How a computer "drives" a car (simplified explanation) - the inputs of a self-driving car

Input sensors (camera, radar, lidar, GPS, ect) provides input data on the surrounding to the onboard computer:

How a computer "drives" a car (simplified explanation) - the computation performed

A specialized computer program categorizes the input data into objects:

This problem is called semantic (or image) segmentation ( click here)

How a computer "drives" a car (simplified explanation) - output
 

Based on the input data, the "self-driving" program will compute:

  • What is the "best" velocity for the vehicle         

  • What is the "best" direction of driving (steering)
 

 

The on-board computer will then send control signals to:

  1. The car's engine to accelerate/decelerate to the "best" velocity

  2. The car's steering mechanism to steer the car in the "best" direction