Driverless Cars: Working Procedure, Requirements, and Ethical Issues

This report provides a detailed description of driverless cars, including their working procedure and requirements. It also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of this emerging technology. Additionally, it explores the ethical issues associated with driverless cars, such as decision-making in extreme situations and challenges at crosswalks.

Running head: DRIVERLESS CARS
Driverless Cars
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction:................................................................................................................................2
2. Description:..................................................................................................................................2
2.1 Working Procedure of Driverless Car:..................................................................................3
2.2 Requirement of the Driverless Cars:......................................................................................3
2.3 Weaknesses and Strengths of the Driverless Cars:................................................................4
2.4 Utilization of the Driverless cars in Businesses:...................................................................5
3. Ethical Issues with the Driverless Cars:......................................................................................6
3.1 Ethics of Extreme:.................................................................................................................6
3.2 Challenges at Crosswalk:.......................................................................................................6
4. Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................7
5. References:..................................................................................................................................8

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1. Introduction:
The driverless cars or the self-driving car is actually a concept vehicle which is capable
of driving by its own. This vehicles uses combination of some cameras, sensors, radar and the
artificial intelligence so that it becomes capable of running between one point to another point
without having any type of human operators (Kaur and Rampersad 2018). For a vehicle to
become fully autonomous, the vehicle needs to be satisfying some of the important criteria.
These important criteria are that this vehicle must be able to navigate without any type of human
intervention to specific destination point which is predetermined. In the current situation various
of automobile companies are trying to develop their own autonomous vehicles.
In this current report the description of the autonomous vehicles will be discussed in a
brief manner. In this description section the working procedure of the autonomous vehicles will
be elaborated. With that the requirement of the autonomous vehicles will also be discussed in
this case. This technology is also consisting some of the important ethical issues and this issues
will be briefly elaborated in this report.
2. Description:
The driverless vehicle is one of the most emerging technology in the current situation. It
has been assessed that this type of automotive vehicles is the most important part for another
concept technology which is the smart traffic system. By the implementation of smart traffic
system and driverless autonomous cars a major problem of traffic congestion can be solved
easily. In the following context a brief discussion regarding the driverless cars will be done.

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2.1 Working Procedure of Driverless Car:
The working procedure of the driverless car is quite complex in nature. It consists various
of sensors to be integrated together to becomes fully functional in nature. The main important
sensors for the sensors are the radar sensor, video camera, lidar sensor and the ultrasonic sensors.
For integration all of this sensors together a centralized computer system will be implemented
which will be analyzing all of the data that are incoming various of sensors for manipulation of
the braking, acceleration and the steering of the driverless cars (Thierer and Hagemann 2015).
In this aspect, the radar sensors are dotted around the whole driverless car so that the car
can efficiently track the nearby cars of it for positioning the vehicle perfectly. The video cameras
are utilized in this case for tracking and reading the signals and the signs on the road. Through
this the vehicle will be able to obey the traffic rules and can monitor the other vehicles and
pedestrians. With that it can also keep track of any type of obstacles on the road. In this aspect
the lidar sensor also plays a crucial role by detection of the edges of the road and with that can
also track the lane markings. This sensor will be able to work by bouncing pulses of the lights off
the surrounding of the car. Ultrasonic sensors will be utilized in the wheels and from that
location it is capable of detecting the kerbs position and the position of the other vehicles while
parking. All of these sensors will be controlled and operated by a centralized type of computer
system.
2.2 Requirement of the Driverless Cars:
In the current situation the driverless cars are required for the environment and the
society. In this context the driverless cars is capable of providing various types of benefits
(Bruun 2019). For this reason the driverless car is very much required. In the following
discussion the main requirement of the driverless cars are listed.

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 The driverless car is very much required in this context as it can greatly reduce chances
of accidents due to the human errors. Thus safety of the vehicles will be improved
greatly.
 Another requirement of the driverless car is that it can improve the interconnectivity of
the transport (Duranton 2016).
 This technology is also required in this context as it is able to reduce the traffic
congestion. By the mitigation of traffic congestion a huge amount of money can be saved
each of the year.
 With all other aspects this technology can reduce the overall cost of transportation and
due to this reason the driverless cars is required in this context.
2.3 Weaknesses and Strengths of the Driverless Cars:
The driverless car is the one of the most emerging technology in the current context. As
this technology is still in the concept stage this technology is having some weakness and
strengths. In the following context the strengths and the advantages of the driverless cars will be
discussed briefly.
2.3.1 Weaknesses of the Driverless Cars:
 The driverless cars are totally depending on the computer system for automation. Thus
any type of small malfunction in the entire system leads to some deadly accidents.
 The driverless car will collect information about the location information of the users and
most importantly this type of data might be saved in the database for future reference
which can lead to some major security concerns of the passengers (Hjalmarsson-
Jordanius et al. 2018).

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 As the whole system will be fully automotive and will be controlled by a computer
system, there is a greater chance that the entire system can be hacked by the hacker and
the hacker can gain full access of the system.
2.3.2 Advantages of the Driverless Cars:
 Human controlling of the cars can lead to many accidental situation where by
implementing the driverless cars the chances of unnecessary accidents can be reduced
greatly.
 Speed limits of the cars can be controlled effectively by this system.
 There will be no issues regarding the breaking the traffic signals and traffic rules as the
driverless cars will always follow the traffic rules (Watkins 2017).
 As this car is eliminating the requirement of a driver more space can be conserved for the
passengers.
2.4 Utilization of the Driverless cars in Businesses:
The current businesses and industries can utilize driverless cars in several of ways so that
it can provide benefit to them. The driverless cars are very much beneficial for the transportation
businesses. With the implementation of the driverless cars the transportation industry will be able
to track the shipment of the products effectively. This will actually improve the business
efficiency of the organization (Riggs 2018). Also, in this aspect the security of the logistics
products can be ensured greatly. Thus the businesses can use this technology for effective
transportation of the raw materials and the finished products.
The driverless cars can be used by the businesses for reducing the overall financial cost
of the organization. By using the driverless cars organizations can eliminate requirement of any

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type of drivers for operating the trucks and cars. Thus financial cost will be saved for the
organization.
3. Ethical Issues with the Driverless Cars:
Considering the driverless cars it has been assessed that this technology having various
types of advantages which has been discussed in this context. With that, it has been also assessed
that this technology is also facing several of ethical issues. The main ethical issues that are faced
by the organization are discussed below.
3.1 Ethics of Extreme:
The ethics of extreme defines that how the driverless care will react in the situation of
lives of the passenger and the life of the pedestrians. This type of situation can arise where the
driverless car will be able save either the passengers or some pedestrians by taking some specific
decisions (Frank et al. 2018). In this type of cases what the decision will be for the driverless car
will be decisive in this case and it is actually creating an ethical issue in this context.
3.2 Challenges at Crosswalk:
It is usual that the driverless cars will always follow the traffics rules and regulation as it
is programmed like this, but this is not the actual case for the humans. In a cross walk situation,
ethical issues can arise regarding crossing the road (McBride 2016). While a normal pedestrian is
in hurry it can happen that he/she comes front of a driverless cars and that time all the signals are
in green situation. In this type of cases what the decision of the driverless car will be, create an
ethical situation.

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4. Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that the driverless cars is one of the most
emerging technology in the current situation. The driverless cars are capable of changing the
future of the transportation and the vehicle industry. In this report a brief description of the
driverless cars has been discussed in this case. In this context the working procedure of the
driverless cars and why it is required in the present situation has been discussed in this case.
Also, the current strengths and the weaknesses of driverless cars have been discussed. Further, in
this discussion important ethical issues that can be faced by the driverless cars has been
discussed in this context. As this technology is still a concept model some important
recommendation need to be followed before implementing the driverless cars. These are:
 Existing vulnerabilities in the current system must be assessed and fixed before full-
fledged implementation.
 SAE International Standard J3016 need to be followed while implementing this
technology.
 Disable peoples also need considered while implementing this technology.

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5. References:
Bruun, E., 2019. Driverless cars: on a road to nowhere.
Duranton, G., 2016. Transitioning to driverless cars. Cityscape, 18(3), pp.193-196.
Frank, D.A., Chrysochou, P., Mitkidis12, P. and Ariely, D., 2018. Moral Machines: The
Challenges of Raising Driverless Cars. Science, 352(6293), p.1573.
Hjalmarsson-Jordanius, A., Edvardsson, M., Romell, M., Isacson, J., Aldén, C.J. and Sundin, N.,
2018. Autonomous Transport: Transforming Logistics through Driverless Intelligent
Transportation. Transportation Research Record, 2672(7), pp.24-33.
Kaur, K. and Rampersad, G., 2018. Trust in driverless cars: Investigating key factors influencing
the adoption of driverless cars. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 48, pp.87-
96.
McBride, N., 2016. The ethics of driverless cars. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 45(3),
pp.179-184.
Riggs, W. ed., 2018. Disruptive Transport: Driverless Cars, Transport Innovation and the
Sustainable City of Tomorrow. Routledge.
Thierer, A. and Hagemann, R., 2015. Removing roadblocks to intelligent vehicles and driverless
cars. Wake Forest JL & Pol'y, 5, p.339.
Watkins, S.J., 2017, December. Driverless cars–advantages of not owning them: car share, active
travel and total mobility. In Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Municipal
Engineer (Vol. 171, No. 1, pp. 26-30). Thomas Telford Ltd.