Exploration of a provisional design for the future autonomous vehicle

Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2015.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (page 34).The goal of this thesis is to design a plausible fully automated vehicle that could be easily integrated into today's society. There's a unique opportunity to introduce large steps of innovation within the automobile industry thanks to rapidly improving self-driving technology, and the hardware that supports these capabilities should be more actively considered. The design was made with three assumptions: the car is fully autonomous - assuming there are absolutely no components that allow the passenger to take full control of the car; the car is fully electric, and the car is designed for the high income professional as the target niche. The design was pursued in the perspective of introductory research, which included current automation efforts and the styles that best appeal to the target market. The front end, cabin, internal components and the potential infrastructure to support this technology are all considered. Ultimately, the thesis shows the full design process; research and sketches of preliminary ideas are displayed and discussed, and it ends with fully rendered images of the final design.by Oluwatobi Olamide Lanre-Amos.S.B