How Do Self-Driving Cars Make Decisions? A Detailed Look at the AI Brains of Autonomous Vehicles

dparente
Daniel Parente
Published in
6 min readJan 4, 2024

--

Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini on Unsplash

Self-driving or autonomous vehicles are expected to revolutionize transportation in the coming decade. Companies in the tech industry such as Tesla, Waymo, and Uber, as well as traditional automakers like GM, are fiercely competing to bring driverless cars to life in the near future.

These futuristic vehicles can detect their surroundings using sensors like cameras and radar. Using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) software algorithms, they are able to meticulously plan routes and make independent driving decisions in real-time, all thanks to the incredible power of onboard computers.

But how exactly do they work and make choices while navigating streets? Let’s lift the hood and take a closer look at the technology powering self-driving cars!

How Do Autonomous Cars Sense and Understand Their Surroundings?

Autonomous vehicles need to have complete 360-degree awareness of their environment at all times to replace human drivers safely.

They achieve this using a suite of different sensors:

Cameras

Much like human eyes, digital cameras allow the car to see its surroundings in…

--

--

dparente
Daniel Parente

Digital Vision, innovation and leadership in creative and technological companies