# 7 Summary and Outlook II

Autonomous driving has become an important component for the future of mobility. The digitization of mobility is developing rapidly worldwide. Automated driving technologies and assistance systems that relieve the driver, assist him, partially or completely replace him - as in the process of parking, for example - have already established in automotive manufacturing. At least partial automation of driving has become a common feature of everyday life. Highly and fully automated systems that can change lanes, brake or steer without human intervention are already fitted as standard in many new cars. Both in Germany and in the USA, there are already numerous test tracks on which autonomous vehicles are allowed to drive, and it is only a matter of time before they make it into regular road traffic. Driverless robot cabs and buses are already being tested for local public transport. This development in mobility and the automotive industry creates a high demand for educated professionals. The field of autonomous driving and the evolution on it is a very diverse field of education with many different components and issues. Autonomous self-driving cars use a variety of sensors and sophisticated technology such as video cameras, radar sensors, lidar sensors, GPS systems, high performance computers and electronic controls to name a few. The engineering of automated self-driving cars also requires data processing and excellent softwareengineering-skills. High performance computers are needed to calculate all signals and data to name another requirement. These are a lot of requirements for suitable employees in this sector. For that reason fundamental education should be provided as early as possible - for example, during a bachelor's or master's degree program. To this purpose, a professional laboratory exercise course in the field of Automotive Mechatronics was designed. The course created in this thesis gives participants a comprehensive overview of the topic of Autonomous Self-Driving Vehicles. It allows them to work independently practically on the development of their own autonomous self-driving vehicle. For this purpose, tasks were designed in several laboratory exercises. In nine practical exercises, the participants will learn the exact procedure that will enable them to work independently in the autonomous self-driving vehicle world step by step. The first evaluations of the course showed consistently positive results. The methods were conveyed understandably. The encouragement of personal initiative is also highly praised. As the amount of work and time required to create the individual tasks was very high, not all ideas such as, for example, the detection of trafic signs could be implemented. The creation of the sample solutions also required a lot of time and technical effort. Not all sources of error were foreseeable. The world of Autonomous Self-Driving Vehicles is fascinating and vast. Vehicles that no longer need human operators are on the verge of becoming part of our transportation system. This can provide many benefits such as a new level of convenience or the prevention of accidents caused by human error. However, autonomous driving also raises ethical issues e.g. about how an autonomous car should decide in the event of an unavoidable accident. The framework of a master thesis is not like that. In order not to completely go beyond the scope of this already very extensive work, only a fraction of the components of Autonomous Self-Driving Vehicles could be considered. Of all the areas of Autonomous Driving, the area of artificial intelligence is developing the fastest. Future work and advanced courses could focus on the application of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, detecting obstacles on the roadway could be a component of future exercises. Future work and further exercises could also focus on the recognition and associated reaction to traffic signs.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7