Self-driving vehicles rely heavily on advanced GPS services to navigate through regions, however, many streets’ GPS signals are blocked by tall buildings. This poses a risk to the autonomous cars, as they could lose signals due to obscuration or because radio waves are bouncing around surroundings. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat stated that the number of buildings above 200 meters has risen by 650% over the last five years, expected to increase again by 20% in 2020.
As autonomous cars are in a critical stage of development, their producers have shifted focus from GPS to include a radar backup to mitigate the risk posed by losing signal abruptly in a big city. Paul Newman, the founder of British startup Oxbotica, has been curating an alternative solution to the safety risks posed by GPS, combining a mix of radars, cameras, and lasers. Oxbotica’s self-driving vehicles rely less on GPS and more on a combination of the previously mentioned methods.
Read More: How Autonomous Cars Are Overcoming GPS Signal Loss With Radar
