Hanyang University’s ACE Laboratory Led By Sunwoo Myoungho Plans To Develop ‘Smarter Cars’ To Prevent Traffic-Related Accidents And Injuries

A team of experts headed by Automotive Control and Electronics (ACE) Laboratory director and automotive systems engineering expert Sunwoo Myoungho is developing a self-driving vehicle which can provide transportation without need for human intervention.

Sunwoo and his team are working on two types of next-generation cars: the "green" car and the "smart" car. The first is an environmentally-friendly vehicle while the other is a car than can operate on its own, otherwise known as an autonomous car.

The ACE Lab director said the important consideration in developing the self-driving car is safety.

"Each year, around 1.3 million people die from traffic-related accidents while 50 million more get hurt. Some 90 percent of them are due to human error," Sunwoo told the Korea Herald. "If we were to make cars smarter, we can evade the situation as a whole."

The Korea Herald reported that the autonomous car use a series of sensors that can analyze the situation around them and make the most appropriate action such as switching lanes and changing the route towards the final destination.

It also makes use of the global positioning system in which cameras are installed on every side of the car and with a laser can measure the distance by analyzing light reflections.

Sunwoo said he and his team must overcome several obstacles before they can manufacture a commercially-ready self-driving car.

"First, we have to 'train' (the cars). There are roughly 300,000 traffic signs around the world, and we have to figure out a way to make the car recognize all of them. In Korea alone, there are signs of all shapes and size, depending on which region you are in," Sunwoo said.

His second concern is Korea's traffic law which requires all cars to be manned by drivers, thus prohibiting test-driving autonomous cars in the country.

Funding and government support is also an issue for ACE Lab.

The Daily Mail reported Friday that a recent study published by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute found that self-driving cars had an average of 9.1 crashes, while a human-operated car only had 1.9. It was also found that autonomous cars were rear-ended 50 percent more than human-driven vehicles.

However, the research concluded that "self-driving vehicles were not at fault in any crashes they were involved in."