[dark.knight]

A new patent has been leaked onto the motoring press world showing Ford's intentions to make their autonomous cars a little bit more like LEGO building blocks.. they are considering removable steering wheels and pedals (brake and organ-type accelerator only since its not possible for an autonomous car to have a clutch) for whenever the driver wishes to have himself/herself chauffeured to their next destination having a lot of leg-room and room to move the hands freely, however if one is in a mood to drive then the steering and pedals can easily be assembled - this process might take a few minutes as it involves removing a fascia panel and then fitting the steering wheel and then the pedals.

It works like this :

- The steering system will be pure steer-by-wire, it will plug in almost like a slightly bigger USB port no less.

- There will be two sets of airbags, one directly fitted onto the dashboard/fascia and the other onto the steering as is the case in all cars today, fitting the steering will de-activate the dashboard airbag and removing the steering will activate the dashboard airbag.

- Pedals may be drive-by-wire or old fashioned spring which hasn't been decided yet, either way its a question of most probably click-fitting the pedals onto the actuator rod nubs.

- This is most probably a case of early-patent acquisition as the laws pertaining to autonomous driving today requires that driving controls be present always so that the driver can take over when or if the car starts to act like a short-circuited robot.

With fully automated driving, the need for a permanent steering wheel and pedals disappears. That doesn't mean cars will do away with them completely, though. Ford foresees a time when cars might not necessarily require controls for driver inputs, but still might want them available for development, or at the request of a customer who prefers to take on the driving duties. As such, Ford has filed a patent for a removable steering wheel and pedals for autonomous vehicles.

First spotted by the folks at Motor1, Ford filed the application in February of last year, and the patent was issued on Aug. 10, 2017. The description from Ford notes two challenges when completely removing the steering wheel. One is that the wheel typically houses the driver-side airbag. The second is "the lack of a steering wheel can handicap vehicle development by making it more difficult to place a vehicle under a driver's control" for evaluating a vehicle's response to "extreme dynamic maneuvers such as rapid lane changes."

Some Ford fans will have to shed quite a few tears in due course, not only are Ford cars going the autonomous route, but with technologies like steer-by-wire and electronic driving assists a numb-driving experience and a car that'll always err on the side of caution is guaranteed. All hail technology!

Link + patent papers : https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/16/...#slide-6846086

[androdev]

"man dies in a crash while searching for the brake pedal in the glovebox"

[abhishek46]

Auto-Pilot on Aircrafts has now been in use for decades. But still, Aircrafts are supplied with a Full Set of Controls for safety.

Secondly, the volume of Vehicles on the road is a million times more than Aircrafts, thereby increasing multi fold, the chances of failures of these systems.

Therefore, My opinion is that to have removable steering wheels and A/B/C Pedals is downright dangerous.