Abstract
The field of autonomous automation is of interest to researchers, and much has been accomplished in this
area, of which this paper presents a detailed chronology. This paper can help one understand the trends in
autonomous vehicle technology for the past, present, and future. We see a drastic change in autonomous
vehicle technology since 1920s, when the first radio controlled vehicles were designed. In the subsequent
decades, we see fairly autonomous electric cars powered by embedded circuits in the roads. By 1960s,
autonomous cars having similar electronic guide systems came into picture. 1980s saw vision guided
autonomous vehicles, which was a major milestone in technology and till date we use similar or modified
forms of vision and radio guided technologies. Various semi-autonomous features introduced in modern cars
such as lane keeping, automatic braking and adaptive cruise control are based on such systems. Extensive
network guided systems in conjunction with vision guided features is the future of autonomous vehicles. It is
predicted that most companies will launch fully autonomous vehicles by the advent of next decade. The future
of autonomous vehicles is an ambitious era of safe and comfortable transportation.
