Automobiles Evolve to Live Up to Their Name 297
MauriceV sent in a story about the trend toward the completely self-driving car.
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Automobiles Evolve to Live Up to Their Name
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I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. - Joe Mullally, computer salesman
It wasn't my fault, officer. It was my car. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It wasn't my fault, officer. It was my car. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It wasn't my fault, officer. It was my car. (Score:2, Informative)
Hm...what if Slashdot arranges to be an NYT partner?
Re:It wasn't my fault, officer. It was my car. (Score:3, Interesting)
No Karma bo
What the heck?! (Score:5, Funny)
NYT (Score:4, Funny)
Shortest. Description. Ever. (Score:2)
Re:NYT (Score:2)
Now I wasted 4 secs on a registration dialog
And 20 more on posting :-)
Could be good for safety (Score:5, Insightful)
Happy Trails!
Erick
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:5, Interesting)
Where did you read that? Most traction control systems either
1) Adjust the throttle position so the wheels don't spin more than 5mph (i.e. if the gas is on the floor and the drive wheels are on ice, they only spin slowly).
or 2) They brake individual wheels to gain traction. This isn't stressing the transmission any more than normal driving. The differential is simply distributing more torque to the other wheel. And there's no way to do this without traction control or a limited-slip/locking differential. So it's not always a bad thing.
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:2)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:3, Informative)
I generally hate traction control, because most systems modulate it by controlling the throttle inputs (limiting fuel injection...), which does not respond quite fast enough.
Hmmm. Traction control is a nebulous concept. All it really amounts to is some mechanism taking some control over wheel speed, somehow. "Most" traction controls work completely differently from one another.
My old '91 Mazda 626 had traction control. It was a little button you pushed next to the shifter, and all it did was prevent
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:2)
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:2)
They had this affinity for throwing themselves in to the ground, through a process of taking control untill the computer thought it was ok, then handing off to the pilot, who'd be trying to correct himself, then the computer'd take control again, and so on untill plane + passengers = crater.
Re:Could be good for safety (Score:3, Informative)
When I drove one of these prototypes, it would fight you at first, but ultimately relent and let you overpower the automation. Most of the prototypes I've seen have easy to use kill switches to shut the computer off, but I can't imagine the lawyers letting such a feature hit the market.
Uh oh! (Score:5, Funny)
Though I imagine that most of America will hate the cars anyway. How will people possibly deal with their road rage?! (And don't tell me that people won't have road rage if cars are self-driving. Don't you ever get the urge to just ram old ladies off the road just because?)
Re:Uh oh! (Score:4, Funny)
No. However, this makes available several common jokes:):
-In Soviet Russia, old ladies ram you off the road!
-I am an old lady, you insensitive clod!
etc.
Re:Uh oh! (Score:2)
Yeah.. whenever they automate or standardize something, they always go overboard with the safety. People wouldn't get road rage if the speed limits were higher. But the self driving car will always go the limit, navigate off-ramps at 25 kph, always leave the recommended 2 second gap from the car in front, never run a yellow light, brake for pedestrians half a block in advance,
Re:Uh oh! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh oh! (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the car would be driving instead of you, tough titty. Sit inside your cage and yell and stamp your feet all you want.
Re:Uh oh! (Score:2)
Um... road rage is usually caused by the behavior of other drivers, i.e. getting cut off dangerously, etc. How does the speed limit have anything to do with that?
About the only way that I can see the speed limit affecting road rage is when someone gets in the number 1 lane and feels they have the right and responsibility to drive exactly the speed limit. But usually traffic is free-flow, and you can get around them, and the moment passes.
Re:Uh oh! (Score:3, Insightful)
In order to take 40% off your commute, unless your house and work are right on an onramp, you must be doing 60+% over the speed limit, and are able to sustain that in traffic. This means 112 MPH in a 70 zone.
I used to drive about 80 on the expressway in the 70 zone. I tried switching to 65. I found it made about 2 minutes difference on a 30 minute commute, because much of the commute time is taken up by sitting at stoplights, etc.
I also found that many of t
What does this mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
the technology needs to be made fool proof before it can be set loose on the roads.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What does this mean? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What does this mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the next generation of adaptive cruise control (or intelligent cruise control, depending on the marketer) is cooperative cruise control. In this mode, cars communicate in real time within their local area on traffic conditions, braking rates, speed, etc and adjust cruise control accordingly.
This has other benefits beyond emergency situations in that this sort of tech will suck up shockwaves in traffic, thus improving dense driving for everyone. There was a simulation paper on this a few years back that showed you didn't even need a majority of the cars to have this for these results.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Superman is that you? Loads of machines adjust faster then me about every computer known to man can react faster than I can. As for the technology needing to be foolproof before it can be set loose on the road what about all the accidents and deaths caused by 'foolproof' drivers not paying sufficient attention or doing dumb things like speeding and insane overtaking manouvers.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2)
I do agree with your sentiments, and I find it outrageous we entrust the equivalent of 1 stick of dynamite to some of the most inferior humans to walk the earth since the first cro-magnons walked the earth, I think the idea is a person can be imprisoned,
Re:What does this mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a point, but... a computer is not "motivated" by *anything*. This is the part I never get about people who freak out at the idea of speed cameras: you'd rather have a human being come up behind you, run your plate, and then based on the type of car you're driving, what you look like, and whether anything interesting comes up there, decide whether or not to give you a speeding ticket... than making sure that *everyone* who is speeding gets one? (Which, by the way, is the fastest way to ensure we get good speeding laws...)
Same goes here. A computer is not motivated to tailgate the blue-hair in front of it because she's going "too slow." A computer is not motivated to cut the asshole in the Lexus off. A computer is not going to get in an accident because it was distraught over breaking up with its girlfriend.
But you have a point. We like revenge in our society. When someone hurts you, you want them to *pay*. If a computer hurts you, there's no way to make it pay... it doesn't care if you turn it into scrap.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm, I'll tell you what... do you have a car with cruise control? Next time you're on the highway, set it, and watch how closely it's sticking to the set speed, even when you go around bends in the road, up and down hills, etc. Now try staying that close to one speed without the cruise control...
The cruise control operates by measuring the actual speed, comparing it to the desired speed, and controlling the throttle. It can react to small changes in speed MUCH faster than you can.
If you gave it some kind of sensor to anticipate slope changes before they happen (laser range finders perhaps?), then it would be almost perfect.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2)
What happens to cruise control when you start hydroplaning?
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2)
If they hit an event outside there design, how can they react properly?
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2, Insightful)
Umm... the cruise control on my 2002 Honda Accord is pretty lame, actually. It generally sticks within +/- 3 MPH, but I can do much better if I am controlling it myself.
The part that sucks is that sometimes the cruise control decides to gun the engine when going up a hill. It's unaccep
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What does this mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
In this age of class action lawsuits, I don't think car manufacturers are stupid enough to let a less than foolproof system on the roads.
Re:What does this mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
A human being can see the car running the red light at an intersection. The radar-based system wouldn't even know about the other car until right before it sideswiped you (if they even bothered to mount a lateral detector).
A human being knows whether its safer to swerve into the lefthand lane or off the road.
A human being can hear someone else honking his horn.
A human being can see a "Deaf Child" sign.
A human being can tell whether the road is wet.
There are many
Re:What does this mean? (Score:4, Insightful)
A fully autonomous system damn well better have a 360 degree field of vision. That said, it still could miss the car running the red light if that car is screened until it pops out a lane to pass the guy who DID stop... but a human would most likely fail to spot them as well.
Advantage: Computer, because it doesn't have to turn its head to look.
A human being knows whether its safer to swerve into the lefthand lane or off the road.
Agreed, but not all humans pay attention closely enough, or at least not all the time. I know when I drive I always keep an eye out for which side has free space should I suddenly need it. Then if something DOES happen, I don't have to waste that fraction of a second looking around before making a move. Joe Cellphone probably isn't doing that.
Advantage: Human, under ideal circumstances. The best workaround for this is to not let the computer tailgate in the first place. It's probably a wash against real drivers in real conditions.
A human being can hear someone else honking his horn.
Computers can hear too, and parsing a honk is much simpler than parsing speech. Most of the car horns I hear on the road aren't directed at me, and the few that are have a variety of meanings. Could be a buddy in the next lane, could be someone telling me I left my turn signal on, could be someone is mortally offended by the bird shit on my car. If the computer can't figure it out, it could always ask the driver.
Advantage: none really. If the computer can't figure out how to respond, it will have made such a determination long before the human has had a chance to figure things out. At the very least, it'd be nice if the car automagically lowers the volume of the radio when people start honking.
A human being can see a "Deaf Child" sign.
ID tags or beacons can be placed under or near roads to serve as electronic signs for the car. They could even be mounted to the same poles as the human-readable signs just to keep things neat. Sure they don't exist now, but it's hardly a technology problem. Even simpler, we could just paint barcodes right on the street, which the car scans as it rolls by. Paint them in infrared and the humans don't even have to deal with them.
Advantage: none. Both human and computer should be able to figure out where they are and what they are supposed to be doing, if appropriate markings are in place.
A human being can tell whether the road is wet.
So can electronics. Detecting water is something they're reasonably good at. A diligent monitoring of ground and weather conditions could even keep the car watching out for black ice, which tends to sneak up on even the best drivers.
Advantage: Computer. A human in a heated cockpit simply will not know when they go from a road warm enough to maintain rain or slush to a road cold enough to sustain ice. Even without an autopilot, a friendly warning that icing conditions are present would help an awful lot of people.
Mal-2
Re:What does this mean? (Score:2)
Yeah, great example.
Control (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, aeroplanes have been doing it for years - changing public opinion is going to be difficult.
Besides, most men prefer the control they have while driving
Re:Control (Score:2)
One good application for computer control would
Re:Control (Score:2)
Re:Control (Score:2)
With [airdisaster.com] good [airdisaster.com] reason [airdisaster.com]
Re:Control (Score:2)
so why weren't one of these in the darpa challenge (Score:2, Offtopic)
I have nothing more to add
Re:so why weren't one of these in the darpa challe (Score:3, Informative)
I hate human drivers. (Score:3, Troll)
Of course we are so far away from totally computer driven vehicles that I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. But I can dream.
I like to drive.. I love long cross country trips.. but would give it up if I never had to deal with city traffic or risk my life because somone else (or myself) is being stupid.
Re:I hate human drivers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate human drivers. (Score:2)
(* As in, by the time we have the technology, I fully expect us to be using some form of travel much more convenient and/or entertaining than automobiles.)
adfasdf (Score:2, Funny)
hahahaha (Score:5, Funny)
no...nevermind. too easy.
Is it legal to let the car drive if you're drunk? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you, that would be bad enough -- to punch in the wrong coordinates, and wake up in the truly seedy part of town to find dwarves stealing your wheels -- but it's certainly an order of magnitude less severe than killing someone unlucky enough to be sharing the road with you.
Mal-2
Re:Is it legal to let the car drive if you're drun (Score:5, Funny)
If you fail, it drives you to the Ashcroft.
Short article (Score:4, Funny)
This is supposed to be slashdot! There's supposed to be some sort of description of the project on the front page.
More importantly, there's supposed to be some sort of biased opinion along with the story. Stuff like:
Come on! Us slashdotters want to be TOLD what to think, not make opinions for ourselves... Bastard...
</sarcasm>
Re:Short article (Score:2)
The sensors aren't good enough yet (Score:5, Interesting)
We [overbot.com], of course, are working on fully automatic driving. We have both a visual road-follower and a millimeter radar. That's not enough.
Even line-scanner laser rangefinders are too limited. We need a true 3D device. Such things have been built, but the market is so tiny (and they're so big and clunky) that they're all one-offs. It's clear that the problem can be fixed, but the market isn't there yet to do it.
Re:The sensors aren't good enough yet (Score:3, Insightful)
And not just obstacle avoidance, but sometimes choosing which obstacle to avoid.
Can we make the computer smart enough to avoid the child, even though it will hit something else, like the skateboard or dog he is chasing?
If the computer mandates a minimum 1 meter bubble with other cars, do we allow it to violate that in order to avoid the kid and dog?
It's clear that the problem can be fixed, but the market isn't there yet to do it.
I'm not so sure
Re:The sensors aren't good enough yet (Score:2)
Re:The sensors aren't good enough yet (Score:3, Insightful)
This is driven by product liability issues, whereas a moment's thought would indicate that there is a net benefit to society even if the robot is only as unsafe as a human, since the driver can then be doing something productive rather than failing to observe stop signs, and picking his nose.
Safety (Score:2)
Re:Safety (Score:2)
Re:Safety (Score:2)
Road support for robot cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Road support for robot cars? (Score:3)
Possibly you are right, and I'm not going to disagree necessarily. I will say however that there are several arguments you could make in the other direction.
First, as others in this discussion have pointed out, this system could end up as a way to legally remove responsibility for one's vehicle in some ways from the owner. For instance, if you are not in control of how fast your car goes and the sensor network is, then you can't be held liable for speeding. And if everyone's car was on this system then th
Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:5, Interesting)
While many drivers are comfortable in taking risks, the corporate creators of these systems will be risk averse. That excessive risk averseness will hinder public acceptance.
Re:Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:4, Interesting)
And then you have the opposite problem from the parent poster: people are terrified to speed down the freeway only five feet from the car in front of them.
How do we know this? Because there's a stretch of Highway 8 in San Diego County where they're testing magnetic guidance for this exact purpose. They have a "platoon" of cars with sensors under them, and little hockey-puck sized magnetic guides embedded in the pavement. Sometimes early on Sunday mornings you can see them whipping by at 60 mph with five feet between them.
But when they put humans in the cars, they panic.
Re:Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:2)
Re:Low adoption: AutoAuto == sunday driver (Score:2)
Can they drive themselves through Iraq? (Score:3, Funny)
In a perfect world they could park themselves underground in an automatic parking garage. [slashdot.org] Although this would require a hole in the ground large enough to fit a Humvee into, which might not be possible with today's technology. Maybe we can set one up once we have a working space elevator.
lawyers (Score:5, Funny)
Your car will eventually become an internet device (like everything else). Then, ad-push technology will sense your next collision, and with lightning speed emblazon the logo of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe across the airbag rushing toward your face.
Re:lawyers (Score:2, Funny)
It was: oh, I wouldn't worry about the laywers, I'm sure they'd find some way to litigate over it.
Re:lawyers (Score:2)
Hey now! It's down to 40,000 these days... thank you very much!
My Transportation Engineering instructor's theory is that "traffic's getting so bad, when we hit each other, we're not going fast enough to kill each other anymore!"
bumper bowling (Score:2)
It would be cool if I could control the speed and steering but the computer would not allow me to drive off the road... so I could still have a blast highballing through the hills of ohio on a sunday afternoon, but also be auto-driven back from the bars on friday (or thursday.. or wednesday... or...... tuesday....) night.
Still waiting (Score:5, Insightful)
To get really tin-foil-hattish about it, I imagine once self-driving automobile technology is perfected it will be really, really safe. Really safe. To the point where there will be so few accidents that it will result in insurance companies having to lower premiums drastically. To the point where they won't be able to rake in the dough like they do now on auto insurance. My hat is telling me these companies will work behind the scenes to prevent this technology from maturing any time "soon". Once it gets to the point of being usable and practical they will attempt to buy legistlation that outlaws it. In the U.S. anyway. Like I said, I don't expect any of this for another 40 years or so, and by then the techniques of hyper-lobbying (read: legal bribery) will have advanced to the point where today's legislation purchasers (MS, Adobe, RIAA, MPAA, etc.) will look like pikers by comparison.
What pisses me off (sometimes) is all this stuff we were promised as kids. Well, where is it? I don't see any of it.
Re:Still waiting (Score:2)
What the article in question discusses is that the highways won't *need* to be equipped. Cars can be auto-guided by GPS, radar, and cameras.
Me, I'm not so sure about that... it seems like you'd have to have a hyper-accurate map, and heck, ours are often off by several feet currently. But it's an interesting idea, especially if the GPS component was more of a back-up and not really essential to the system.
But the cost of implanting magn
Cars too safety conscious? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cars too safety conscious? (Score:2)
Oh, joy. Automated cars with Clippy. Talk about Road Rage...
SB
Closing the sunroof? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mercedes S-Class sedans will even start shutting the sunroof and lifting reclined seats if a collision is deemed likely.
Isn't closing the sun-roof a dangerous think to do. If the impact jams the passenger and driver doors, then the sunroof might be the only way of escape.
Re:Closing the sunroof? (Score:2, Insightful)
non reg link (Score:3, Informative)
linky linky [nytimes.com]
What else? (Score:5, Funny)
Does it have "soccer mom mode" so it will go 40 MPH over speed bumps for the 200 feet from the grocery store to the bank? Will it then be sure to park itself in two spaces so Mrs. Suburbia can spend 20 minutes getting her family of eight out of the car again so they can all go into the bank?
Does it have "lawn-mower-with-headlights dad mode" so SUVs will cruise at 75MPH on four-lane city streets and accelerate 0 to 60 in 5.5 seconds from every stoplight?
Does it have "Ms. Too-cool-for-you mode" so it will birddog people around corners and then swerve into the next lane at 65MPH so she can get to the next stoplight 2.3 seconds earlier?
If not, why, people might start driving with their heads out of their asses. Imagine that!
Microsoft car (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft car (Score:3, Funny)
Potential use: traffic jams (Score:3, Insightful)
A car that could keep a speed as constant as possible, instead of advancing in fits and jerks, would help all traffic more fluidly.
With the sensors they have, this should be easy enough. And if they can't do that, I don't think we should trust those companies to program cars to move without your intervention when you're going 100km/h.
More reduction of traffic congestion (Score:3, Interesting)
This is completely true. Another major advantage of autonomous cars is that they could simply follow more closely, letting more cars occupy the road at once, travelling at higher speeds, getting to where they're going more quickly and reducing much of the energy waste and pollution that's often associated with low speed stop-start driving.
With a road that's designed for it, as well as cars that are designed to communuicate with the road and the other cars on it, traffic congestion could be reduced hu
Solve traffic jam waves yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
You can do something about it [amasci.com], if you care to. The biggest causes of stop and go traffic jams on freways are onramps and offramps, and the "gotta win" mindset that doesn't let people merge into traffic flow or change over to exit flow. Start leaving a few car lengths of space ahead of you when you drive on freeways. By doing this, you're giving people room to merge in and out, and you're also giving the wave time to break up before you reach it. I've gotten into the habit of doing this, and wouldn't yo
Many more thoughts on these (Score:2)
For example, I talk about how oil companies should fund automatic car development [4brad.com] because it would make people tolerate longer drives and commutes.
I also talk about how self-parking [4brad.com] might be the big early application. Not the already existing parallel parking, but the ability to do automatic valet parking in special parking lots.
Alas, I finally realize that the government will try to ban d
Little Robot Soccer Moms (Score:2)
What? Please stop looking at me like that.
Car Ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
I know we all love our cars, but we build way too many of them. Most of them sit parked 90% of the time. A fully automatic car could come to us when we need it. With just a fraction of the cars we have now, a car could reach anyone in under a few minutes. You would just push a button and get a fully fueled and serviced SUV or compact as needed
Self-driving cars date back to the 50's (Score:2, Informative)
Pretty lightweight article (Score:4, Insightful)
My prediction is within 10 years manufacturers will get beyond the toe-in-the-water stage and fully robotic cars will be approved for highway use. At some point someone will realize that a robotic car need not sit in the parking lot at work. It can drive home and chauffeur the rest of the family around, then return when it's quitting time. The saving on double car payments will far outweigh the cost of the additional trips.
The next step will be to ask why the car has to sit in the garage when it's not in use. Leasing companies will offer the use of their entire fleet of cars. Cars will become robot taxis, summoned by cell phone.
The next step after that will be to ban human-driven vehicles from the highways. When that's done, robotic cars will be able to travel at high speeds with less distance between them. Traffic jams will disappear. The annual highway death toll of 50,000 in America (consistent since the 1960's and half because of drunks) will plummet. I'm looking forward to all of this.
Some people don't think any of this will happen because people won't want to give up control of their cars. Driving a car is fun. Sure it, but so is riding a horse, and people gave that up when something better came along. Robotic cars are something better.
no speeding? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:HUH??????? (Score:2)
Re:HUH??????? (Score:2)
Why do you think it is taking so long for hybrid cars to hit to the market? They made a whole bunch in the late eighties. We are just waiting for them to be mature enough to burn the fuel we feed them.
Re:Screensavers? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't want to wait untill every road in the country is retrofitted with magnetic spikes to have my car drive me around. By the time that happens that tech will be obsolete anyway. Also, that kind of "smart road" is actually realy dumb... imagine the mayhem if a malicious prankster dug up the magnets and moved them.
Re:Screensavers? (Score:2)
You embedded the 'car guidence system' into the road so someone would need a jack hammer to move them, and you put a tag on the system, so it know were the next magnet is suppose to be, and where the last one was supposed to be. Not if somethings out of touch, the cehical can respond automatically.
an auto system would is far easier then people seem to think it is.