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DISCUSSIONS: IT Trends Discussions & Directions When I was a kid growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, I remember watching videos of futuristic inventions like flying cars, self driving vehicles, robots, touchscreen devices, and every other "futuristic" creation you could have thought of. Fast forward to today, and we have almost all of those things. We seem to take for granted or overlook just how far technology has come in such a short period of time. We seem to always have a smartphone glued to our hands, we see cars that drive or park themselves, and robots at the grocery store, and we're not even close to hitting our technological peak, as more "autonomous things" are on the brink of being an every day necessity.

I chose this topic because I happen to work for an engineering company that develops software for "autonomous things". I work on an IT team that supports about 100 software and mechanical engineers, so I figured I'd talk about some of the things that my company is working on and how close they are to hitting the streets (due to confidentiality, I will be leaving out the company name and specific program names)

Self-Driving bus: We are currently in the finishing stage or testing stage of having a fully autonomous shuttle bus. We have been developing it for about a year now, and it can be seen driving around our campus completely free of a pilot! we are based out of Maryland, and we have actually tested it in National Harbor, which is a very densely populated area. The bus utilizes GPS and lidar sensors to

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maintain their course and sense possible obstructions.

Self-Driving shuttle: This creation is much like the bus, but is more geared toward short trips, like college campuses. This innovation is all but complete, and it has actually gotten approval from our local government to operate between our testing campus and our office building which is about a mile away from each other. There are actually several college campuses who are currently working out the logistics to operate this vehicle as we speak! This shuttle operates similarly to the GPS and lidar of the bus.

Self-Driving military convoy vehicles: We have been working one on one with the Army to develop autonomous military convoy vehicles. This one is a little more tricky than the bus and shuttle, because convoy vehicles aren't always crossing terrain or roads that are listed on a gps map. However, they utilize what is called a "leader follower". This means that the lead vehicle is manned by a human, and the vehicles behind are completely unmanned and rely on the sensors from the lead vehicle to keep them on course. The lead vehicle can have up to ten followers in the convoy!

Although it seems like this technology is years from being implemented, it may be sooner than most think. It could fundamentally change the way people travel or buy vehicles. In regard to the convoy vehicles, it could save countless soldier's lives as a good majority of military deaths are due to road side IEDs. Prepare yourselves, the future is near!

Thought Provoking Questions:

1. When do you think we will see full autonomous vehicles in the

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streets or in the skies?

2. When the technology is available for purchase, would you put your trust in a machine to drive you safely from point A to point B?

3. There have been multiple movies made about robots trying to take over the world. Do you think that there's a certain point where technology will have advanced too far?

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