1. Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is as if I was dormant for many years and the news of Nevada issuing a driver’s license to an
autonomous car, and the news of Google, Tesla and others building self-driving cars (SAE Level 5 /
NHTSA Level 4) woke me up, which if find highly ironic because I love to drive. When I was a kid I used
to play with slot cars. And like many, I have seen the unwound rolls of cassette and video tape strewn
on the side of the highway. It was not hard to put one and one together. Throughout the ‘80s, during
my college years and shortly thereafter, before the advent of the Internet or GPS, I fantasized about self-
driving cars. I thought of how a magnetic media can be laid down on the side of the road as a form of
track containing information specific to the location of itself, like an electronic mile maker, and a
magnetic reader on each car constantly retrieving that information and echoing it over short-range
radio. And each car would be provided with an electronic map and compass. And with that, you would
have a car that knows where to go and the “you are here” information so that it can get there. Nearby
cars would receive the echoed location information and react to it, crude but effective like telling a blind
man that there is something in front of him. I never got around to how to make it can play nice with
manually driven cars on the same road, or any other objects for that matter. I got caught up in a career,
err, careers. In any case, the subject has always fascinated me.
I think an SAE Level 5 car has the potential to shift, built and damage major economies.
1- It will be a waste of resources for such machines to rest.
2- No need for parking lots in expensive real estate.
3- Safer than a human driver – if not now then a few years from now – eventually it will be.
And number three will be the driving factor for their proliferation. I would not be surprised to see
NYC mandating such technology on Manhattan Island including all vehicular inlets/outlets. I still cannot
fully wrap my mind on the changes # 1 will have. Why would anyone own a car? They all have the
same driving dynamics. And if I did own one, I wouldn’t want it sitting idle in a garage when it can be
working. On its own. Imagine! You’d wake up and find a return on your investment, some extra cash in
your account.
I can see the birth, or rather the rebirth of some industries such as coach builders. I can see custom-
made detachable pods that can be arranged for lounging or working and possibly integrated into
houses and office buildings (somehow) making it useful and usable while at rest. And you’d have
access to services that provide you with skateboard-like drive trains, not unlike a container train car, that
would take you practically uninterrupted from place to place. And if you owned one then you’d put on
your taxi pod (utilitarian or luxury) and let it go to work.
In the following pages I have outlines some of my visions and unsubstantiated ideas of a system
that will maximize the efficiency of an SAE 4/5 car in terms of travel rate, a system with fast propulsion-
energy renewal time, a system that will increase users’ productivity, and – dare I say – a system that will
eliminate traffic congestion and gridlock. What is tomorrow we build today. I would love to be on a
team building an SAE Level 4/5 car.
Please help me get this to Google and Tesla executives and engineers whom you might know for
their consideration.
Sincerely,
Mike Shehata

2. Mike Shehata | November, 2014 2 | P a g e
Tomorrow’s City
No more gridlock
An SAE Level 5 / NHTSA Level 4 car will redefine the automobile and with it the roads need to
be redefined. Two relatively simple concepts but monumental to achieve will eliminate traffic
congestion, gridlock, and even traffic lights. (1) Ban or bring to an absolute minimum the use of
manually driven vehicles and (2) elevate the crosswalks. The objective is to eliminate objects with
unpredictable movement behavior.
Today’s efforts for the autonomous car are more complex that they need to be. Too much effort
is spent on object detection and identification, so process intensive that it is ineffective at speed. A pure
autonomous system is not only fast but is irresistibly efficient. Rather than waiting for one car to enter
the proximity of another, the location of all cars would be made available to each one at all times, not
only that, each one would know the others’ speed and route. Take a confined area such as Manhattan
as an example, allow all traffic from Upper Manhattan to Lower Manhattan to flow with no cross points,
unhindered and uninterrupted at speed and at near-constant velocity. Now, a car needs to cross from
east to west. The car can predict (using Location Communication System – details to follow) all collision
points at any given speed it chooses to travel. It will then start to navigate its way across by negotiating
with the to-be collider and varying the speed of both slightly to avoid each other. Essentially it’s a grid
traffic controller controlled by the cars themselves. Task: use the shortest distance at near-constant
maximum velocity, where the maximum velocity is set at the beginning of a trip to be the speed with
the minimum number of collision/negotiation points.
One of the challenges in current efforts is poor recognition of road markings in adverse weather
conditions. How many millions do we spend to make these road markings? The ones adapted for
human drivers as opposed to the ones adapted for…? I think we need to start working on that too.

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Satellite based navigation
Dependence on satellites to determine location will continue and strengthen even more as it
refines in accuracy. Micro scale accuracy and redundancy will come in the form of a separate and
independent navigation system, a land based system.
Land based navigation
We would start by dividing our streets into calculable segments, and then sequence and stitch
these segments into street maps. We would strategically place “dead” and “live” physical location
reference markers at key angles of each segment. In concert these markers would clearly define the
boundaries of the driving area – the playing field. The “dead” reference markers would be placed to
define the circumferential edge of each calculable segmented and the car would create a grid to form
the driving area. By measuring the distance to the reference marker the car would be able to determine
its physical location within each segment or grid. The car’s navigation accuracy is now as accurate as
the steering calibration, and its mission is to traverse the segments seamlessly according to Task until it
reaches its destination.
Safety measures in the form of confirmation and validation would be applied by strategically
placing the “live” location reference markers which are, like the dead location reference markers, used
to help the car determine its location within the grid, but they also communicate to help the car
validate its location on the street map. These can be in the form of RFID transmitters that would
transmit a street identifier and up-to-date dimensions of the surrounding grid. An RFID antenna in the
car would collect the information and be able to verify against the navigational data being used.
Operation:
We would also teach the car how to operate inside the boundaries. These cars would need lane
specifications, like rightmost lane is the loading lane – very unpredictable rate of stop and go. Another
specification would be direction of travel. Yet another specification would be the width of the lane – the
car already knows the width of the road so now it can determine the number of lanes. Another

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specification would be slower speed lanes designated for turning (I think adopting the no left turn
policy would create a much more efficient flow of traffic). The car now has a virtual image of what we
paint. Ironically, it makes using visual detection in current efforts akin to a blind man feeling his way.
Steering these things will be super accurate allowing them to be driven at much closer
proximity, a two-lane city street with space for parking on each side can conservatively be converted
into a 4 lane street with enough space on each side to pull out of traffic flow to load and unload
passengers. Parking, if needed, can be remote.
Unlike people, manually driven vehicles tend to travel in a fairly predictable behavior,
accommodating them can be made with a boost in object recognition specific for the allowable classes
of manually driven vehicles, such as bicycles and motorcycles. The city would have to mandate that any
and all objects on its streets (the car’s navigational grid) be equipped with the same location
communication device that are in the cars (more on that later), whether moving or stationary, such as
temporary markers ahead of closed lanes and broken-down cars – all must be equipped with a location
communicator, this renders detection inherent, now the car only needs to focus on identifying objects
that are not autonomous and work on predicting/projecting their path.
The streets of this city need to be void of walkers, that might sound extreme but it’ll make an
extremely efficient traffic grid. I also think this is the easiest way to make many SAE 4/5 cars share the
same road and be fast at the same time. And in the event of a system blackout, the cars can fallback to
using current methods of object detection and recognition, albeit at a reduced speed.

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A system of SAE Level 5 / NHTSA Level 4 transportation pods and transporters.
smartCar
With the constant improvement in two of the automotive industry’s greatest innovations in
recent history, self-driving and electrical operation, one must deconstruct the current car and rebuild it
from the ground up. A car built to the Society of Automotive Engineers International (SAE) Level 5 and
US National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) Level 4 specifications will not need a steering
wheel, pedals or dashboard, it won’t even need windows. The elimination of mechanically-linked
controls between the cabin and the drive train opens new doors to endless possibilities. And electrical
motor propulsion can redefine traffic patterns since it can make a car travel in reverse with as much
ease (mechanically) as it can travel forward.
The following is a transportation system that is electric but easily renewable, a system that will
increase the commuter’s productivity, will reduce cost of ownership and liability, and if implemented
correctly will eliminate traffic congestion and even traffic lights. It is a car comprised of two
components, a smartPod and a Transporter.
Part 1: The smartPod
A cabin wherein the inner surface of the car’s greenhouse is a 360° display that can be
segmented or used as a single display depending on the seating configuration of the cabin and/or user
setting. The display can be designed to project a complete and seamless/pillarless (except door seams)
360° view of the car’s surroundings, or any portion thereof. It can also be designed to display up to a
360° view of any simulation. For instance, it can display a virtual endless road banked by lush, vividly
green fields where the motion over the virtual road copies the motion of the car on the real road,
accounting for the speed of the car and the induced centrifugal forces (turning). As Google Street View
builds a library of street views of the same street over the years, the car can practically take passengers

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on a time lapsed virtual tour of the road being travelled. And of course the display can be used as a
360° workstation monitor.
Concept Pod
An oval or circular shaped cabin with a 360° desk – a 360° display and a single fully rotating seat
– a command and entertainment center. Important information is displayed upfront (up against the
direction of travel), ancillary information on the sides and leisurely, reclined activities to the rear.
smartPod 1S
The jewel of the lineup, an Executive single passenger smartPod. It would be a coupe shaped
like a pear diamond, with a 180° to a 270° display upfront at the wide end and a single partially rotating
seat. And the remaining section, the narrow end, would be the greenhouse and the door. It’ll be the
only one with a face and a tail. All others will have very little features to distinguish one end from the
other.
smartPod 2S
An oval shaped 2 passenger smartPod arranged back-to-back, each with a 180° display.
smartPod 4S & 6S
A rectangular shaped 4 or 6 passenger smartPod with the seats arranged in two or three rows
of back-to-back seats, one display, shared or segmented, for front facing passengers and another for the
rear facing passengers and greenhouse on the sides.
Location Communication System
Each would be equipped with a location communication device such as baseband transceiver
that continuously sends data about itself to a cloud-based information sharing system. By continuously
updating a cloud, critical information about all cars would be dynamically available in each car. The
data sent/shared, would comprise two communications packets, an initiation packet which would

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include the car’s identification, location, destination, identify the algorithm used to calculate the route,
and selected travel speed. And as the car sets off to its destination, it will send a continuous ping-like
update packet that would include the car’s identification and location - very small information packets
which will allow for fast updates.
smartPod’s Interface
The human to machine interface would be in the form of an affixed tablet that is functionally
integrated with the car’s display. Primary and predominant functions are navigation related. Gone are
the speedometer and tachometer, instead information such as destination, distance remaining, and
estimated time of arrival will become essential and constantly displayed front & center. Secondary
functionality would include emulating the user’s other devices such as smart-phone, tablet or laptop.
The car’s display will become a peripheral for these devices allowing the user to access and use the car’s
display as extensions of their devices, thereby accessing all the applications and data (as well as
leveraging resources – connectivity, memory, CPU, etc.) on personal devices while securing privacy.
And of course, the car would have its own public connectivity and set of applications accessed by the
affixed tablet.
Part 2: The Transporters – The heart of continuous autonomous mobility
The various types of pods or cabins are a safe, comfortable and linked place for passengers.
Motion and auxiliary power comes from a network of electrically operated, self-driving transporters.
Cost efficiency would come in the form of leasing these on a per use basis and prorated liability. Design
options can be numerous if the right people are challenged. Fundamentally, however, I can think of
two primary types, a closed frame and an open frame. A closed frame is a box frame, whereas an open
frame is one where the positions of the wheels vary in relation to each other, e.g. clamp like or scissor
like. Making the wheels independently driven with an electric motor at each hub, one can move the
arms of the frame in any direction, given the proper articulation of the wheels and pivoting/extending
points.

8. Mike Shehata | November, 2014 8 | P a g e
The difference comes down to whether the system will be built to raise and lower the cabin into
the transporters, or have the transporters’ chassis be scissor like that opens and lowers itself, “hugs” a
mating section at the lower part of the cabin, closes, elevates, engages retractable hooks at all four
corners from the chassis to the pod providing the chassis all the necessary structure rigidity and moves
on. Closed frame types are more effective and efficient but will require a higher level of infrastructural
support, e.g. an elevated U-shaped horizontal platform at the pod’s storage/parking spots, where the
car drives right into the U-shaped structure lowers itself and continues forwards or backwards without
the cabin, much less cumbersome to operate but you cannot decouple just anywhere. The best of both
frame types can be gained by using a U-shaped carbon-fiber tub.
A motor at each hub creates a 4-wheel independent drive, which translates to superior vehicle
stability particularly when turning. Changing direction will be achieved by varying the wheels’ speed in
relation to each other – not by mechanical articulation.
Another advantage of being motor driven is that the car will no longer be constraint by the
gears of a transmission – a motor can achieve speed in either direction of rotation. We’ll start having V
turns instead of U turns – the car will simply enter a dividing lane, reverse direction and merge into
opposite traffic. I wonder how our stomachs will take it.
Range is inconsequential, if the passenger’s trip exceeds transporter’s range, then the car can go to,
instead of a gas station, it’ll go to an exchange station, where a freshly charged transporter takes over
in a fraction of the time spent at a gas station, and without ever leaving the cabin.
Using a smartCar
The user would summon transporters via a web-based subscription service, when it arrives it
couples to smartPod, after which the user enters and buckles up. Both, the smartPod and transporter
will further validate the user by scanning for a physical security device, like a key fob. When
authenticated all systems power-up. If destination was provided when transporter was summoned then

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the car will confirm the destination in a dazzling display of maps, routes, vistas and even some of the
user’s pictures that were captured at that destination on previous trips.
After destination is confirmed, the navigational display is reduced, displaying only essential
information. Then the passengers would engage their phone or laptop to smartPod’s display or use a
set of smartPod applications through the smartPod’s tablet, and before they know it they have arrived.
Shared/Public Transportation
I don’t think said two part transport system would yield much gain in shared or public use
applications. Any shared or public use application would employ a cabin integrated with its drive train –
as cars are built today. As a vehicle nears a minimum range threshold, it would simply complete its
route and then navigate itself to a nearby recharging station while a freshly charged one takes over.
The most effective application of an SAE Level 5 / NHTSA Level 4 vehicle would, I believe, would
be in the form of a 4 passenger vehicle designed for a shared commuter service. It would include
retractable inner partitions to form four private (on-demand) quadrants each with its own door. And
each quadrant provides a cocoon-like private work environment for a single passenger.
I am not sure operating autonomous buses in the city will be cost effective. The likes of Metro
Bus will disappear in favor of smaller (8 to 12 passenger capacity), networked, and dynamically routed
cars. They would be part of a grid transportation system that continuously tracks the position of each
car, the available passenger capacity in each and the range capacity for each, and all requested pick-up
and drop-off points. With that information, the system continuously reevaluates each car’s route for
minimum distance and maximum route overlap, providing maximum efficiency in transporting people.
A hybrid system that combines a dynamically routed system and fixed route system can effectively
provide wide area coverage, such as metropolitan cities and their suburbs.

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These would be a high-roofed boxy design, where both sides are split-sliding or gulwing doors
for easy ingress and egress. Inside are laterally positioned 4 or more back-to-back seats, displays are on
each of the car’s sides, streaming advertisements or news, and dark-tinted greenhouse at the front and
the rear.
A 2 and 4 passenger cars, like smartPod 2S & 4S but with integrated drive trains, can be used as
taxis, which are hailed by a GPS enabled phone or at designated taxi signaling locations.
I don’t think long-distance, high-volume people transporters should exceed SAE Level 3/NHTSA
Level 3, there should always be a driver when transporting many people regardless of how automated
the system can be.