Don't be too surprised if you see a car going down the road without a driver in Beijing these days. It might be one of Baidu's self-driving cars. Last month, Baidu was granted (授予) a license to test its self-driving cars on open roads in Beijing, China Daily reported.
Self-driving cars have been in development since 2010, when Google announced that it was making such cars. Since then, companies like Tesla, Uber and Baidu have been working to produce and test their own self-driving cars.
Self-driving cars are expected to revolutionize (革命) the way we get around. They are safer and more environmentally friendly than regular cars. They can remove the stress of driving and allow disabled or blind people to get around more easily.
But self-driving cars have their own flaws (缺陷) as well. In one test, researchers pointed a laser pointer (激光棒) at the car's sensors (传感器) while it was moving. The car mistakenly thought that the laser beam was in its way and slowed down or changed direction. Flaws like this could be used by people to trick self-driving cars, according to the Guardian.
The software that is used to direct the cars may not be safe enough, reported Live Science. It may crash (崩溃). When we use our computers or smart phones, they sometimes crash without any reason. But if this happened to a self-driving car, the results could be deadly. Improvements to the software could be a solution to this problem.
