Tom´s guest on The Breakfast Show this morning was Professor Raphael Frank, a senior research scientist in computer science at the University of Luxembourg who is conducting research into the future of autonomous cars in Luxembourg. In our interview professor Frank describes the basics of how autonomous cars work, what the future of autonomous driving in Luxembourg might look like and how soon he thinks it will take until we see autonomous cars on our roads in the Grand Duchy.

Last Thursday, Prof. Frank´s research team held a demonstration of their driverless car in operation in Kirchberg. This was the first time that an autonomous vehicle has driven on the roads in free traffic in Luxembourg.

As Prof. Frank describes, driverless cars operate thanks to a network of sensors made up of both cameras and lasers that communicate with a `brain´ computer, to determine the environment and navigate the vehicle.

With fully operational driverless cars we can imagine a future where a ride hiring service like Uber or Lyft could provide transport to a city´s population as and when needed, whilst operating completely autonomously, negating the need for personal vehicles and thus drastically reducing the amount of vehicles on the roads, reducing carbon emissions and creating a more efficient and peaceful transport system.

According to Prof. Frank there is still research that needs to be done but he imagines that we will regularly see automated cars on our roads within the next decade.