While autonomous vehicles are a bit far from being implemented in people’s every day trips, the Israeli borders are constantly being patrolled by such type of “cars”.
The unmanned vehicles are made by a company called G-NIUS, and entered service with Israeli’s border patrol division in 2008. They feature a system developed by the Ben-Gurion University of Negev, which acts like two people; one that drives and one that scouts the perimeter. This is done by using a combination of mechanical and electronic systems to control the vehicle’s commands. Also, the car is helped by GPS, video cameras and sensors to navigate it’s way around and gather information. It can even decide wether to stop and check something if it looks suspicious.
We don’t know if these robot-patrol-cars are equipped with weapons, but we know they are not licensed to drive on roads with heavy traffic, so they patrol areas where nobody lives in most of the time.
Google News