Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean soon.

[Meredith]

Really with car navigation systems becomming a thing of reality in everyone's car, soon we will be seeing self driving cars withing 10 to 15 years, and unlike fusion I actually believe this will be an accurate prediction. I think it will help things out, I mean we see all sorts of systems installed in cars to help avoid driver stupidity like anti-lock brakes and collision detection systems, self driving cars is just and extension. Once people get used to the idea of self driving cars, more automation, pardon the pun in inevitable.


GM researches Self Driving cars


I remeber reading a National Geographic article from the 60's once that had prototypes but they needed big bulky computers and expensive sensors, these days those things are far cheaper and we don't even need magnets laid out in the roadways.


The New tech reminds me of what I see in "Ghost in the Shell".

 

[ITL]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Click
True, it has to learn a route instead of doing it on-the-fly, but it's a start.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

As long as the driver can always take control when they want, I'd be (almost) okay with this.

I mean, there are significant risks to cars that are 'driven' by computer. What if hackers/terrorists get into the network? They could drive you anywhere they wanted.

And, as that article pointed out, what if your tires blow or there's unexpected obstacles in the road? Emergencies like these demand that there be ultimate control by the driver.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Babaganoosh said:
I mean, there are significant risks to cars that are 'driven' by computer. What if hackers/terrorists get into the network? They could drive you anywhere they wanted.

That kind of centralized "network" is the stuff of cliched sci-fi that deliberately sets up a situation to make it easy for bad guys to create danger. Remember, the operative term is self-driving. It wouldn't be one big computer controlling all the cars on the road, any more than the Internet is one big computer answering everyone's questions like SF stories from the '40s and '50s assumed it would be. Each car would have its own computer control, making pretty much the same kinds of decisions that individual drivers do. It would know where it wanted to go and how to get there, it would gauge its speed by observing the traffic and weather conditions around it at any given moment, and it would make sure to avoid bumping into things. It would be able to communicate with other vehicles, and to access maps, traffic reports, weather reports, and the like, so it could take the most efficient and safe route possible. But the decision-making would be onboard.

 

[zephramc]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Babaganoosh said:
And, as that article pointed out, what if your tires blow or there's unexpected obstacles in the road? Emergencies like these demand that there be ultimate control by the driver.

It's very likely the car would do better than most drivers in the event of a blowout and probably for obstacles in the road as well. Furthermore the car with the blowout or avoiding the object in the road, can alert other cars around it that it is going to make a few sudden corrections within microseconds. This is something no human driver could do.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Of course, if we had decent, universal mass transit, none of this would be necessary anyway.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

But universal mass transit is kind of a non-starter because people still need a way to get from their homes to the mass-transit routes. There have been some pretty interesting proposals for cars that can actually hook together and become a light-rail train. But instituting that nationwide would require a massive restructuring of the whole transportation system. Individual, self-driving cars would be able to take advantage of the existing road network, but would be able to use it with far more safety and efficiency than human drivers can.

And let's face it -- we need this. Given the way modern society is going, there's no way of getting every driver in the nation to give up talking on cell phones or eating or doing their makeup or reading the newspaper or all of the above while driving. And there's no easy way to restructure society to solve the problem of sleep deprivation, whose effects on driving are as bad as being drunk. So the only practical solution is to make the cars able to drive themselves so that people can be free to do that stuff -- or take a much-needed nap -- without getting themselves and others killed.

Although it occurs to me that there'd have to be some way to retrofit existing cars with this capability, or it wouldn't be enough to ensure safety. I wonder how hard that would be. (Assuming that the retrofit would be substantially cheaper than buying a new car.)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Christopher said:
But universal mass transit is kind of a non-starter because people still need a way to get from their homes to the mass-transit routes.

True dat.

I suppose it's easier for New Yorkers, for example, since they have hundreds of subway stations so no one lives very far from any given station.

I guess I'm just spoiled, having spent so much time in NYC and becoming completely hooked on trains in general. We need a return of the railroad 'culture'. And Amtrak is not enough in this regard.

 

[anti-matter]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

America doesn't need a self driving car...it's needs a car that get 60mpg. F-ing Detroit donkey's.

 

[Paxil]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

^ Self driving cars could also get optimal mileage much better than a human.

 

[anti-matter]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Paxil said:
^ Self driving cars could also get optimal mileage much better than a human.

Well OK lets say you were King and could order one or the other. What's it going to be?

 

[Paxil]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

My point is one would be both. That's one of the ways we are going to get the mileage up.

 

[anti-matter]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

^yes that would be ideal. I was thinking oil is becoming a national security matter so first one then the other.

Truthfully I can't see a self driving car in our lifetime... just imagine the product liability issues lawyers will bring up the 1st time one is involved in an accident.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

^^We already have cars that can parallel-park themselves, sort of, and we're very near to having cars with automatic collision avoidance. Technologically, the self-driving car is something we'll have within a decade, most likely.

As for the liability issue, I find it hard to believe that any lawyer could convincingly make the case that a computer-driven car is any more intrinsically dangerous than the morons we allow behind the wheel as it is. The annual traffic fatality rate in the US is more than twice the annual homicide rate. If our society were really willing to ban any kind of car on the basis of its danger, we'd all be dependent on mass transit or bicycles, because all cars would be banned.

 

[Paxil]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Yup, the technologies you mention are actually lifesaving and will become grounds for lawsuits if they are NOT implemented quickly enough.

 

[Lindley]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

This is all coming out of the DARPA Urban Challenge, of course. Carnegie Mellon won; Stanford came in second.

The big problem with GPS navigation being the primary key point is that you can accumulate fairly large position errors when you go under a bridge or in a tunnel. You can compensate to some extent for that using inertial motion sensors, but they compound errors fast on their own. If you integrate visual navigation as well by keying off feature points seen by a camera, you might have a chance.

 

[Deleted 2]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

anti-matter said:
Truthfully I can't see a self driving car in our lifetime... just imagine the product liability issues lawyers will bring up the 1st time one is involved in an accident.

This is not a point that should've been dismissed as easily as it has. A driver making a mistake risks a lawsuit. A company releasing driving software with bugs risks a class action lawsuit.

A hypothetical computer driver may be better than a human driver, but eventually that won't be the standard we measure it against.

I'm not saying it won't happen; it will.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Lindley said:
The big problem with GPS navigation being the primary key point is that you can accumulate fairly large position errors when you go under a bridge or in a tunnel. You can compensate to some extent for that using inertial motion sensors, but they compound errors fast on their own. If you integrate visual navigation as well by keying off feature points seen by a camera, you might have a chance.

GPS isn't the only way to go. As long as you're on known roads that are clearly marked in a way the car can detect (say, RFID tags at every intersection/exit/etc.), then it can rely on internal maps and local sensor inputs. I mean, a person driving a car doesn't need to know their latitude and longitude to the arcsecond, so why should a computer? When dealing with a lot of individual units in a system, it makes more sense to have them rely on local rules than global control systems.

 

[John Picard]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

anti-matter said:
America doesn't need a self driving car...it's needs a car that get 60mpg. F-ing Detroit donkey's.

So tell us how to design and build a car that gets 60mpg, because it isn't possible.

 

[Deleted 2]

Re: Self Driving Cars: The Future is now and by now I mean s

Wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Polo#Fuel_Economy
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-vw-1-liter-car.htm
http://www.twingo.net/nicolas/greenpeace.htm