8.1 Discussion 8.1.1 Ahs as a Social Issue

8.1 Discussion The automated highway system envisioned by researchers and institutions around the world suggests a complex structure that requires extensive research efforts. Among many issues, the realization of AHS depends mainly upon the realization of intelligent vehicle control methods. No matter what design approach is taken for vehicle control, there are two important issues that will ‘haunt’ the researchers. The first problem in front of the AHS is a social issue: user acceptance. Without the user acceptance, the aim of automating the highway system is bound to fail. We will briefly discuss the possible future of the AHS deployment in the light of the current influence of the technology on society. The second problem is the technical feasibility of the designed systems. While designing the intelligent path planner described in this work, the transition from abstraction to implementation was one of our concerns. We will therefore briefly discuss the technical issues that hinder the realization of an automated highway system. We designed our intelligent vehicle controller using an AI technique called the learning automata. The adaptation of the automata to existing conditions is provided by the reinforcement schemes mentioned in previous chapters. We will thus conclude our discussion with a few ideas on reinforcement schemes.