Autonomous Vehicles
These days, technology plays a huge role in making life a lot easier. However, in some instances, especially in the workplace, workers someitmes tend to consider it as a threat to job security. Fears have been mounting among them as most companies consider reducing manpower in exchange for the robotics gadgets they could have, which offer faster and safer work service. Those kinds of technology include the autonomous vehicles, which of course, will not be like typical cars equipped with Mercury catalytic converter.
Currently there are several major corporations in the world that are already testing autonomous vehicles. Some companies are already set to get them for production and have them in use.
Dr. Sarath Kodagoda of University of Technology Sydney, who worked on robotic systems for industrial and road vehicles, said that the progress to date means that the autonomous vehicles will be in regular use in industrial settings. And, that is even before the self-driving cars hit the nation’s freeways and suburban roads. He said, “Autonomous vehicles will be common in industry by the time the first cars with autopilot are on the road. The autopilot control in urban settings is more challenging than in industry.” He pointed out that a good example of how the technology can transform business is the Patrick’s Fisherman Islands container terminal. In 2004, the said company rolled out more than 20 65-ton-weighted autonomous straddle carriers, which were used in moving massive cargo containers around their facility, controlled by terminal management system.
Kodagoda enthused that the structured environment provided by the facility implies that implementing autonomous vehicles is relatively simple than putting robot cars on suburban roads. He is even part of a team developing autonomous cars that could possibly be driven on city streets. He said, “It all depends on the complexity of the environment or the simplification that you can do.”
“For example, the Brisbane straddle carrier robots are working in a semi-structured environment, so it is a bit easier to plan. But, if the vehicle has to be sent through traffic without any human intervention, that is a difficult scenario because unexpected things can happen,” he explained. If undesirable things happen, most probably the use of such autonomous vehicles will simply be stopped. A lot of affecting factors are subjected for tests to create a single complex maneuver.
However, it wouldn’t be impossible that many years from now, the creation of robots will be perfected. People will be credited and will experience the convenience in life, but some would also suffer the consequence. Kodagoda said, “If you want to automate a container yard there are human factors involved. People are losing jobs, so it might not be a very co-operative environment at the beginning when something like this is introduced,” as he pertains to the autonomous vehicles. “There can be some non-technical aspects that need to be resolved,” he added.
So, what do you say? Would you want to have such technology in use?
