can take back control at short notice, and how they should apply to vehicles in which there is no driver.
How do driverless cars work?
Google's self-drive car combines video and sensor data to determine where to steer
The label "driverless vehicle" actually covers a lot of different premises.
Indeed, the cruise control, automatic braking, anti-lane drift and self-parking functions already built into many vehicles offer a certain degree of autonomy.
But the term is generally used to refer to vehicles that take charge of steering, accelerating, indicating and braking during most if not all of a journey between two points, much in the same way aeroplanes can be set to autopilot.
Unlike the skies, however, the roads are much more crowded, and a range of technologies are being developed to tackle the problem.
One of the leading innovations is Lidar (light detection and ranging), a system that measures how lasers bounce off reflective surfaces to capture capture information about millions of small points surrounding the vehicle every second. The technology is already used to create the online maps used by Google and Nokia.
Another complimentary technique is "computer vision" - the use of software to make sense of 360-degree images captured by cameras attached to the vehicle, which can warn of pedestrians, cyclists, roadworks and other objects that might be in the vehicle's path.
Part of the challenge for manufacturers will be how to hide the many sensors involved
Autonomous vehicles can also make use of global-positioning system (GPS) location data from satellites; radar; ultrasonic sensors to detect objects close to the car; and further sensors to accurately measure the vehicle's orientation and the rotation of its wheels, to help it understand its exact location.
The debate now is whether to allow cars, like the prototype unveiled by Google in May, to abandon controls including a steering wheel and pedals and rely on the vehicle's computer.
Or whether, instead, to allow the machine to drive, but insist a passenger be ready to wrest back control at a moment's notice.
International rivals
In May, Google unveiled plans to manufacture 100 self-driving vehicles.
The search-giant exhibited a prototype which has no steering wheel or pedals - just a stop-go button.
Google has also put its autonomous driving technology in cars built by other companies, including Toyota, Audi and Lexus.
Other major manufacturers, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and General Motors, are developing their own models.
Most recently, the Chinese search engine Baidu also declared an interest, saying its research labs were at an "early stage of development" on a driverless car project.
But concerns about the safety of driverless cars have been raised by politicians in the US and elsewhere.
Earlier this month, the FBI warned that driverless cars could be used as lethal weapons, predicting that the vehicles "will have a high impact on transforming what both law enforcement and its adversaries can operationally do with a car".
[Main page]
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28551069
bbc
Construction News
CONPAPER
