Google researchers have created self-driving robot cars which can drive on public highways on their own, without any driver at the wheel; capable of moving around on the streets without any kind of human control! 

The automated cars designed by Google research team look fairly similar to the company’s Street View vehicles. However, rather than having a camera on the roof, like the Street View cars, the autonomous cars have an optical Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) sensor on top, and additional radar sensors mounted on chassis.

Elaborating on how Google’s robot cars move around themselves, Google software engineer Sebastian Thrun wrote in a Saturday blog post: “Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to ‘see’ other traffic, as well as detailed maps to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.”

According to reports, a self-driving Toyota Prius model - one of Google’s seven self-driving cars tested under the robot cars project - successfully managed to drive 140,000 hours on the road, with minimal human involvement.

The Prius model, which used technology developed through participation in a series of autonomous vehicle races sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), drove on the roads between Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters and its office in Santa Monica, California.