Consider this, you get in your car, turn on the navigation system and then type in the address to your destination. And instead of you driving your car there, the car drives itself. Engineers and students from the nation's top universities alike are competing to develop exactly that, a self-driving car.
The competition is sponsored by the Department of Defense. They are eager to apply the technology on the battlefield, to keep soldiers out of harms way and help save lives. There are also many civilian uses for the technology. Self-driving cars will be programmed not to crash into each other, they will reduce traffic congestion and they will also reduce stops and starts, saving on energy and reducing emissions.
Automotive safety technologies like cruise control, lane departure warning and blind zone alerts already exist, and it won't be long until cars will start to drive themselves.
