It’s hard to believe.
“This is running our pedestrian protection systems in real time. And every time we have human either riding a bike, or walk or running you will detect him as a yellow box,” said professor Xiaoming Liu.
Liu works behind the scenes on autonomous, self-driving cars.
General Motors recently announced they’re reinvesting six billion dollars in self-driving, electric cars.
“I think it will be revolutional as to how people drive,” said Liu.
What will self-driving cars even look like?
This can be answered on Michigan State’s campus where engineering students are driving us into the future.
“The car just operates off of one high-powered computer that we have in the back of the vehicle. And we have a network of sensors,” said graduate engineering student Jason Merlo.
“GM donated the vehicle,” he said. “They’re one of the headlining sponsors of the competition.”
MSU is one of eight teams across the country all tasked with the same challenge.
“The challenge was to make this car fully autonomous. So we are year two of a three year competition,” said graduate engineering student Daniel Kent.
Far from simple. Kent and his team work hands on this challenge with GM. An invention that will allow people to be hands off in just a decade.
“Having more autonomous means fewer people getting into accidents and getting seriously injured or killed,” Kent said. “People are just going to have to get used to the idea that there is a machine that can drive and it can drive better than you can.”
For Liu, who has two kids at home, he’s open to the idea.
“If I understand, and I know it is trustworthy. Yes, I will be buying it for sure,” said Liu.