Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Tells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft.

cartechboy writes "Autonomous driving is every car manufacturer's immediate R&D project. In car-building terms, even if a new technology isn't due for 10 years — since that's just two full vehicle generations away-- it has to be developed now. So now it is for autonomous car research and testing, and this week Ford revealed a brand new Fusion Hybrid research vehicle built for autonomous R&D with some interesting tech capabilities. Technologies inside the new Fusion Hybrid research vehicle include LIDAR (a light-based range detection), which scans at 2.5 million times per second to create a 3D map of the surrounding environment at a radius of 200 feet. Ford says the research vehicle's sensors are sensitive enough to detect the difference between a small animal and a paper bag even at maximum range. More road-ready differentiations include observation and understanding of pedestrians, cyclists, and plain old stationary objects. Ford is working on this project in cooperation with the University of Michigan."

Mis-read the title

[Maow]

I read it as "Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Smells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft." and my first thought was, "What the hell kind of test is that?!?"

Split second later, "Waaiit a second, that can't be right."

But hey, my truck smells like a small animal in a paper bag - from 2 years ago.

*goes back to sleep*

Yes but

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Can it tell if the small animal is *inside* the paperbag? I'm thinking of cats specifically. Cats and paperbags... cat lovers know what I'm talking about.

Re:I'm waiting for autonomous taxis being everywhe

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Autonomous taxis already exist: you tell the driver to go the shortest or quickest way, and the driver almost always ignores you and chooses the least direct, more gridlocked route instead, all by himself

Also, you don't have to drive the taxi yourself.

Re:I'm waiting for autonomous taxis being everywhe

[hawkinspeter]

Don't look at the CCTV cameras in Milton Keynes. You could get stoned.

Re:What are they really saying?

[Chrisq]

...The mathematician is the most correct in that the statement is based on exactly what he saw. Only one field and only one side of each sheep.

If he were a Scottish mathematician he would certainly have seen the rear end of the sheep too.

not just seen it!

Can it tell a small animal inside a paper bag?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well the Russians are way ahead of Ford. They drive around with dash cams all the while and their systems can not only tell a paper bag from a small animal, it can tell if there is a small animal inside the paper bag. Not only that, it would take that cute cat in a paper video and upload it to the click bait web site also has a drive by download malware. Sergey Gregorovich, the owner of the malware site, says, "My R&D investment in integrating small animal in paper bag detection technology with dash cam, auto upload and drive by download technologies have given me rich dividends".