Storytelling 2

Research

Google's robotic cars have about $150,000 in equipment including a $70,000 LIDAR system. LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging or Light Imaging, Detection, And Ranging) is a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating that target with a laser light. was originally a LIDAR is popularly used to make high-resolution maps, with applications in geodesy, geomatics, archaeology, geography, geology, geomorphology, seismology, forestry, atmospheric physics, laser guidance, airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM), and laser altimetry.
LIDAR sometimes is called laser scanning and 3D scanning, with terrestrial, airborne, and mobile applications.Autonomous vehicles use lidar for obstacle detection and avoidance to navigate safely through environments, using rotating laser beams. Cost map or point cloud outputs from the lidar sensor provide the necessary data for robot software to determine where potential obstacles exist in the environment and where the robot is in relation to those potential obstacles
The range finder mounted on the top is a Velodyne 64-beam laser. This laser allows the vehicle to generate a detailed 3D map of its environment. The car then takes these generated maps and combines them with high-resolution maps of the world, producing different types of data models that allow it to drive itself. As of June 2014, the system works with a very high definition inch-precision map of the area the vehicle is expected to use, including how high the traffic lights are; in addition to on-board systems, some computation is performed on remote computer farms.

My Story

It was the usual busy weekday for Brittany, making breakfast, packing lunches and getting her two kids out the door. The kitchen clock read 7:30am as Brittany and the kids headed out the front door. Brittany unlocks the door to her self-driving car and puts on the radio as the kids buckle themselves in. After telling the car where to Brittany sits back and the car starts moving towards the school.
Ten minutes later Brittany pulls up at the front of the school and drops off her kids, she watches as they run to meet up with their friends. If you would have told her that she would someday be driving her kids to school in a car, let alone a self-driving car, every day she probably would have thought you were crazy. You see Brittany was born with glaucoma and as a result she is completely blind in one eye and the other isn’t good either. Ever since she was younger people told her she would never be able to drive so she accepted that fact and worked around that inconvenience. When self-driving cars started becoming available to the general public, everyone told her she should get one but she wasn’t sure how to feel about it since she already accepted the situation. After some convincing and a small loan from her parents she was able to get one.
Now that self-driving cars are widely accepted Brittany can live a much easier and convenient life where she doesn’t have to rely on other people for rides or waste time with public transportation. Overall she feels much more independent and glad she took the leap to try something new that has changed her life for the better.