STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- GPS is being integrated into the new technology of self-driving cars
- Robotic cars are already being tested on roads by companies such as Google
- California has legalized self-driving vehicles
(CNN) -- The future of transport is self-driving cars, says GPS inventor Bradford Parkinson.
The famed inventor, military hero and former boy scout, told CNN that advances in the use of GPS mean that the technology could not only emerge in the next few years, but is already being road tested by companies such as Google.
"I think (the future) leads to robotic cars. I think there will come a time when you go down the highway and you don't have to have your hand on the steering wheel at all. It'll be a combination of GPS, radar and other sensors."
If there is anyone who should know about the future of GPS, it is Brad Parkinson. The former air force colonel was an integral member of the team that invented GPS technology. While he is now a professor emeritus at Stanford University in California, in the 1980s Parkinson headed up the GPS program run by the U.S. military.
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"When I invented the system I was a United States colonel," says Parkinson. "I was in the air force and had a PhD in aeronautics from Stanford, and a master's degree from MIT. I'd been testing inertial navigation systems for three years in my past and I had taken digital controls at MIT."
http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/specials/make-create-innovate/
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