 Navigation 1
Can you imagine any period in human history when navigation was not necessary? Well, unlike us today, hunters and gatherers also needed to know where they were, but unlike today, they
only needed to know the way home. On the way there, they were probably determined by hunting, for example, while we, of course, must be clear about our destination.
So human memory in the brain was particularly crucial, whereas today it remains switched off to such an extent that some people can no longer easily remember where they have been, and
not just after air travel. In addition to orientation, artificially created landmarks that supported memory may have helped. Real cards probably weren't added until much later.
Although the first sextants were not used until the 18th century, ocean voyages had been taking place since the end of the 15th century. However, the majority of sailors probably still sailed
along the coasts. They had to wait until the beginning of the 20th century for the first radio connections in the form of Morse code, which was important for calling for help in an emergency.
The example of an emergency situation in particular shows how important accurate positioning can be. If satellite navigation did not have military origins, we might not have it at all,
but if we did, it would be with the greatest possible accuracy, which the military sometimes seems to deny us. Let us leave this area, but not without pointing out the drone warfare made
possible by this technology.
Car atlases are now consigned to the waste paper bin, but even the inexpensive small (suction cup) screen for retrofitting seems to be a thing of the past. The smartphone lives on, seemingly
requiring no preparation. However, you must not pick it up after starting the engine. A bracket or voice control would therefore be necessary. It compensates for this with its real-time data.
Modern people don't just want to get from A to B, they also want to make sure they arrive there reasonably on time. But be careful, free services sometimes come with drawbacks. Data from
recognized providers often also taps into systems that are firmly integrated into the road configuration, presumably already now or in the future feedback from systems installed in cars.
Without a system that is permanently integrated into the car, problems with tangled cables and disruptive calls have not yet been completely solved. After all, fixed installations have become
cheaper and are often offered by the same manufacturers (e.g., TomTom) as the retrofit solution used to be. Integration has advantages because the data can be used, for example, to save
fuel (e.g., cruise control) or to control lighting. However, you are then tied to the sources of these systems, e.g. TMC, which is often slightly delayed.
The integration of smartphones via Android Auto or Apple Carplay is already widely available in newer vehicles. This keeps the smartphone's power consumption within limits, so that only
one USB port is still needed. No vehicle-specific SIM card is required either, which would otherwise be necessary for any connection to the outside world and would naturally incur costs.
Future developments are also important for autonomous driving in this area. In 2018, Vodafone and Here announced the development of a so-called 5G Atlas. This refers not only to
higher speeds and shorter latency times, but also to the greater precision and faster data updates in the corresponding cloud that are necessary for robotic cars.
Which brings us back to the future once again. We would like to broaden the topic of navigation somewhat, because the immediate data is then processed by the driving machine without us
noticing. Navigation also means orientation. While this may be just about manageable for most of us in the real world, it could get out of hand in the virtual world, especially when both worlds are mixed.
Put on a headset and you'll find yourself in a completely different environment. When transitioning back to the real world, at least the first time, it is best to be seated, otherwise you may stumble, even though
the floor is completely level. In relation to autonomous driving, a lack of orientation means that people generally forget everything they have not practiced for a long time. Sure, what you've learned comes back
relatively quickly, but once it's gone, so is any potential innovation in that area too.
We can already see this today in the lack of local knowledge thanks to navigation systems. But what happens when even the former driver no longer looks outside because he or she is busy with work or
leisure activities in digital form? With trains or buses, at least there are still structures such as stations or stops and arrival times. And should anything change, we are justified in demanding appropriate
announcements.
However, both systems also demonstrate that automating these statements appears to be nearly impossible. At some point, the robot car comes to a halt somewhere in a landscape that feels like a mixed
world. At least there is one advantage: people who previously spent all their time on their smartphones are starting to talk to each other again. Nevertheless, it would become clear how dependent we have
become on digital systems and how lost we are without them.
In the past, people used to worry about how to get a broken-down vehicle running again. This was already impossible in the pre-robot era. Now, for potential calls for help, you first have to determine your
location. Where are we, who are we, and where do we even want to go now, when so many plans fall victim to the construct of time?
In the past, you could go to the next village and ask a farmer with a tractor for help. Now we can't even stop another car. It might be a robot car too. How do you stop that? And can it really help? Even in
today's world, one sometimes gets the feeling that many things have become more complicated that used to be done with a stroke of the pen in the past. This could intensify in the autonomous future.
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