title: Negan

text: Negan comes up with a plan to use the walker virus to their advantage by coating their weapons in walker flesh, including Lucille. Negan leads a convoy of Saviors to the Hilltop when his car is rammed by Rick, who pursues him into an abandoned building. Negan attempts to fight back, but falls through the floor and loses Lucille. Unarmed and being hunted in the dark, Negan attempts to make a deal, offering to forgive Rick's transgressions and reduce the Savior's cut of supplies in exchange for peace. Rick refuses, stating Negan cares for nothing except Lucille, which he then proceeds to light on fire. Negan furiously attacks Rick before the two are surrounded by walkers and flames, forcing Negan to reclaim Lucille and flee — only to be captured by Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh), who tortures Negan until he reveals that he had nothing to do with the massacre of her people. He manages to talk her into freeing him while she is getting ready to receive a helicopter at the junkyard.


title: Negan

text: He makes his way back to the Savior compound to find that Simon has been ruling in his stead, and is responsible for the bloodshed at Jadis' compound. He regains control by challenging Simon to a fight and killing him with his bare hands, and making Dwight the instrument of his revenge against Rick by forcing him to lure Rick's group into a trap with false information. Michonne contacts Negan via walkie-talkie and reads him a letter Carl wrote him before he died urging a peaceful solution to the conflict; though moved by the message, Negan refuses, and swears he will kill Rick and every last one of his group. Rick's group shows up to challenge the Saviors. Negan orders his men to open fire, but discovers that Eugene has tampered with their weapons, rendering them helpless. Rick's group kills several of Negan's men, while Rick and Negan have a final battle that ends with Rick cutting Negan's throat open. However, Rick decides to save his enemy's life, as he believes it is what Carl would want.


title: Negan

text: 18 months later, Rick goes down a basement to talk to an imprisoned Negan, telling him about how everything has changed since the war ended, and how the communities are working together on fixing a bridge, which will be the link to their future. Negan warns him that the peace between the communities will not last, and that he will not be locked up forever.


title: Negan

text: When Michonne visits Negan to get him to end a hunger strike, he tells her about his late wife, Lucille, and says he is thankful that she is not alive to see him in his current state. She finally gets him to eat, and as she leaves he asks to see his bat. Michonne tells him they do not have it anymore, and leaves smiling as he bashes his head against the wall in anguish. Maggie arrives in Alexandria and arranges to see Negan in his cell, intent on killing him. Negan taunts Maggie about killing Glenn, but then bursts into tears and begs her to put him out of his misery so he can be reunited with his wife. She tells him to get back to his cell, because he is already "worse than dead".


title: Negan

text: Six years later, Negan remains a prisoner in Alexandria, but has apparently accepted his fate, and has even struck up a friendship with Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming), Rick's young daughter. Negan helps Judith with her homework and tells her a story from his childhood where he tried to take in stray dogs only for it to go badly for him when she asks for advice with dealing with Magna's group. Negan also receives weekly visits from Gabriel, who tries to help Negan become a better person. Negan responds by taunting Gabriel about his new relationship with Rosita, but Gabriel reveals that Rosita is at the Hilltop, hurt, and he cannot go to her because he has to look after Negan. Chastened, Negan makes an apparently sincere apology for his behavior, a first for him.


title: Negan

text: Later, Negan realizes that his cell door is unlocked, and escapes. Judith tries to stop him, but lets him go after he persuades her that he will not hurt anyone else. Negan wanders through the changed world, losing his food following an encounter with two walkers and inadvertently returning to the clearing where he murdered Glenn and Abraham. Negan gets a new leather jacket from an abandoned clothing store, but is nearly killed by a pack of feral dogs in the process. Negan finally returns to the Sanctuary, only to find it completely abandoned and all of the Saviors gone. Negan tries to adapt to life alone, but eventually abandons the Sanctuary and his old life for good and returns to Alexandria. Confronted by Judith, Negan admits that she was right that there is nothing left for him outside and he is willing to return to his cell rather than be alone. Negan then allows Judith to take him back to Alexandria.


title: Negan

text: Negan is visited by Michonne after Judith disappears. Negan's cell now contains a bookshelf with several books and a small seat where he can comfortably read. Michonne demands to know what Negan talks to Judith about, and he admits to telling her stories about Carl, Rick, and the war, stories which Judith has never heard from anyone else before. Negan points out that Judith would be able to tell if he was lying so he is always honest with her, even when she asked about Glenn and Abraham. Negan urges Michonne to listen to and be honest with her daughter and helps her realize that Judith went to try and help her friends.


title: Negan

text: Negan is moved out of his cell during a dangerous blizzard, as he will freeze to death otherwise. Negan is the first to realize that something is wrong, leading to Eugene discovering that the chimney is clogged. Though everyone contemplates leaving Negan to die, they take him with them as they travel to Aaron's house. However, Judith hears Daryl's dog barking and runs off into the storm. Negan risks his own life to chase after Judith and save her, finding her by following the barking dog, though his leg is injured by flying debris in the process. Negan saves Judith and the dog, and carries them to shelter. The next day, a recovering Negan is visited in the infirmary by a grateful Michonne.


title: Negan

text: Following the storm, Negan is allowed some leeway and works in Alexandria as a gardener and maintenance man under guard, until Gabriel pairs him up with Aaron (Ross Marquand) to protect Alexandria from repeated walker attacks. After being attacked by Walkers while on patrol, Aaron is temporarily blinded and struggles his way to a cabin, where he finds Negan, who helps him. The two then return to Alexandria. While defending Lydia (Cassady McClincy) from an attack by a group of thieves called the Highwaymen, Negan kills one of their number, Margo (Jerri Tubbs), in self-defense and faces possible execution. He escapes, aided by Brandon (Blaine Kern III), the son of a former Savior who is a fan of his. After Negan attempts to get a woman and her son to safety at the Hilltop, Brandon kills them both to impress him. Enraged, Negan beats him to death.


title: Negan

text: Apparently reverting to his old ways and armed with a new Lucille created by Brandon, Negan joins the Whisperers, a rival faction bent on destroying the other communities, and becomes the right hand and lover of their leader, Alpha (Samantha Morton). Negan aids in the attack on Hilltop, having the Whisperers block the roads so that the Hilltop residents cannot easily escape, though Negan tries to convince Alpha to spare their lives and offer them a choice to join her. Following the attack, Negan encounters Aaron, who blames him for the death of his partner Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson) six years earlier. Negan captures Lydia and brings Alpha to what she thinks is her location, but it is revealed that Negan hid the girl elsewhere to lure Alpha into a trap; he then slits Alpha's throat, killing her. Negan subsequently is accepted by Daryl as a tentative ally of the communities following learning of his assassination of Alpha on Carol's orders. When the final battle comes, Negan at first refuses to take any part despite his greater experience in walking amongst the dead, knowing that Beta and the other Whisperers will be gunning for him and going so far as to tell Lydia that getting involved is futile and it will end badly. However, Lydia apparently changes his mind and Negan suddenly appears to distract Beta from going after Lydia, giving Daryl the distraction that he needs to finally take down Beta. After the battle, Negan tells Lydia that he intends to stay at least for the time being. However, he is dismayed to see that Maggie has returned, and begins trying to stay out of her way, knowing that she wants him dead.


title: Negan

text: In "Here's Negan," continuing tensions between Negan and Maggie provoke Carol into exiling him to a cabin in the woods. After hallucinating his younger self taunting him, Negan returns to the tree where Rick almost killed him and digs up his old baseball bat Lucille, which has been buried for years. In a series of flashbacks, Negan is depicted 12 years earlier, in the early days of the apocalypse, as a former high school gym teacher and the loving but unfaithful husband of a woman named Lucille (Hilarie Burton). After Lucille is diagnosed with cancer, Negan devotes himself to caring for her, but her chemotherapy drugs are ruined when their generator breaks. Negan searches out a group of traveling doctors for help and, six weeks later, finds a doctor named Franklin (Miles Mussenden) and his daughter Laura (Lindsley Register), who give him the drugs he needs; Laura also gives Negan a baseball bat for protection. On his way home, however, he is captured by a biker gang and forced to give up Franklin and Laura's location. Returning home, Negan discovers that Lucille has committed suicide and reanimated as a zombie. Heartbroken, he wraps Laura's bat in barbed wire from his fence and burns his house down with Lucille inside. Returning to the bar where the bikers had held him prisoner, Negan rescues Franklin and Laura and subdues the gang's leader, Craven (Rod Rowland). Negan describes how he had lost his job after beating up a man who was rude to his wife, and tells Craven that, in this new world, he no longer needs to rein in his dark side; he then beats Craven to death with the bat which he has named Lucille.


title: Negan

text: In the present, Negan kills a walker with Lucille, but the old bat finally breaks from the blow combined with its brittle condition and the abuse that Negan has put it through. Returning to the cabin, Negan says a final goodbye to Lucille, coming to terms with and apologizing for his mistakes. After burning Lucille in the fireplace, Negan returns to Alexandria to live full time, despite Carol's warnings that Maggie will kill him if he stays. As Negan reenters Alexandria, he smirks at a glaring Maggie.


title: Negan

text: In season 11, taking place shortly after "Here's Negan," Negan joins a mission to reclaim Maggie's old village Meridian from the Reapers, the antagonistic group that had taken it and wiped out most of Maggie's people. Maggie takes Negan along ostensibly because of his knowledge of the Washington, D.C. area that they are going to be passing through, but Negan suspects that Maggie intends to take the chance to kill him. After Maggie threatens him, Negan chooses to let her fall from a train car into a horde of walkers. When Maggie survives the fall, Negan defends his actions as him simply choosing not to save Maggie in order to protect himself.


title: Negan

text: Following an ambush by the Reapers, most of the team is either killed or separated. During a brief skirmish, Maggie and Negan work together to kill one of the Reapers, but they are subsequently forced to leave behind a severely injured Alden (Callan McAuliffe) in order to continue their mission. Left alone, Maggie and Negan are forced to rely on each other and often clash, but they prove to be a good team. They eventually reunite with Gabriel and Maggie's friend Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) and come up with a new plan to lead a massive horde to attack Meridian and take out the Reapers. In exchange for Maggie letting go of her revenge against him, Negan agrees to train Maggie in how to be a Whisperer. Maggie later privately admits to Elijah that she does not know if she can keep her word to Negan, but she hopes that she can. During this time, Negan has a frank conversation with Maggie about Glenn's death, pointing out that Rick and the others had struck first and massacred some of his people, which he says forced him to respond in kind. Negan admits that if he could do it all over again, he would have killed everyone in Rick's group, as it would have saved the lives of many of his people.


title: Negan

text: After gathering a massive horde and preparing Whisperer masks, the group marches on Meridian, where they are aided by Daryl, who has infiltrated the Reapers' ranks. However, the assault goes awry when Leah Shaw (Lynn Collins) kills the Reaper leader Pope (Ritchie Coster) and orders a rocket barrage into the courtyard where Maggie, Negan, Daryl, Elijah and the walkers are located. Negan ultimately helps Maggie's group defeat Pope, but then goes off on his own upon realizing that Maggie will never let go of her hatred of him.


title: Negan

text: Six months later, Negan meets and marries a woman named Annie (Medina Senghore), and she gets pregnant with his child. The two of them join the Commonwealth community, which puts Negan back in contact with Maggie and Daryl's groups. They reluctantly join forces with him to defeat the Commonwealth's corrupt Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robins). He saves Maggie's son Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller) from being killed by Milton's guards, but the boy condemns him for killing his father and pulls a gun on him, relenting only when Negan admits what he did and apologizes. Maggie sees that having a family has changed Negan for the better, and slowly begins to trust him.


title: Negan

text: Negan and Daryl infiltrate the Commonwealth while wearing Negan's old Whisperer masks. Negan is captured and interrogated by Michael Mercer (Michael James Shaw), the head of Commonwealth's security force. When Milton's narcissistic son Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson) goes on the run after being caught stealing from tax money, Negan and Carol save him from being killed by angry Commonwealth residents and bring him to his mother. Nevertheless, Milton does nothing to help Negan when her treacherous right-hand man Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) imprisons him, Annie, and Ezekiel in Commonwealth's labor camp.


title: Negan

text: The camp's sadistic warden (Michael Weaver) singles Negan out for his harshest abuse, determined to break him and use him to keep the other prisoners in line, but Negan remains defiant and makes an uneasy alliance with Ezekiel to plan an escape. The warden foils the escape attempt, however, and lines up Negan, Ezekiel, and Annie to be executed via firing squad. At the last moment, Negan and Ezekiel manage to convince the soldiers not to let the warden turn them into murderers, and they turn on their hated boss. Maggie, Gabriel, and Rosita then arrive to free them.


title: Negan

text: In the series finale, "Rest in Peace," Negan joins the coalition of soldiers and freed prisoners to fight Milton as a herd of walkers head toward the Commonwealth. He and Maggie act as snipers, picking off walkers that get too close to the community's main gates, which Milton has sealed off to protect her own home while leaving thousands of residents to die as the walkers swarm in. After Mercer overthrows and arrests Milton, she attempts to feed herself to a zombiefied Hornsby, but Negan and Maggie save her life after deciding that, for Milton, life in prison would be a far worse punishment than death.


title: Negan

text: After the horde is destroyed, Negan has a final talk with Maggie. He expresses remorse for killing Glenn and says that, after nearly losing his wife and unborn child, he finally understands what he did to her. Maggie replies that she will never forgive him, but she will try to move on past her anger for her own sake and that of her son. Negan accepts her decision, and he and Annie leave the Commwealth together to begin a new life.


title: Negan

text: Negan appears as a playable guest character in the fighting video game "Tekken 7", added as the sixth and final part of the second season pass on February 28, 2019, with his appearance based on his television counterpart; Jeffrey Dean Morgan reprised his role. Negan also appeared as a playable character in "Brawlhalla". In March 2022, AMC announced that Negan and Maggie (another TWD protagonist), will be in a spin-off called . Both roles will be played by the same actors from the original series.


title: Negan

text: The character of Negan has been praised by both fans and critics as an antagonist of the series. IGN on their review of Negan's first appearance, the 100th issue said: "The new villain already looks to be worthy addition to the book's cast. I didn't realize how much I missed having a truly awful antagonist like The Governor in this series until now. The villain's voice is very distinct, allowing Kirkman to toy with a very different approach to dialogue. For a series where the characters sometimes ramble on too much without making a clear point, this character is very much appreciated." On their review for Issue #103, IGN felt Negan was "quickly giving the Governor a run for his money in the villainy department". When Negan's community was explored as well as his relationship with Carl Grimes, it was said that "There's a palpable tension as we wonder what fate Negan has in mind for his young enemy. But even at his most sinister, Negan remains strangely charismatic. It's not difficult to understand how he managed to build such a lofty position for himself, complete with multiple wives and the total devotion of an entire town." Noel Murray of "Rolling Stone" ranked Negan 10th in a list of 30 best "Walking Dead" characters, saying, "it would've been hard for any villain to live up to the hype, but thanks to Jeffrey Dean Morgan's grinning, relaxed performance and some genuinely shocking acts of violence, Negan has been firmly established as a formidable enemy. The alarming ease of his cruelty and the rigors of his organization represent a worldview that's been both fascinating and frightening to explore." Negan was ranked third on TV Fanatic's list of "21 Sexy TV Characters Deserving of a Beach Day." The Telegraph finds Negan as "fancy".


title: Negan

text: During seasons 7 and 8, Negan was also lambasted by some critics as a "complete idiot," "at the center of all the show's problems," and "ridiculous."


title: Negan

text: The confrontation between Negan and Rick Grimes has been compared to the enduring rivalry between DC Comics characters Joker and Batman. Fans were shocked and disturbed by Negan and Alpha's sex scene in episode 10 of "The Walking Dead". Angela Kang of "The Hollywood Reporter" has stated that "We always felt like we needed some of the story of Alpha, Negan and their strange relationship."


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf (, ), sometimes called the (), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. It is connected to the Gulf of Oman in the east by the Strait of Hormuz. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf has many fishing grounds, extensive reefs (mostly rocky, but also coral), and abundant pearl oysters, but its ecology has been damaged by industrialization and oil spills.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf is in the Persian Gulf Basin, which is of Cenozoic origin and related to the subduction of the Arabian Plate under the Zagros Mountains. The current flooding of the basin started 15,000 years ago due to rising sea levels of the Holocene glacial retreat.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The International Hydrographic Organization defines the Persian Gulf's southern limit as "The Northwestern limit of Gulf of Oman". This limit is defined as "A line joining Ràs Limah (25°57'N) on the coast of Arabia and Ràs al Kuh (25°48'N) on the coast of Iran (Persia)".


title: Persian Gulf

text: This inland sea of some is connected to the Gulf of Oman in the east by the Strait of Hormuz; and its western end is marked by the major river delta of the Shatt al-Arab, which carries the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris. In Iran, this is called "Arvand Rood", where "Rood" means "river". Its length is , with Iran covering most of the northern coast and Saudi Arabia most of the southern coast. The Persian Gulf is about wide at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. Overall, the waters are very shallow, with a maximum depth of and an average depth of .


title: Persian Gulf

text: Countries with a coastline on the Persian Gulf are (clockwise, from north): Iran; Oman's Musandam exclave; the United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia; Qatar, on a peninsula off the Saudi coast; Bahrain, an island nation; Kuwait; and Iraq in the northwest. Various small islands also lie within the Persian Gulf, some of which are the subject of territorial disputes between the states in the region.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf is home to many islands such as Bahrain, an Arab state. Geographically, the biggest island in the Persian Gulf is Qeshm island, belonging to Iran and located in the Strait of Hormuz. Other significant islands in the Persian Gulf include Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Kish administered by Iran, Bubiyan administered by Kuwait, Tarout administered by Saudi Arabia, and Dalma administered by UAE. In recent years, there has also been the addition of artificial islands for tourist attractions, such as The World Islands in Dubai and The Pearl-Qatar in Doha. Persian Gulf islands are often also historically significant, having been used in the past by colonial powers such as the Portuguese and the British in their trade or as acquisitions for their empires.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf is connected to the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Hormuz. Writing the water balance budget for the Persian Gulf, the inputs are river discharges from Iran and Iraq (estimated to be per second), as well as precipitation over the sea which is around /year in Qeshm Island. The evaporation of the sea is high, so that after considering river discharge and rain contributions, there is still a deficit of per year. This difference is supplied by currents at the Strait of Hormuz. The water from the Persian Gulf has a higher salinity, and therefore exits from the bottom of the Strait, while ocean water with less salinity flows in through the top. Another study revealed the following numbers for water exchanges for the Persian Gulf: evaporation = –/year, precipitation = /year, inflow from the Strait = /year, outflow from the Strait = -/year, and the balance is 0 m (0 ft)/year. Data from different 3D computational fluid mechanics models, typically with spatial resolution of and depth each element equal to are predominantly used in computer models.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Before being given its present name, the Persian Gulf was called many different names. In Babylonian texts, it was known as "the sea above Akkad." The Assyrians called it the "Bitter Sea".


title: Persian Gulf

text: In 550 BC, the Achaemenid Empire established the first ancient empire in Persis ("Pars", or modern "Fars"), in the southwestern region of the Iranian plateau. Consequently, in the Greek sources, the body of water that bordered this province came to be known as the "Persian Gulf". In the book of Nearchus known as "Indikê" (300 BC), the word "Persikon kolpos" is mentioned for multiple times meaning "Persian gulf".


title: Persian Gulf

text: During the years 550 to 330 BC, coinciding with the sovereignty of the Achaemenid Persian Empire over the Middle East area, especially the whole part of the Persian Gulf and some parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the name of "Persian ("Pars") Sea" is widely found in the compiled written texts.


title: Persian Gulf

text: At the same period, there is the inscription and engraving of Darius the Great, which belongs to the fifth century BC: King Darius says:


title: Persian Gulf

text: Considering the historical background of the name Persian Gulf, Arnold Wilson mentions in a book published in 1928 that "no water channel has been so significant as the Persian Gulf to the geologists, archaeologists, geographers, merchants, politicians, excursionists, and scholars whether in past or in present. This water channel which separates the Iran Plateau from the Arabia Plate, has enjoyed an Iranian Identity since at least 2200 years ago."


title: Persian Gulf

text: Among historians, travellers and geographers of the Islamic era, many of them writing in Arabic from the 9th to the 17th century, Ibn Khordadbeh, Ibn al-Faqih, Ibn Rustah, Sohrab, Ramhormozi, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al Istakhri, Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi, Al-Mutahhar ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi (d. 966), Ibn Hawqal, Al-Muqaddasi, Ibn Khaldun, Mohammad ibn Najub Bekiran, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Muhammad al-Idrisi, Yaqut al-Hamawi, Zakariya al-Qazwini, Abu'l-Fida, Al-Dimashqi, Hamdollah Mostowfi, Ibn al-Wardi, Al-Nuwayri, Ibn Batutta, Katip Çelebi and other sources have used the terms "Bahr-i-Fars", "Daryaye-i-Fars", "Khalij al-'Ajami" and "Khalij-i Fars" (all of which translate into "Persian Gulf" or "Persian Sea").


title: Persian Gulf

text: The body of water is historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf. Arab governments refer to it as the Arabian Gulf or The Gulf, and other countries and organizations have begun using Arabian Gulf. The name Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf) is used by the International Hydrographic Organization.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The dispute in naming has become especially prevalent since the 1960s. Rivalry between Iran and some Arab states, along with the emergence of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism, has seen the name "Arabian Gulf" become predominant in most Arab countries. Names beyond these two have also been applied to or proposed for this body of water.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Earliest evidence of human presence on Persian Gulf islands dates back to Middle Paleolithic and consist of stone tools discovered at Qeshm Island. The world's oldest known civilization (Sumer) developed along the Persian Gulf and southern Mesopotamia. The shallow basin that now underlies the Persian Gulf was an extensive region of river valley and wetlands during the transition between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the start of the Holocene, which, according to University of Birmingham archaeologist Jeffrey Rose, served as an environmental refuge for early humans during periodic hyperarid climate oscillations, laying the foundations for the legend of Dilmun.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The oldest evidence in the world for seagoing vessels has been found at H3 in Kuwait, dating to the mid-sixth millennium BC, when the Gulf was part of an extensive trade network that involved the Ubaid settlements in Mesopotamia and communities along the entire Gulf coast.


title: Persian Gulf

text: For most of the early history of the settlements in the Persian Gulf, the southern shores were ruled by a series of nomadic tribes. During the end of the fourth millennium BC, the southern part of the Persian Gulf was dominated by the Dilmun civilization. For a long time the most important settlement on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf was Gerrha. In the second century the Lakhum tribe, who lived in what is now Yemen, migrated north and founded the Lakhmid Kingdom along the southern coast. Occasional ancient battles took place along the Persian Gulf coastlines, between the Sassanid Persian empire and the Lakhmid Kingdom, the most prominent of which was the invasion led by Shapur II against the Lakhmids, leading to Lakhmids' defeat, and advancement into Arabia, along the southern shore lines. During the seventh century the Sassanid Persian empire conquered the whole of the Persian Gulf, including southern and northern shores.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Between 625 BC and 226 AD, the northern side was dominated by a succession of Persian empires including the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. Under the leadership of the Achaemenid king Darius the Great (Darius I), Persian ships found their way to the Persian Gulf. Persian naval forces laid the foundation for a strong Persian maritime presence in Persian Gulf, that started with Darius I and existed until the arrival of the British East India Company, and the Royal Navy by mid-19th century AD. Persians were not only stationed on islands of the Persian Gulf, but also had ships often of 100 to 200 capacity patrolling empire's various rivers including Shatt-al-Arab, Tigris, and the Nile in the west, as well as Sind waterway, in India.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Achaemenid high naval command had established major naval bases located along Shatt al-Arab river, Bahrain, Oman, and Yemen. The Persian fleet would soon not only be used for peacekeeping purposes along the Shatt al-Arab but would also open the door to trade with India via Persian Gulf.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Following the fall of Achaemenid Empire, and after the fall of the Parthian Empire, the Sassanid Empire ruled the northern half and at times the southern half of the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf, along with the Silk Road, were important trade routes in the Sassanid Empire. Many of the trading ports of the Persian empires were located in or around Persian Gulf. Siraf, an ancient Sassanid port that was located on the northern shore of the Persian gulf, located in what is now the Iranian province of Bushehr, is an example of such commercial port. Siraf, was also significant in that it had a flourishing commercial trade with China by the fourth century, having first established connection with the far east in 185 AD.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Portuguese influence in the Persian Gulf lasted for 250 years; however, since the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese dominance contended with the local powers and the Ottoman Empire. Following the arrival of the English and the Dutch, the Safavid Empire allied with the newcomers to contest Portuguese dominance of the seas in the 17th century.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean in the early 16th century following Vasco da Gama's voyages of exploration saw them battle the Ottomans up the coast of the Persian Gulf. In 1521, a Portuguese force led by commander Antonio Correia invaded Bahrain to take control of the wealth created by its pearl industry. On April 29, 1602, Shāh Abbās, the Persian emperor of the Safavid Persian Empire, expelled the Portuguese from Bahrain, and that date is commemorated as National Persian Gulf day in Iran. With the support of the British fleet, in 1622 'Abbās took the island of Hormuz from the Portuguese; much of the trade was diverted to the town of Bandar 'Abbās, which he had taken from the Portuguese in 1615 and had named after himself. The Persian Gulf was therefore opened to a flourishing commerce with the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish and the British merchants, who were granted particular privileges. The Ottoman Empire reasserted itself into Eastern Arabia in 1871. Under military and political pressure from the governor of the Ottoman Vilayet of Baghdad, Midhat Pasha, the ruling Al Thani tribe submitted peacefully to Ottoman rule. The Ottomans were forced to withdraw from the area with the start of World War I and the need for troops in various other frontiers. In World War II, the Western Allies used Iran as a conduit to transport military and industrial supply to the USSR, through a pathway known historically as the "Persian Corridor". Britain utilized the Persian Gulf as the entry point for the supply chain in order to make use of the Trans-Iranian Railway. The Persian Gulf therefore became a critical maritime path through which the Allies transported equipment to Soviet Union against the Nazi invasion. The piracy in the Persian Gulf was prevalent until the 19th century. Many of the most notable historical instances of piracy were perpetrated by the Al Qasimi tribe. This led to the British mounting the Persian Gulf campaign of 1819. The campaign led to the signing of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820 between the British and the Sheikhs of what was then known as the 'Pirate Coast'.


title: Persian Gulf

text: From 1763 until 1971, the British Empire maintained varying degrees of political control over some of the Persian Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates (originally called the Trucial States) and at various times Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar through the British Residency of the Persian Gulf.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf was a battlefield of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers. It is the namesake of the 1991 Gulf War, the largely air- and land-based conflict that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The United States' role in the Persian Gulf grew in the second half of the Twentieth Century. On July 3, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the U.S. military (which had mistaken the Airbus A300 operating the flight for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat) while it was flying over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people on board. The United Kingdom maintains a profile in the region; in 2006 alone, over 1 million British nationals visited Dubai. In 2018, the UK opened a permanent military base, , in the Persian Gulf, the first since it withdrew from East of Suez in 1971 and is developing a support facility in Oman.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Eight nations have coasts along the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The Persian gulf's strategic location has made it an ideal place for human development over time. Today, many major cities of the Middle East are located in this region.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The wildlife of the Persian Gulf is diverse, and entirely unique because of the Persian Gulf's geographic distribution and its isolation from the international waters only breached by the narrow Strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf has hosted some of the most magnificent marine fauna and flora, some of which are near extirpation or at serious environmental risk. From corals, to dugongs, Persian Gulf is a diverse cradle for many species who depend on each other for survival. However, the Persian Gulf is not as biologically diverse as the Red Sea.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Overall, the wild life of the Persian Gulf is endangered from both global factors, and regional, local negligence. Most pollution is from ships; land generated pollution counts as the second most common source of pollution.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Along the mediterranean regions of the Arabian Sea, including the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Kutch, the Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gulf of Aden, and the Gulf of Oman, dolphins and finless porpoises are the most common marine mammals in the waters, while larger whales and orcas are rarer today. Historically, whales had been abundant in the Persian gulf before commercial hunts wiped them out. Whales were reduced even further by illegal mass hunts by the Soviet Union and Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. Along with Bryde's whales, these once common residents can still can be seen in deeper marginal seas such as Gulf of Aden, Israel coasts, and in the Strait of Hormuz. Other species such as the critically endangered Arabian humpback whale, (also historically common in Gulf of Aden and increasingly sighted in the Red Sea since 2006, including in the Gulf of Aqaba), omura's whale, minke whale, and orca also swim into the Persian gulf, while many other large species such as blue whale, sei, and sperm whales were once migrants into the Gulf of Oman and off the coasts in deeper waters, and still migrate into the Red Sea, but mainly in deeper waters of outer seas. In 2017, waters of the Persian Gulf along Abu Dhabi were revealed to hold the world's largest population of Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins.


title: Persian Gulf

text: One of the more unusual marine mammals living in the Persian Gulf is the dugong ("Dugong dugon"). Also called "sea cows", for their grazing habits and mild manner resembling livestock, dugongs have a life expectancy similar to that of humans and they can grow up to in length. These gentle mammals feed on sea grass and are closer relatives of certain land mammals than are dolphins and whales. Their simple grass diet is negatively affected by new developments along the Persian Gulf coastline, particularly the construction of artificial islands by Arab states and pollution from oil spills caused during the "Persian Gulf war" and various other natural and artificial causes. Uncontrolled hunting has also had a negative impact on the survival of dugongs. After Australian waters, which are estimated to contain some 80,000 dugong inhabitants, the waters off Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia make the Persian Gulf the second most important habitat for the species, hosting some 7,500 remaining dugongs. However, the current number of dugongs is dwindling and it is not clear how many are currently alive or what their reproductive trend is. Unfortunately, ambitious and uncalculated construction schemes, political unrest, ever-present international conflict, the most lucrative world supply of oil, and the lack of cooperation between Arab states and Iran, have had a negative impact on the survival of many marine species, including dugongs.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf is also home to many migratory and local birds. There is great variation in color, size, and type of the bird species that call the Persian gulf home. Concerns regarding the endangerment of the "kalbaensis" subspecies of the collared kingfishers were raised by conservationists over real estate development by the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Estimates from 2006 showed that only three viable nesting sites were available for this ancient bird, one located from Dubai, and two smaller sites in Oman. Such real estate expansion could prove devastating to this subspecies. A UN plan to protect the mangroves as a biological reserve was ignored by the emirate of Sharjah, which allowed the dredging of a channel that bisects the wetland and construction of an adjacent concrete walkway. Environmental watchdogs in Arabia are few, and those that do advocate the wildlife are often silenced or ignored by developers of real estate many of whom have governmental connections.


title: Persian Gulf

text: Real estate development in the Persian Gulf by the United Arab Emirates and Oman also raised concerns that habitats of species such as the hawksbill turtle, greater flamingo, and booted warbler may be destroyed. The dolphins that frequent the Persian gulf in northern waters around Iran are also at risk. Recent statistics and observations show that dolphins are at danger of entrapment in purse seine fishing nets and exposure to chemical pollutants; perhaps the most alarming sign is the "mass suicides" committed by dolphins off Iran's Hormozgan province, which are not well understood, but are suspected to be linked with a deteriorating marine environment from water pollution from oil, sewage, and industrial run offs.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf is home to over 700 species of fish, most of which are native. Of these 700 species, more than 80% are reef associated. These reefs are primarily rocky, but there are also a few coral reefs. Compared to the Red Sea, the coral reefs in the Persian Gulf are relatively few and far between. This is primarily connected to the influx of major rivers, especially the Shatt al-Arab (Euphrates and Tigris), which carry large amounts of sediment (most reef-building corals require strong light) and causes relatively large variations in temperature and salinity (corals in general are poorly suited to large variations). Nevertheless, coral reefs have been found along sections of coast of all countries in the Persian gulf. Corals are vital ecosystems that support multitude of marine species, and whose health directly reflects the health of the Persian gulf. Recent years have seen a drastic decline in the coral population in the Persian gulf, partially owing to global warming but mostly to irresponsible dumping by Arab states like the UAE and Bahrain. Construction garbage such as tires, cement, and chemical by products have found their way to the Persian Gulf in recent years. Aside from direct damage to the coral, the construction waste creates "traps" for marine life in which they are trapped and die. The result has been a dwindling population of the coral, and as a result a decrease in number of species that rely on the corals for their survival.


title: Persian Gulf

text: A great example of this symbiosis are the mangroves in the Persian gulf, which require tidal flow and a combination of fresh and salt water for growth, and act as nurseries for many crabs, small fish, and insects; these fish and insects are the source of food for many of the marine birds that feed on them. Mangroves are a diverse group of shrubs and trees belonging to the genus "Avicennia" or "Rhizophora" that flourish in the salt water shallows of the Persian gulf, and are the most important habitats for small crustaceans that dwell in them. They are as crucial an indicator of biological health on the surface of the water, as the corals are to biological health of the Persian gulf in deeper waters. Mangroves' ability to survive the salt water through intricate molecular mechanisms, their unique reproductive cycle, and their ability to grow in the most oxygen-deprived waters have allowed them extensive growth in hostile areas of the Persian gulf. However, with the advent of artificial island development, most of their habitat is destroyed, or occupied by man-made structures. This has had a negative impact on the crustaceans that rely on the mangrove, and in turn on the species that feed on them.


title: Persian Gulf

text: The Persian Gulf and its coastal areas are the world's largest single source of petroleum, and related industries dominate the region. Safaniya Oil Field, the world's largest offshore oilfield, is located in the Persian Gulf. Large gas finds have also been made, with Qatar and Iran sharing a giant field across the territorial median line (North Field in the Qatari sector; South Pars Field in the Iranian sector). Using this gas, Qatar has built up a substantial liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petrochemical industry.


title: Persian Gulf

text: In 2002, the Persian Gulf nations of Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE produced about 25% of the world's oil, held nearly two-thirds of the world's crude oil reserves, and about 35% of the world's natural gas reserves. The oil-rich countries (excluding Iraq) that have a coastline on the Persian Gulf are referred to as the "Persian Gulf States". Iraq's egress to the Persian gulf is narrow and easily blockaded consisting of the marshy river delta of the Shatt al-Arab, which carries the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, where the east bank is held by Iran.


title: Self-driving car

text: A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input. Self-driving cars use sensors to perceive their surroundings, such as optical and thermographic cameras, radar, lidar, ultrasound/sonar, GPS, odometry and inertial measurement units. Control systems interpret sensory information to create a three-dimensional model of the surroundings. Based on the model, the car identifies appropriate navigation paths, and strategies for managing traffic controls (stop signs, etc.) and obstacles.


title: Self-driving car

text: Once the technology matures, autonomous vehicles are predicted to impact the automobile industry, health, welfare, urban planning, traffic, insurance, labor market and other fields.


title: Self-driving car

text: Autonomy in vehicles is often divided into six levels, according to a system developed by SAE International (SAE J3016). The SAE levels can be roughly understood as Level 0 – no automation; Level 1 – hands on/shared control; Level 2 – hands off; Level 3 – eyes off; Level 4 – mind off, and Level 5 – steering wheel optional.


title: Self-driving car

text: , vehicles operating at Level 3 and above were an insignificant market factor. In December 2020, Waymo became the first service provider to offer driver-less taxi rides to the general public, in a part of Phoenix, Arizona. In March 2021, Honda was the first manufacturer to sell a legally approved Level 3 car. Nuro began autonomous commercial delivery operations in California in 2021. In December 2021, Mercedes-Benz received approval for a Level 3 car. In February 2022, Cruise became the second service provider to offer driver-less taxi rides to the general public, in San Francisco.


title: Self-driving car

text: , several manufacturers had scaled back plans for self-driving technology, including Ford and Volkswagen.


title: Self-driving car

text: Experiments have been conducted on automated driving systems (ADS) since at least the 1920s; trials began in the 1950s. The first semi-automated car was developed in 1977, by Japan's Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, which required specially marked streets that were interpreted by two cameras on the vehicle and an analog computer. The vehicle reached speeds up to with the support of an elevated rail.


title: Self-driving car

text: A landmark autonomous car appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab and ALV projects funded by the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) starting in 1984 and Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University Munich's EUREKA Prometheus Project in 1987. By 1985, the ALV had demonstrated self-driving speeds on two-lane roads of , with obstacle avoidance added in 1986, and off-road driving in day and night time conditions by 1987. A major milestone was achieved in 1995, with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab 5 completing the first autonomous coast-to-coast drive of the United States. Of the between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and San Diego, California, were autonomous (98.2%), completed with an average speed of . From the 1960s through the second DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005, automated vehicle research in the United States was primarily funded by DARPA, the US Army, and the US Navy, yielding incremental advances in speeds, driving competence in more complex conditions, controls, and sensor systems. Companies and research organizations have developed prototypes.


title: Self-driving car

text: The US allocated US$650 million in 1991 for research on the National Automated Highway System, which demonstrated automated driving through a combination of automation embedded in the highway with automated technology in vehicles, and cooperative networking between the vehicles and with the highway infrastructure. The programme concluded with a successful demonstration in 1997 but without clear direction or funding to implement the system on a larger scale. Partly funded by the National Automated Highway System and DARPA, the Carnegie Mellon University Navlab drove across America in 1995, or 98% of it autonomously. Navlab's record achievement stood unmatched for two decades until 2015, when Delphi improved it by piloting an Audi, augmented with Delphi technology, over through 15 states while remaining in self-driving mode 99% of the time. In 2015, the US states of Nevada, Florida, California, Virginia, and Michigan, together with Washington, DC, allowed the testing of automated cars on public roads.


title: Self-driving car

text: From 2016 to 2018, the European Commission funded an innovation strategy development for connected and automated driving through the Coordination Actions CARTRE and SCOUT. Moreover, the Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda (STRIA) Roadmap for Connected and Automated Transport was published in 2019.


title: Self-driving car

text: In November 2017, Waymo announced that it had begun testing driver-less cars without a safety driver in the driver position; however, there was still an employee in the car. An October 2017 report by the Brookings Institution found that the $80 billion had been reported as invested in all facets of self driving technology up to that point, but that it was "reasonable to presume that total global investment in autonomous vehicle technology is significantly more than this".


title: Self-driving car

text: In October 2018, Waymo announced that its test vehicles had traveled in automated mode for over , increasing by about per month. In December 2018, Waymo was the first to commercialize a fully autonomous taxi service in the US, in Phoenix, Arizona. In October 2020, Waymo launched a geo-fenced driver-less ride hailing service in Phoenix. The cars are being monitored in real-time by a team of remote engineers, and there are cases where the remote engineers need to intervene.


title: Self-driving car

text: In March 2019, ahead of the autonomous racing series Roborace, Robocar set the Guinness World Record for being the fastest autonomous car in the world. In pushing the limits of self-driving vehicles, Robocar reached 282.42 km/h (175.49 mph) – an average confirmed by the UK Timing Association at Elvington in Yorkshire, UK.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2020, a National Transportation Safety Board chairman stated that no self-driving cars (SAE level 3+) were available for consumers to purchase in the US in 2020:


title: Self-driving car

text: On 5 March 2021, Honda began leasing in Japan a limited edition of 100 Legend Hybrid EX sedans equipped with the newly approved Level 3 automated driving equipment which had been granted the safety certification by Japanese government to their autonomous "Traffic Jam Pilot" driving technology, and legally allow drivers to take their eyes off the road.


title: Self-driving car

text: There is some inconsistency in the terminology used in the self-driving car industry. Various organizations have proposed to define an accurate and consistent vocabulary.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2014, such confusion has been documented in SAE J3016 which states that "some vernacular usages associate autonomous specifically with full driving automation (Level 5), while other usages apply it to all levels of driving automation, and some state legislation has defined it to correspond approximately to any ADS [automated driving system] at or above Level 3 (or to any vehicle equipped with such an ADS)."


title: Self-driving car

text: Modern vehicles provide features such as keeping the car within its lane, speed controls, or emergency braking. Those features alone are just considered as driver assistance technologies because they still require a human driver control while fully automated vehicles drive themselves without human driver input.


title: Self-driving car

text: According to Fortune, some newer vehicles' technology names—such as AutonoDrive, PilotAssist, Full-Self Driving or DrivePilot—might confuse the driver, who may believe no driver input is expected when in fact the driver needs to remain involved in the driving task. According to the BBC, confusion between those concepts leads to deaths.


title: Self-driving car

text: For this reason, some organizations such as the AAA try to provide standardized naming conventions for features such as ALKS which aim to have capacity to manage the driving task, but which are not yet approved to be an automated vehicles in any countries. The Association of British Insurers considers the usage of the word "autonomous" in marketing for modern cars to be dangerous because car ads make motorists think "autonomous" and "autopilot" mean a vehicle can drive itself when they still rely on the driver to ensure safety. Technology able to drive a car is still in its beta stage.


title: Self-driving car

text: Some car makers suggest or claim vehicles are "self-driving" when they are not able to manage some driving situations. Despite being called Full Self-Driving, Tesla stated that its offering should not be considered as a fully autonomous driving system. This makes drivers risk becoming excessively confident, taking distracted driving behavior, leading to crashes. While in Great-Britain, a fully self-driving car is only a car registered in a specific list. There have also been proposals to adopt the aviation automation safety knowledge into the discussions of safe implementation of autonomous vehicles, due to the experience that has been gained over the decades by the aviation sector on safety topics.


title: Self-driving car

text: According to the SMMT, "There are two clear states – a vehicle is either assisted with a driver being supported by technology or automated where the technology is effectively and safely replacing the driver."


title: Self-driving car

text: "Autonomous" means self-governing. Many historical projects related to vehicle automation have been "automated" (made automatic) subject to a heavy reliance on artificial aids in their environment, such as magnetic strips. Autonomous control implies satisfactory performance under significant uncertainties in the environment, and the ability to compensate for system failures without external intervention.


title: Self-driving car

text: One approach is to implement communication networks both in the immediate vicinity (for collision avoidance) and farther away (for congestion management). Such outside influences in the decision process reduce an individual vehicle's autonomy, while still not requiring human intervention.


title: Self-driving car

text: , most commercial projects focused on automated vehicles that did not communicate with other vehicles or with an enveloping management regime. Euro NCAP defines autonomous in "Autonomous Emergency Braking" as: "the system acts independently of the driver to avoid or mitigate the accident", which implies the autonomous system is not the driver.


title: Self-driving car

text: In Europe, the words "automated" and "autonomous" might be used together. For instance, Regulation (EU) 2019/2144 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on type-approval requirements for motor vehicles (...) defines "automated vehicle" and "fully automated vehicle" based on their autonomous capacity:


title: Self-driving car

text: In British English, the word automated alone might have several meaning, such in the sentence: "Thatcham also found that the "automated" lane keeping systems could only meet two out of the twelve principles required to guarantee safety, going on to say they cannot, therefore, be classed as "'automated" driving', instead it claims the tech should be classed as "assisted driving".": The first occurrence of the "automated" word refers to an Unece automated system, while the second occurrence refers to the British legal definition of an automated vehicle. The British law interprets the meaning of "automated vehicle" based on the interpretation section related to a vehicle "driving itself" and an "insured vehicle".


title: Self-driving car

text: To enable a car to travel without any driver embedded within the vehicle, some companies use a remote driver.


title: Self-driving car

text: "PC Magazine" defines a self-driving car as "a computer-controlled car that drives itself". The Union of Concerned Scientists states that self-driving cars are "cars or trucks in which human drivers are never required to take control to safely operate the vehicle. Also known as autonomous or "driver-less" cars, they combine sensors and software to control, navigate, and drive the vehicle."


title: Self-driving car

text: The British Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 law defines a vehicle as "driving itself" if the vehicle "is operating in a mode in which it is not being controlled, and does not need to be monitored, by an individual".


title: Self-driving car

text: Another British definition assumes: "Self-driving vehicles are vehicles that can safely and lawfully drive themselves."


title: Self-driving car

text: A classification system with six levels – ranging from fully manual to fully automated systems – was published in 2014 by standardization body SAE International as J3016, "Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to On-Road Motor Vehicle Automated Driving Systems"; the details are revised periodically. This classification is based on the amount of driver intervention and attentiveness required, rather than the vehicle's capabilities, although these are loosely related. In the United States in 2013, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had released its original formal classification system. After SAE updated its classification in 2016, called J3016_201609, NHTSA adopted the SAE standard, and SAE classification became widely accepted.


title: Self-driving car

text: In SAE's automation level definitions, "driving mode" means "a type of driving scenario with characteristic dynamic driving task requirements (e.g., expressway merging, high speed cruising, low speed traffic jam, closed-campus operations, etc.)"


title: Self-driving car

text: In the formal SAE definition below, an important transition is from SAE Level 2 to SAE Level 3 in which the human driver is no longer expected to monitor the environment continuously. At SAE 3, the human driver still has responsibility to intervene when asked to do so by the automated system. At SAE 4 the human driver is always relieved of that responsibility and at SAE 5 the automated system will never need to ask for an intervention.


title: Self-driving car

text: The SAE Automation Levels have been criticized for their technological focus. It has been argued that the structure of the levels suggests that automation increases linearly and that more automation is better, which may not always be the case. The SAE Levels also do not account for changes that may be required to infrastructure and road user behavior.


title: Self-driving car

text: Several classifications have been proposed to deal with the broad range of technological discussions pertaining to self-driving cars. One such proposal is to classify based on the following categories; car navigation, path planning, environment perception and car control. In the 2020s, it became apparent that these technologies are far more complex than initially thought. Even video games have been used as a platform to test autonomous vehicles.


title: Self-driving car

text: Hybrid navigation is the simultaneous use of more than one navigation system for location data determination, needed for navigation.


title: Self-driving car

text: Modern self-driving cars generally use Bayesian simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms,


title: Self-driving car

text: which fuse data from multiple sensors and an off-line map into current location estimates and map updates.


title: Self-driving car

text: Waymo has developed a variant of SLAM with detection and tracking of other moving objects (DATMO), which also handles obstacles such as cars and pedestrians. Simpler systems may use roadside real-time locating system (RTLS) technologies to aid localization.


title: Self-driving car

text: Self-driving cars require a new class of high-definition maps (HD maps) that represent the world at up to two orders of magnitude more detail. In May 2018, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that they had built an automated car that can navigate unmapped roads. Researchers at their Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new system, called MapLite, which allows self-driving cars to drive on roads that they have never been on before, without using 3D maps. The system combines the GPS position of the vehicle, a "sparse topological map" such as OpenStreetMap (i.e. having 2D features of the roads only), and a series of sensors that observe the road conditions.


title: Self-driving car

text: Control systems on automated cars may use sensor fusion, which is an approach that integrates information from a variety of sensors on the car to produce a more consistent, accurate, and useful view of the environment. Self-driving cars tend to use a combination of cameras, LiDAR sensors, and radar sensors in order to enhance performance and ensure the safety of the passenger and other drivers on the road. An increased consistency in self-driving performance prevents accidents that may occur because of one faulty sensor.


title: Self-driving car

text: Path planning is a computational problem to find a sequence of valid configurations that moves the object from the source to destination. Self-driving cars rely on path planning technology in order to follow the rules of traffic and prevent accidents from occurring. The large scale path of the vehicle can be determined by using a voronoi diagram, an occupancy grid mapping, or with a driving corridors algorithm. A driving corridors algorithm allows the vehicle to locate and drive within open free space that is bounded by lanes or barriers. While these algorithms work in a simple situation, path planning has not been proven to be effective in a complex scenario. Two techniques used for path planning are graph-based search and variational-based optimization techniques. Graph-based techniques can make harder decisions such as how to pass another vehicle/obstacle. Variational-based optimization techniques require a higher level of planning in setting restrictions on the vehicle's driving corridor to prevent collisions.


title: Self-driving car

text: Drive by wire technology in the automotive industry is the use of electrical or electro-mechanical systems for performing vehicle functions traditionally achieved by mechanical linkages.


title: Self-driving car

text: Driver monitoring system is a vehicle safety system to assess the driver's alertness and warn the driver if needed. It is recognized in developer side that the role of the systems will increase as SAE Level 2 systems become more common-place, and becomes more challenging at Level 3 and above to predict the driver's readiness for handover.


title: Self-driving car

text: Vehicular communications is a growing area of communications between vehicles and including roadside communication infrastructure. Vehicular communication systems use vehicles and roadside units as the communicating nodes in a peer-to-peer network, providing each other with information. This connectivity enables autonomous vehicles to interact with non-autonomous traffic and pedestrians to increase safety.


title: Self-driving car

text: And autonomous vehicles will need to connect to the cloud to update their software and maps, and feedback information to improve the used maps and software of their manufacturer.


title: Self-driving car

text: Autonomous vehicles have software systems that drive the vehicle, meaning that updates through reprogramming or editing the software can enhance the benefits of the owner (e.g. update in better distinguishing blind person vs. non-blind person so that the vehicle will take extra caution when approaching a blind person). A characteristic of this re-programmable part of autonomous vehicles is that the updates need not only to come from the supplier, because through machine learning, smart autonomous vehicles can generate certain updates and install them accordingly (e.g. new navigation maps or new intersection computer systems). These reprogrammable characteristics of the digital technology and the possibility of smart machine learning give manufacturers of autonomous vehicles the opportunity to differentiate themselves on software.


title: Self-driving car

text: In March 2021, UNECE regulation on software update and software update management system was published.


title: Self-driving car

text: Autonomous vehicles are more modular since they are made up out of several modules which will be explained hereafter through a Layered Modular Architecture. The Layered Modular Architecture extends the architecture of purely physical vehicles by incorporating four loosely coupled layers of devices, networks, services and contents into Autonomous Vehicles. These loosely coupled layers can interact through certain standardized interfaces.


title: Self-driving car

text: In order for autonomous vehicles to perceive their surroundings, they have to use different techniques each with their own accompanying digital information (e.g. radar, GPS, motion sensors and computer vision). Homogenization requires that the digital information from these different sources is transmitted and stored in the same form. This means their differences are decoupled, and digital information can be transmitted, stored, and computed in a way that the vehicles and their operating system can better understand and act upon it.


title: Self-driving car

text: In international standardization field, ISO/TC 22 is in charge of in-vehicle transport information and control systems, and ISO/TC 204 is in charge of information, communication and control systems in the field of urban and rural surface transportation. International standards have been actively developed in the domains of AD/ADAS functions, connectivity, human interaction, in-vehicle systems, management/engineering, dynamic map and positioning, privacy and security.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2017, Mobileye published a mathematical model for automated vehicle safety which is called "Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS)".


title: Self-driving car

text: It is under standardization at IEEE Standards Association as "IEEE P2846: A Formal Model for Safety Considerations in Automated Vehicle Decision Making".


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2022, a research group of National Institute of Informatics (NII, Japan) expanded RSS and developed "Goal-Aware RSS" to make RSS rules possible to deal with complex scenarios via program logic.


title: Self-driving car

text: The potential benefits from increased vehicle automation described may be limited by foreseeable challenges such as disputes over liability, the time needed to turn over the existing stock of vehicles from non-automated to automated, and thus a long period of humans and autonomous vehicles sharing the roads, resistance by individuals to forfeiting control of their cars, concerns about safety, and the implementation of a legal framework and consistent global government regulations for self-driving cars. In addition, cyberattacks could be a potential threat to autonomous driving in the future.


title: Self-driving car

text: Other obstacles could include de-skilling and lower levels of driver experience for dealing with potentially dangerous situations and anomalies, ethical problems where an automated vehicle's software is forced during an unavoidable crash to choose between multiple harmful courses of action (the trolley problem), concerns about making large numbers of people currently employed as drivers unemployed, the potential for more intrusive mass surveillance of location, association and travel as a result of police and intelligence agency access to large data sets generated by sensors and pattern-recognition AI, and possibly insufficient understanding of verbal sounds, gestures and non-verbal cues by police, other drivers or pedestrians.


title: Self-driving car

text: RegulationIn the 2010s, researchers openly worried about the potential of future regulation to delay deployment of automated cars on the road. However, as written in UNECE WP.29 GRVA, international regulation for Level 3 was smoothly established in 2020, and the uncertainty was resolved. , in practice, it is actually very difficult to be approved as Level 3.


title: Self-driving car

text: senators called for investigation to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about their marketing claims in August 2021.


title: Self-driving car

text: And in December 2021 in Japan, Mercedes-Benz Japan Co., Ltd. was punished by the Consumer Affairs Agency for the descriptions in their handouts that are different from the fact.


title: Self-driving car

text: In July 2016, following a fatal crash by a Tesla car operating in "Autopilot" mode, Mercedes-Benz was also slammed for a misleading commercial advertising E-Class models which had been available with "Drive Pilot".


title: Self-driving car

text: At that time, Mercedes-Benz rejected the claims and stopped its "self-driving car" ad campaign which had been running in the United States.


title: Self-driving car

text: In August 2022, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) accused Tesla of deceptive marketing practices.


title: Self-driving car

text: Companies working on the technology have an increasing recruitment problem in that the available talent pool has not grown with demand. As such, education and training by third-party organizations such as providers of online courses and self-taught community-driven projects such as DIY Robocars and Formula Pi have quickly grown in popularity, while university level extra-curricular programmed such as Formula Student Driver-less have bolstered graduate experience. Industry is steadily increasing freely available information sources, such as code, datasets and glossaries to widen the recruitment pool.


title: Self-driving car

text: In the 2020s, from the importance of the automotive sector to the nation, self-driving car has become a topic of national security. The concerns regarding cybersecurity and data protection are not only important for user protection, but also in the context of national security. The trove of data collected by self-driving cars, paired with cybersecurity vulnerabilities, creates an appealing target for intelligence collection. Self-driving cars are required to be considered in a new way when it comes to espionage risk.


title: Self-driving car

text: It was in July 2018 that a former Apple engineer was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at San Jose International Airport (SJC) while preparing to board a flight to China and charged with stealing proprietary information related to Apple's self-driving car project.


title: Self-driving car

text: And in January 2019, another Apple employee was charged with stealing self-driving car project secrets.


title: Self-driving car

text: In July 2021, United States Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Chinese security officials of a hacking attack seeking data on of coordinating a vast hacking campaign to steal sensitive and secret information from government entities including research related to autonomous vehicles.


title: Self-driving car

text: On the China side, they have already prepared "the Provisions on Management of Automotive Data Security (Trial)".


title: Self-driving car

text: Also, emerging Cellular V2X (Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything) technologies are based on 5G wireless networks.


title: Self-driving car

text: , US Congress is applying fresh scrutiny to the possibility that imported Chinese technology could be a Trojan horse.


title: Self-driving car

text: Self-driving cars are already exploring the difficulties of determining the intentions of pedestrians, bicyclists, and animals, and models of behavior must be programmed into driving algorithms. Human road users also have the challenge of determining the intentions of autonomous vehicles, where there is no driver with which to make eye contact or exchange hand signals. Drive.ai is testing a solution to this problem that involves LED signs mounted on the outside of the vehicle, announcing status such as "going now, don't cross" vs. "waiting for you to cross".


title: Self-driving car

text: Two human-factor challenges are important for safety. One is the handover from automated driving to manual driving.


title: Self-driving car

text: Human factors research on automated systems has shown that people are slow to detect a problem with automation and slow to understand the problem after it is detected. When automation failures occur, unexpected transitions that require a driver to take over will occur suddenly and the driver may not be ready to take over.


title: Self-driving car

text: The second challenge is known as risk compensation: as a system is perceived to be safer, instead of benefiting entirely from all of the increased safety, people engage in riskier behavior and enjoy other benefits. Semi-automated cars have been shown to suffer from this problem, for example with users of Tesla Autopilot ignoring the road and using electronic devices or other activities against the advice of the company that the car is not capable of being completely autonomous. In the near future, pedestrians and bicyclists may travel in the street in a riskier fashion if they believe self-driving cars are capable of avoiding them.


title: Self-driving car

text: In order for people to buy self-driving cars and vote for the government to allow them on roads, the technology must be trusted as safe. Self-driving elevators were invented in 1900, but the high number of people refusing to use them slowed adoption for several decades until operator strikes increased demand and trust was built with advertising and features like the emergency stop button. There are three types of trust between human and automation. There is dispositional trust, the trust between the driver and the company's product; there is situational trust, or the trust from different scenarios; and there is learned trust where the trust is built between similar events.


title: Self-driving car

text: Rationale for liabilityThere are different opinions on who should be held liable in case of a crash, especially with people being hurt. One study suggests requesting the owners of self-driving cars to sign end-user license agreements (EULAs), assigning to them accountability for any accidents. Other studies suggest introducing a tax or insurances that would protect owners and users of automated vehicles of claims made by victims of an accident. Other possible parties that can be held responsible in case of a technical failure include software engineers that programmed the code for the automated operation of the vehicles, and suppliers of components of the AV.


title: Self-driving car

text: Implications from the Trolley ProblemA moral dilemma that a software engineer or car manufacturer might face in programming the operating software of a self-driving vehicle is captured in a variation of the traditional ethical thought experiment, the trolley problem: An AV is driving with passengers when suddenly a person appears in its way and the car has to commit between one of two options, either to run the person over or to avoid hitting the person by swerving into a wall, killing the passengers. Researchers have suggested, in particular, two ethical theories to be applicable to the behavior of automated vehicles in cases of emergency: deontology and utilitarianism. Deontological theory suggests that an automated car needs to follow strict written-out rules that it needs to follow in any situation. Utilitarianism, on the other hand, promotes maximizing the number of people surviving in a crash. Critics suggest that automated vehicles should adapt a mix of multiple theories to be able to respond morally right in the instance of a crash. Recently, some specific ethical frameworks i.e., utilitarianism, deontology, relativism, absolutism (monism), and pluralism, are investigated empirically with respect to the acceptance of self-driving cars in unavoidable accidents.


title: Self-driving car

text: According to research, people overwhelmingly express a preference for autonomous vehicles to be programmed with utilitarian ideas, that is, in a manner that generates the least harm and minimizes driving casualties. While people want others to purchase utilitarian promoting vehicles, they themselves prefer to ride in vehicles that prioritize the lives of people inside the vehicle at all costs. This presents a paradox in which people prefer that others drive utilitarian vehicles designed to maximize the lives preserved in a fatal situation but want to ride in cars that prioritize the safety of passengers at all costs. People disapprove of regulations that promote utilitarian views and would be less willing to purchase a self-driving car that may opt to promote the greatest good at the expense of its passengers.


title: Self-driving car

text: Bonnefon et al. concluded that the regulation of autonomous vehicle ethical prescriptions may be counterproductive to societal safety. This is because, if the government mandates utilitarian ethics and people prefer to ride in self-protective cars, it could prevent the large scale implementation of self-driving cars. Delaying the adoption of autonomous cars vitiates the safety of society as a whole because this technology is projected to save so many lives.


title: Self-driving car

text: PrivacyPrivacy-related issues arise mainly from the interconnectivity of automated cars, making it just another mobile device that can gather any information about an individual (see data mining). This information gathering ranges from tracking of the routes taken, voice recording, video recording, preferences in media that is consumed in the car, behavioral patterns, to many more streams of information. The data and communications infrastructure needed to support these vehicles may also be capable of surveillance, especially if coupled to other data sets and advanced analytics.


title: Self-driving car

text: Robotaxi is an application of self-driving car which is supposed to be operated by taxi company or ridesharing company.


title: Self-driving car

text: Through the massive investments by Big Tech companies in the mid 2010s, research and development of robotaxi became active in the U.S.


title: Self-driving car

text: Self-driving shuttle is an application of self-driving car with considerations of multiple passengers supposing the use cases mainly in cities. Through the European Union funded "CityMobil2" project in the mid 2010s, research and development of self-driving shuttle became active in Europe.


title: Self-driving car

text: Continuously, under the funding programme Horizon 2020, "Avenue" project was conducted from 2018 to 2022 in four cities (Geneva, Lyon, Copenhagen and Luxembourg).


title: Self-driving car

text: Companies such as Otto and Starsky Robotics have focused on autonomous trucks. Automation of trucks is important, not only due to the improved safety aspects of these very heavy vehicles, but also due to the ability of fuel savings through platooning. Autonomous vans are being developed for use by online grocers such as Ocado.


title: Self-driving car

text: Research has indicated that goods distribution on the macro (urban distribution) and micro level (last mile delivery) could be made more efficient with the use of autonomous vehicles thanks to the possibility of smaller vehicle sizes.


title: Self-driving car

text: Also, simulation studies in MIT Media Lab indicate that ultra-lightweight systems can become more helping to remove cars from our cities by applying autonomous driving technologies.


title: Self-driving car

text: In November 2022, Honda unveiled the "Honda CI Micro-mobility" machines and their core technologies. Honda starts demonstration testing using "Honda CI Micro-mobility" machines, "CiKoMa" and "WaPOCH", at two locations in Jōsō City of Ibaraki Prefecture.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2021, Honda and Black & Veatch have successfully tested their second generation prototype Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV) at a Black & Veatch construction site in New Mexico.


title: Self-driving car

text: In December 2022, eve autonomy in Japan, a company backed by Yamaha Motor and TIER IV, launched the all-in-one autonomous transportation commercial service "eve auto" with EV work vehicle as the first SAE Level 4 service in Japan at nine sites, including Yamaha Motor's three factories, Prime Polymer's Anesaki Works, Panasonic's cold chain factory in the Oizumi area, Fuji Electric's Suzuka factory, Japan Logistic Systems Corp.'s Ageo Center, and ENEOS Corp.'s Negishi refinery.


title: Self-driving car

text: The testing of vehicles with varying degrees of automation can be carried out either physically, in a closed environment or, where permitted, on public roads (typically requiring a license or permit, or adhering to a specific set of operating principles), or in a virtual environment, i.e. using computer simulations.


title: Self-driving car

text: When driven on public roads, automated vehicles require a person to monitor their proper operation and "take over" when needed. For example, New York has strict requirements for the test driver, such that the vehicle can be corrected at all times by a licensed operator; highlighted by Cardian Cube Company's application and discussions with New York State officials and the NYS DMV.


title: Self-driving car

text: In California, self-driving car manufacturers are required to submit annual reports to share how often their vehicles disengaged from autonomous mode during tests.


title: Self-driving car

text: It has been believed that we would learn how reliable the vehicles are becoming based on how often they needed "disengagements".


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2017, Waymo reported 63 disengagements over of testing, an average distance of between disengagements, the highest among companies reporting such figures. Waymo also traveled a greater total distance than any of the other companies. Their 2017 rate of 0.18 disengagements per was an improvement over the 0.2 disengagements per in 2016, and 0.8 in 2015. In March 2017, Uber reported an average of just per disengagement. In the final three months of 2017, Cruise (now owned by GM) averaged per disengagement over a total distance of . In July 2018, the first electric driver-less racing car, "Robocar", completed a 1.8-kilometer track, using its navigation system and artificial intelligence.


title: Self-driving car

text: , "disengagements" are at the center of the controversy. The problem is that reporting companies have varying definitions of what qualifies as a disengagement, and that definition can change over time.


title: Self-driving car

text: Executives of self-driving car companies have criticized disengagements as a deceptive metric, because it does not take into account the higher degree of difficulty navigating urban streets compared with interstates highway.


title: Self-driving car

text: In October 2021, the Europe's comprehensive pilot test of automated driving on public roads, L3Pilot, demonstrated automated systems for cars in Hamburg, Germany, in conjunction with ITS World Congress 2021. SAE Level 3 and 4 functions were tested on ordinary roads.


title: Self-driving car

text: In November 2022, an International Standard ISO 34502 on "Scenario based safety evaluation framework" was published.


title: Self-driving car

text: In September 2022, Biprogy released a software system of "Driving Intelligence Validation Platform (DIVP)" as the achievement of Japanese national project "SIP-adus" led by Cabinet Office with the same name of its subproject which is interoperable with Open Simulation Interface (OSI) of ASAM.


title: Self-driving car

text: In November 2021, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) notified Pony.ai that it was suspending its driverless testing permit following a reported collision in Fremont on 28 October. This incident stands out because the vehicle was in autonomous mode and didn't involve any other vehicle.


title: Self-driving car

text: In May 2022, DMV revoked Pony.ai's permit for failing to monitor the driving records of the safety drivers on its testing permit.


title: Self-driving car

text: In April 2022, it is reported that Cruise's testing vehicle blocked fire engine on emergency call, and sparked questions about an autonomous vehicle's ability to handle unexpected roadway issues.


title: Self-driving car

text: In November 2022, Toyota gave a demonstration of one of its GR Yaris test car equipped with AI, which had been trained on the skills and knowledge of professional rally drivers to enhance the safety of self-driving cars. Toyota has been using the learnings from the collaborative activities with Microsoft in FIA World Rally Championship since 2017 season.


title: Self-driving car

text: On 20 January 2016, the first of five known fatal crashes of a Tesla with Autopilot occurred in China's Hubei province. According to China's 163.com news channel, this marked "China's first accidental death due to Tesla's automatic driving (system)". Initially, Tesla pointed out that the vehicle was so badly damaged from the impact that their recorder was not able to conclusively prove that the car had been on autopilot at the time; however, 163.com pointed out that other factors, such as the car's absolute failure to take any evasive actions prior to the high speed crash, and the driver's otherwise good driving record, seemed to indicate a strong likelihood that the car was on autopilot at the time. A similar fatal crash occurred four months later in Florida. In 2018, in a subsequent civil suit between the father of the driver killed and Tesla, Tesla did not deny that the car had been on autopilot at the time of the accident, and sent evidence to the victim's father documenting that fact.


title: Self-driving car

text: The second known fatal accident involving a vehicle being driven by itself took place in Williston, Florida on 7 May 2016 while a Tesla Model S electric car was engaged in Autopilot mode. The occupant was killed in a crash with an 18-wheel tractor-trailer. On 28 June 2016 the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a formal investigation into the accident working with the Florida Highway Patrol. According to NHTSA, preliminary reports indicate the crash occurred when the tractor-trailer made a left turn in front of the Tesla at an intersection on a non-controlled access highway, and the car failed to apply the brakes. The car continued to travel after passing under the truck's trailer. NHTSA's preliminary evaluation was opened to examine the design and performance of any automated driving systems in use at the time of the crash, which involved a population of an estimated 25,000 Model S cars. On 8 July 2016, NHTSA requested Tesla Motors provide the agency detailed information about the design, operation and testing of its Autopilot technology. The agency also requested details of all design changes and updates to Autopilot since its introduction, and Tesla's planned updates schedule for the next four months.


title: Self-driving car

text: According to Tesla, "neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor-trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied." The car attempted to drive full speed under the trailer, "with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S". Tesla also claimed that this was Tesla's first known autopilot death in over driven by its customers with Autopilot engaged, however by this statement, Tesla was apparently refusing to acknowledge claims that the January 2016 fatality in Hubei China had also been the result of an autopilot system error. According to Tesla there is a fatality every among all type of vehicles in the US. However, this number also includes fatalities of the crashes, for instance, of motorcycle drivers with pedestrians.


title: Self-driving car

text: In July 2016, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened a formal investigation into the fatal accident while the Autopilot was engaged. The NTSB is an investigative body that has the power to make only policy recommendations. An agency spokesman said "It's worth taking a look and seeing what we can learn from that event, so that as that automation is more widely introduced we can do it in the safest way possible." In January 2017, the NTSB released the report that concluded Tesla was not at fault; the investigation revealed that for Tesla cars, the crash rate dropped by 40 percent after Autopilot was installed.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2021, NTSB Chair called on Tesla to change the design of its Autopilot to ensure it cannot be misused by drivers, according to a letter sent to the company's CEO.


title: Self-driving car

text: Waymo originated as a self-driving car project within Google. In August 2012, Google announced that their vehicles had completed over 300,000 automated-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free, typically involving about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and that they were starting to test with single drivers instead of in pairs. In late-May 2014, Google revealed a new prototype that had no steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal, and was fully automated. , Google had test-driven their fleet in automated mode a total of . In December 2016, Google Corporation announced that its technology would be spun off to a new company called Waymo, with both Google and Waymo becoming subsidiaries of a new parent company called Alphabet.


title: Self-driving car

text: According to Google's accident reports as of early 2016, their test cars had been involved in 14 collisions, of which other drivers were at fault 13 times, although in 2016 the car's software caused a crash.


title: Self-driving car

text: In June 2015, Brin confirmed that 12 vehicles had suffered collisions as of that date. Eight involved rear-end collisions at a stop sign or traffic light, two in which the vehicle was side-swiped by another driver, one in which another driver rolled through a stop sign, and one where a Google employee was controlling the car manually. In July 2015, three Google employees suffered minor injuries when their vehicle was rear-ended by a car whose driver failed to brake at a traffic light. This was the first time that a collision resulted in injuries. On 14 February 2016 a Google vehicle attempted to avoid sandbags blocking its path. During the maneuver it struck a bus. Google stated, "In this case, we clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn't moved, there wouldn't have been a collision." Google characterized the crash as a misunderstanding and a learning experience. No injuries were reported in the crash.


title: Self-driving car

text: In March 2018, Elaine Herzberg died after being hit by a self-driving car being tested by Uber's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) in the US state of Arizona. There was a safety driver in the car. Herzberg was crossing the road about 400 feet from an intersection. This marks the first time an individual is known to have been killed by an autonomous vehicle, and the incident raised questions about regulation of the self-driving car industry. Some experts said a human driver could have avoided the fatal crash. Arizona governor Doug Ducey suspended the company's ability to test and operate its automated cars on public roadways citing an "unquestionable failure" of the expectation that Uber make public safety its top priority. Uber then stopped self-driving tests in California until it was issued a new permit in 2020.


title: Self-driving car

text: In May 2018, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a preliminary report. The final report 18 months later determined that the immediate cause of the accident was the safety driver's failure to monitor the road because she was distracted by her phone. However, Uber ATG's "inadequate safety culture" contributed to the crash. The report noted from the post-mortem that the victim had "a very high level" of methamphetamine in her body. The board also called on federal regulators to carry out a review before allowing automated test vehicles to operate on public roads.


title: Self-driving car

text: In September 2020, the backup driver, Rafael Vasquez, was charged with negligent homicide, because she did not look at the road for several seconds while her phone was streaming "The Voice" broadcast by Hulu. She pleaded not guilty and was released to await trial. Uber does not face any criminal charge because in the USA there is no basis for criminal liability for the corporation. The safety driver is assumed to be responsible of the accident, because she was in the driving seat in a capacity to avoid an accident (like in a Level 3). The trial was planned for February 2021.


title: Self-driving car

text: On 9 November 2017, a Navya Arma automated self-driving bus with passengers was involved in a crash with a truck. The truck was found to be at fault of the crash, reversing into the stationary automated bus. The automated bus did not take evasive actions or apply defensive driving techniques such as flashing its headlights, or sounding the horn. As one passenger commented, "The shuttle didn't have the ability to move back. The shuttle just stayed still."


title: Self-driving car

text: On 12 August 2021, a 31-year-old Chinese man was killed after his NIO ES8 collided with a construction vehicle. NIO's self-driving feature is still in beta and cannot yet deal with static obstacles. Though the vehicle's manual clearly states that the driver must take over when nearing construction sites, the issue is whether the feature was improperly marketed and unsafe. Lawyers of the deceased's family have also called into question NIO's private access to the vehicle, which they argue may lead to the data ending up forged.


title: Self-driving car

text: On 26 August 2021, a Toyota e-Palette, a mobility vehicle used to support mobility within the Athletes' Village at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, collided with a visually impaired pedestrian about to cross a pedestrian crossing.


title: Self-driving car

text: In a 2011 online survey of 2,006 US and UK consumers by Accenture, 49% said they would be comfortable using a "driverless car".


title: Self-driving car

text: A 2012 survey of 17,400 vehicle owners by J.D. Power and Associates found 37% initially said they would be interested in purchasing a "fully autonomous car". However, that figure dropped to 20% if told the technology would cost US$3,000 more.


title: Self-driving car

text: In a 2012 survey of about 1,000 German drivers by automotive researcher Puls, 22% of the respondents had a positive attitude towards these cars, 10% were undecided, 44% were skeptical and 24% were hostile.


title: Self-driving car

text: A 2013 survey of 1,500 consumers across 10 countries by Cisco Systems found 57% "stated they would be likely to ride in a car controlled entirely by technology that does not require a human driver", with Brazil, India and China the most willing to trust automated technology.


title: Self-driving car

text: In a 2014 US telephone survey by Insurance.com, over three-quarters of licensed drivers said they would at least consider buying a self-driving car, rising to 86% if car insurance were cheaper. 31.7% said they would not continue to drive once an automated car was available instead.


title: Self-driving car

text: In a February 2015 survey of top auto journalists, 46% predicted that either Tesla or Daimler would be the first to the market with a fully autonomous vehicle, while (at 38%) Daimler was predicted to be the most functional, safe, and in-demand autonomous vehicle.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2015, a questionnaire survey by Delft University of Technology explored the opinion of 5,000 people from 109 countries on automated driving. Results showed that respondents, on average, found manual driving the most enjoyable mode of driving. 22% of the respondents did not want to spend any money for a fully automated driving system. Respondents were found to be most concerned about software hacking/misuse, and were also concerned about legal issues and safety. Finally, respondents from more developed countries (in terms of lower accident statistics, higher education, and higher income) were less comfortable with their vehicle transmitting data. The survey also gave results on potential consumer opinion on interest of purchasing an automated car, stating that 37% of surveyed current owners were either "definitely" or "probably" interested in purchasing an automated car.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2016, a survey in Germany examined the opinion of 1,603 people, who were representative in terms of age, gender, and education for the German population, towards partially, highly, and fully automated cars. Results showed that men and women differ in their willingness to use them. Men felt less anxiety and more joy towards automated cars, whereas women showed the exact opposite. The gender difference towards anxiety was especially pronounced between young men and women but decreased with participants' age.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2016, a PwC survey, in the United States, showing the opinion of 1,584 people, highlights that "66 percent of respondents said they think autonomous cars are probably smarter than the average human driver". People are still worried about safety and mostly the fact of having the car hacked. Nevertheless, only 13% of the interviewees see no advantages in this new kind of cars.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2017, Pew Research Center surveyed 4,135 US adults from 1–15 May and found that many Americans anticipate significant impacts from various automation technologies in the course of their lifetimes—from the widespread adoption of automated vehicles to the replacement of entire job categories with robot workers.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2019, results from two opinion surveys of 54 and 187 US adults respectively were published. A new standardized questionnaire, the autonomous vehicle acceptance model (AVAM) was developed, including additional description to help respondents better understand the implications of different automation levels. Results showed that users were less accepting of high autonomy levels and displayed significantly lower intention to use highly autonomous vehicles. Additionally, partial autonomy (regardless of level) was perceived as requiring uniformly higher driver engagement (usage of hands, feet and eyes) than full autonomy.


title: Self-driving car

text: In 2022, research by safety charity Lloyd's Register Foundation uncovered that only a quarter (27%) of the world's population would feel safe in self-driving cars.


title: Self-driving car

text: Regulation of self-driving cars is an increasingly important issue which includes multiple subtopics. Among them are self-driving car liability, regulations regarding approval and international conventions.