In recent years, technology has started to be included in every aspect of our lives. While smart televisions are even talking about smart refrigerators, smart cars, that is, autonomous vehicles, have started to provide many conveniences and innovations in our lives. Moreover, these autonomous vehicles can affect a large area, from city planning. So what are these autonomous vehicles?

It is a type of automobile that can move without the need for the driver, that is, any human intervention, by detecting the objects and obstacles around it through the sensors, cameras and software on the autonomous cars. An autonomous vehicle does not require any driver or passenger; it can go wherever a non-autonomous vehicle goes and do everything an experienced driver does. Autonomous vehicles create a map of their environment and act accordingly, based on sensors located in many parts of the car. Cameras detect traffic lights, road signs and search for pedestrians, while on-board radar determines the positions of nearby vehicles. Lidar sensors are used to detect lanes and roadsides. Then software with mixed algorithms analyzes the inputs from the sensors and draws a path; It controls the steering by performing the necessary acceleration and braking.

Although we think that autonomous vehicles emerged with the development of artificial intelligence, when we look at their history, we see that they have a history of almost 100 years. It was invented in 1925 by engineer Francis Houdina, driving a radio-controlled vehicle through the streets of Manhattan, and that's when it was first believed that self-driving cars were possible. General Motors showed the first autonomous vehicle design idea to the public in 1939. But the technology of that time was not enough to bring these ideas to life. When we came to 1980, the first models that could go without driver appeared. After this project, many companies produced countless new autonomous vehicles and they are now on the road. Today, many companies have autonomous vehicle projects: Companies such as Google, Mercedes, Ford can be the most important examples. But the most well-known, Tesla, introduced the first vehicle with autopilot in 2015. The number of TESLAs is increasing day by day and although they are rare in our country, we see these vehicles more frequently abroad. Although TESLAs still need drivers today, they will become fully autonomous in the very near future.

When we examine the advantages of autonomous vehicles, we see that they have many benefits for the society. Most automobile accidents today are due to driver errors such as alcohol, drug use, slow reaction time, carelessness and aggressive driving. Autonomous vehicles are expected to almost completely eliminate these accidents. According to a study conducted in the USA, it is predicted that if ten percent of all cars are self-driving, 211.00 accidents will be prevented and approximately 1,100 lives will be saved annually. Also, economically, the damage caused by automobile accidents will be reduced by more than $ 20 billion. Moreover, less traffic is expected with autonomous vehicles. With the removal of the human factor, the traffic will become more fluent as software and sensors will make faster and rational decisions.

In addition, thanks to the "internet of things" technology, autonomous vehicles will be able to communicate and interact with each other and with all the objects around them. It is very important that this communication takes place instantaneously and with low delay times. In this case, ultra-fast data transfer is vital. The insufficiency of 4.5G today shows the importance of 5G technology that has just entered our lives. For example, when autonomous vehicles enter our lives, it is expected to consume approximately 4000 GB of data per vehicle during the day. Considering the situation that this data needs to be processed instantly, we can understand the importance of 5G much more easily.