Nissan's Autonomous Car Now Road Legal In Japan 205
Daniel_Stuckey writes "The current test vehicle uses what Nissan calls its 'Advanced Driver Assist System,' which isn't fully autonomous, but rather can be thought of as a really advanced cruise control system. According to the company, the system can keep a car in its own lane, while automatically changing lanes to pass slower vehicles or prepare to exit a freeway, which it can also do automatically. Along with that, the car automatically slows for congestion, and — most impressively in my opinion — can automatically stop at red lights. In other words, the car isn't fully automatic in that you can't simply type in a destination and have it do all the work, but the bulk of driving load is taken care of. Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."
Curiously? (Score:5, Funny)
Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."
"We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?
Re:Curiously? (Score:5, Informative)
Why? Dead people tend not to buy as many cars.
Re:Curiously? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Curiously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, in Miami they still drive.
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In Texas they become presidents!
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"We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?
Maybe everyone texts while driving in Japan
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Or may be they have a real problem with aging population there.
So helping the drivers as much as possible and gradually going to autonomous isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Re:Curiously? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Curiously? (Score:2, Insightful)
This actually worries me, the natural inclination will be for people to stop paying attention while driving. Then when the sutuation has surpassed the cars ability, nobody will be in control and an accident could happen. At that time, it will be assessed as the "robot's" fault and may set back adoption of what is likely to be a safer form of driving.
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As far as general availability of self-driving cars, I see it as a good step.
Well, once self-driving cars fill the roads in significant numbers, if they'll have provisions for mutual communication and data exchange, you can count on them being more polite to each other than human drivers would.
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you can be completely compliant with HTML standards, and still have a website that doesn't work/look the same on one browser vs another.
You're talking to someone who writes website code by hand and maintains several. Of course you can have different looks on different browsers -- it's called "customization". Fonts, colors, width of screen, allowing pop-ups/js/cookies, all kinds of things. None of that deals with the issue of one manufacturer fielding an "extension" to his communications protocol that doesn't play well with someone else's extension.
if an Automated Vehicle Communications protocol is ever created, you can bet the government will be involved.
Which government? And how many of them? Will a committee of governments design a consistent
Re:Curiously? (Score:4, Funny)
What's curious is the fact that this line has nothing to do with the car in the article and actually refers to Nissan's plan to build an army of ninja robots who would take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities.
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what is curious for me is at what point will insurance companies insist on automated assist drive systems in cars especially considering 95% of crashes are due to human error.
Citation? And you do realize, I hope, that 95% (if true) being human error is because there currently is no "autonomous computer failure" category or contestants as regular participants. I expect that the numbers will be vastly different when there are.
Unless, of course, the NTSB uses the same standards for car crashes it does for aircraft mishaps and everything is labelled driver (pilot) error as an overarching cause. "Driver did not properly supervise the autonomous vehicle that wasn't supposed to requi
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Imagine the costs involved in treating every auto accident like a plane crash!!
But imagine the benefits!
The UK has the safest railway in the world (of any reasonably sized country). Look at the rail accident investigation reports [raib.gov.uk] -- pick one -- to see why. The reports usually finish with "recommendations already implemented". (I sometimes read these reports, typically the ones about structures or vehicle faults -- the causes are often very technical, and it's interesting to read about how they work out what caused the accident/near-miss).
(This is probably expensive. We also have o
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Then people will do what they do now with interlocks and other idiocy. Disable the devices and take their chances. It's that or not go to work/get paid/eat.
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I'd worry less about abuses by the gov't, and more about unintentional actions by the car.
The story says it will pass slower traffic. Great. But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you? I see a great chance to have a multicar accident just on that one thing.
It's not all that unusual either. I've seen quite a few close calls, where exactly that has happened. Either he takes the grassy median, or the other car swerves back.
If it can't figur
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The story says it will pass slower traffic. Great. But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you? I see a great chance to have a multicar accident just on that one thing.
More important, will it realize that the reason the fast lane is empty and everyone is slowing down in your lane is because there is a state trooper with someone pulled over on the left side of the road and your state's law says you must either pull over or slow down when going past him? Will you get to be the next recipient of a ticket from that trooper because your car endangered him?
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That's a good point. Each state has their own laws. Ours is...
FS 316.126(1)(b) [state.fl.us]
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I may be ignorant to my states laws but I have never heard of slowing down a requirement for NY.
Oregon. The law says you must slow down or pull over when going past an emergency vehicle on the side of the road. Not every vehicle on the side, just emergency ones. This points out another risk of autonomous vehicles. Will they be programmed with all the laws of all the states they may be driven in, and how will they deal with people who live close enough to a border that there are two sets of laws?
Here's another interesting law. In North Carolina, if you have the wipers on, you must also have your head
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The US could always harmonize its road laws, like parts of the EU are.
Re: Curiously? (Score:5, Insightful)
But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you?
Yes. And it will almost certainly do it better than almost any human driver.
Re: Curiously? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is the large percentage of people who *think* they're "perfectly capable drivers", but are not.
And no matter how capable you are, a computer has a faster reaction time.
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And no matter how capable you are, a computer has a faster reaction time.
And that's why when you make a mistake with a computer's help, you can do much much more damage than doing it by hand. It takes a long time to shred 100 paper files, and you can figure out after five minutes that it is a mistake and stop, and still have half of them. If you do that to computer files, five minutes later means you have nothing left but the regrets.
I'd go find a reference to the havok created by computer trading on wall street, where instant reaction times lead to financial catastrophe, but
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We only have one data set for real world performance of an autonomous vehicle, 350k miles by Google's prototype. It has been involved in one accident- when a person backed into it. So it has been perfect thus far.
If it makes you feel better, lots of people thought that horses were superior to cars for years.
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We only have one data set for real world performance of an autonomous vehicle, 350k miles by Google's prototype. It has been involved in one accident- when a person backed into it. So it has been perfect thus far.
One data point. Many years ago I remember the buzz about a new field of study -- emergent behaviour in clusters of simple robotic devices. For example, you can program a small robot to obey simple rules like when to turn, when to go, when to stop, etc, and predict pretty well what it will do. But when you put a roomful of them together they start doing things that weren't obvious. I wish I could remember the name of the guy who was at the forefront of this. Randy something, I think.
The point being, one c
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You sure make a lot of assumptions for someone that doesn't know anything about the subject.
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Faster? yes. More contextually aware? No.
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When the car in front of you slams on its brakes, how much context do you need?
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When the car in front of you slams on its brakes, how much context do you need?
Is the lane to the left clear so I can deviate that direction and avoid a collision?
If the lane to my left is oncoming traffic, can I safely cross the double yellow line to avoid serious injury?
Is the shoulder clear so I can go that direction?
If the shoulder is not clear, does it have an obstruction that is less valuable and causes less damage if I run it over instead of colliding with the car ahead of me?
Is there a large truck or other similar vehicle behind me that I need to worry about?
Did the driv
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Of course for the majority of drivers the context is :
I didn't keep enough distance, time to hit the breaks and pray
Now it just remains to be seen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now it just remains to be seen if drivers will continue to pay attention to the road, or if it becomes so autonomous that people start slacking (more) behind the wheel. It really won't work to have a car that drives itself 90% of the time and then expects you go randomly jump in for the last 10%. Still, nice to see this tech getting closer to reality.
Re:Now it just remains to be seen... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what worries me. The transition to fully automatic cars needs to be essentially 100%, or at least 99% with a "pull over and stop moving" for the remaining 1%. Otherwise I would've be surprised if fatalities went *up* due to drivers taking a nap/getting drunk/reading a book and failing to notice when they need to take back over.
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I dont think that is true at all.
I think it will start the way most things do. Baby steps. Most likely there will be dedicated lanes to encourage people to adopt the tech. Like fast trax or something.
No doubt there will be a charge by the state to actually use the lane though, thus reducing its appeal.
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Most likely there will be dedicated lanes to encourage people to adopt the tech.
Yeah, we have so many empty lanes now that dedicating one of them to a small percentage of cars that are "not autonomous autonomous vehicles" will be a really smart idea to solve traffic problems.
This "not autonomous autonomous vehicle" automatically stops at red lights? How nice. The local store has a red light in their signage out front and all the cars stop. Good for the store. Bad for the traffic, especially the updated version of the "not autonomous autonomous vehicle" which has that bug fixed and do
Re:Now it just remains to be seen... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your example about how this might cause a crash is incorrect, since the car doesn't just follow rules (such as red lights) in the hopes everybody else will also follow them perfectly. They do what you do - they also watch for and avoid other cars, pedestrians, and other obstacles (regardless of why the other car is doing whatever it's doing).
Still I do worry about how they will accurately see stoplights and stop for the intersection even if no other cars are in view. There are bad lighting conditions where it's extremely difficult to do. (I guess as a backup it could know the GPS location of stoplights and stop if it doesn't see the light and confirm that it is green). But I am sure we will end up with some level of instrumentation on the road such as stoplights that emit at a frequency not obfuscated by sunlight, snow, etc, like visible light is.
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Get ready to be annoyed for about 30 years, because "automated" commonly means "more automated than before," not "automated in every conceivable way."
Perhaps that's why the word being used is "autonomous", not "automated".
They do what you do - they also watch for and avoid other cars,
Part of fixing the bug that says "stop at any red light no matter where it is" results in "don't pay any attention to the red lights on the cars in front of you."
pedestrians
In my state, you aren't a pedestrian to be stopped for unless you are IN the crosswalk. Standing on the side of the road looking wistfully at cars as they pass doesn't cut it.
(I guess as a backup it could know the GPS location of stoplights and stop if it doesn't see the light and confirm that it is green).
So we're all expecting that they will stop when they have absolutely no reason to, which will cer
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Traffic lights are already designed to be as visible as possible,
When your initial premise is wrong, expect the rest to be wrong, too.
Plus, if these cars were mostly used for regular commutes & shopping trips along the same routes, it would probably remember where it usually stops for red lights,
Judge: "Why didn't you signal your right turn?"
Me: "I always turn right at that intersection. Everyone knows that."
Judge: "Why, not guilty of course. How stupid of me to forget what you 'always do'."
Of course everyone will know where you "usually" stop for a red light and know you're going to stop there again when your computer fails to detect the green light.
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I suppose the car will learn not only from its own experience, but that of, eventually, thousands and then millions of other cars on the road as well. Maybe a few zany-looking cars of the type google uses to create street view
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Maybe a few zany-looking cars of the type google uses to create street view will map out all the roads with bulky lidar and high-definition cameras, perform an insane amount of off-line processing, and then humans will hand-verify the location of everything that isn't clear. Cars will download all this as they drive along a new road so they are familiar with the road before they get there.
I seem to recall there being a story here in /. about an airport in Fairbanks Alaska needing to block off a taxiway because a GPS system kept telling people to go that way and cross an active runway to get to the airport. This was with cars where a human was in charge and no autonomous control whatsoever. But if we put a computer using GPS driving instructions in charge, nothing like this would ever happen?
"I'm getting nervous, please take over for me."
Sorry, I'm in the middle of the final episode of Breaking Bad and my hands are filled with roast bee
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Do you honestly think that the engineers developing this thing are that stupid, and have not thought of your obvious and easily fixed issues?
Clearly any semi-autonomous vehicle will be able to detect other vehicles and not crash into them, even if it thinks the light isn't on red. One of the obvious test cases when developing this tech is to make sure it doesn't hit broken down or stalled vehicles just because it thinks it has a green light. It seems unlikely that it would even mistake a red sign for the tr
Re:Now it just remains to be seen... (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont think that is true at all.
Of course it is not true, because the entire premise of the GGPP's objection is false. Self driving cars do not expect the human driver to "randomly" jump in. If the SDC calculates that it cannot make the best decision, it will prompt the human to take over. If the human does not respond, the SDC will either continue if it is reasonably safe to do so, or pull over and stop. The people designing these systems are not morons.
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Of course it is not true, because the entire premise of the GGPP's objection is false. Self driving cars do not expect the human driver to "randomly" jump in. If the SDC calculates that it cannot make the best decision, it will prompt the human to take over. If the human does not respond, the SDC will either continue if it is reasonably safe to do so, or pull over and stop. The people designing these systems are not morons.
But that's just the point, this isn't a self driving car. It's a very sophisticated driving assistant that'll handle the routine driving but throw any unexpected situation it doesn't recognize or doesn't handle in your lap. Or are you trying to argue that Nissan is taking full responsibility and liability for how this car drives while this system is active? Because I'm pretty sure they don't. The day you're no more than a swap-in driver which happen to be sitting in the driver's seat instead of the passenge
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throw any unexpected situation it doesn't recognize or doesn't handle in your lap.
No it doesn't. Only a complete moron would design it that way. And everyone else on the team, and the full management chain would need to be morons as well. The system will prompt the driver to take over, and if the driver does not respond, it will follow the safest course of action, which may be to continue in autonomous mode, or may be to pull over and stop. There is no way in hell that a self driving car sold to the public is going to just turn itself off while flying down the freeway.
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No it doesn't. Only a complete moron would design it that way. And everyone else on the team, and the full management chain would need to be morons as well.
Two words about software designers and management chains: Windows 8. Need I say more?
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I think that it would rather obviously need to fail safe. Depending on the contingency, this could include a panic stop - but the system can't just depend on the driver to "jump in".
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Not if all the cars are automated :)
Panic stops happen all the time. I had to panic stop for a deer recently. I've been run into during a panic stop, too (the car in front of me panic stopped). I would assume that a panic stop would be a last-resort maneuver - if the logic got to an unhandled state or enough sensors were lost to warrant such a thing. I imagine that would be quite rare - probably less frequent than a tire blow out, for example.
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That's exactly the problem I'm most eager to see how Nissan solves.
I have their system that's 1 step back from this: it can only steer gently with the brakes (using the brakes on one side or the other), but it will keep a safe distance form the car in front of you, even stopping as needed, keep you from drifting out of a lane if you're not paying attention, and, if you let it, brake for you in cases where it seems you're not paying attention. It's good enough that, even though you can't take your hands off
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Oh, nearly forgot my favorite feature: warn you if you're trying to change lanes and someone's in your blind spot.
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Pet Peeve
If you have a blind spot your mirrors are adjusted wrong. Every Drivers Education course teaches students to adjust the mirrors so that the driver can see the side of the car, but unless you're worried about a quarter-panel falling off and not noticing it you really don't need to see your own car. The mirrors should be adjusted outwards so that you need to move your head at least 6"/20 cm to the right or left before you see the side of the car. Once you've done that drive slowly past a parked ca
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THIS!
Push the mirrors all the way out. The rear view and sides should not have any overlap ideally.
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Which is great in theory, but you will always have a blind spot of some sort unless you have heavy-truck-size mirrors. RADAR doesn't have the blind spots, which is nice.
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You do realize that your advice only moves the blind spot, right? If I can't see the edge of my own car, that means the blind spot is immediately next to my car -- where a pedestrian or bicyclist might be.
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That's one way. Another is to get blind-spot mirrors. I have a little one on each side and I love them.
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Pet Peeve
If you have a blind spot your mirrors are adjusted wrong. Every Drivers Education course teaches students to adjust the mirrors so that the driver can see the side of the car, but unless you're worried about a quarter-panel falling off and not noticing it you really don't need to see your own car. The mirrors should be adjusted outwards so that you need to move your head at least 6"/20 cm to the right or left before you see the side of the car. Once you've done that drive slowly past a parked car and you'll see that the car appears in your peripheral vision just before it goes out of view in the mirror.
Exactly. I put the small round mirrors on mine. I can tell at a glance if the lane is clear and if there is room for my entire car to move over without cutting anyone off. I originally got them for towing my boat so that I could see further back, but I find that they are invaluable as they completely eliminate my blind spot.
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The trouble with semi-automatic driving (Score:3)
Now it just remains to be seen if drivers will continue to pay attention to the road, or if it becomes so autonomous that people start slacking (more) behind the wheel.
That's a big problem with "driver assistance systems". With both lane-keeping and "adaptive cruise control" installed, the driver can take their hands off the wheel. Once that's possible, some drivers will stop paying attention to the road. That won't end well, because those two functions are only sufficient for good freeway conditions. They don't handle attempts by other drivers to change into your lane, for example.
Audi has an "adaptive cruise control" system in test which also handles stop and go traff
I am all for it (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot wait until we have automatic driving cars! I love to drive as much as the next guy. Hell, I am the go-to car guy among my friends and family. But I hate sitting in traffic to and from work. It is the same every day. I would love to be able to sit back and relax.
So long as I can still take my Jeep out on the weekends in manual mode, you'll hear no complaints form me.
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It also means we can have a couple drinks with dinner without either fearing a DUI while sober .
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I already can. I live in Germany. I can literally drink a beer while driving. So long as I am not over the limit..it is legal. Not a good idea and I would not actually do it, but I could if I wanted.
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It was legal not so many years ago for the driver to drink in the state of Texas. Last I checked, the passenger could still have an open container, but that may have been updated since.
Re:I am all for it (Score:4, Interesting)
Most state laws (I'm assuming you're in the United States) allow for a DUI conviction if you are in "actual control" of a vehicle. That means if you're asleep drunk in the car and the keys are also in the car, you can be found guilty. If you're parked on private land and drunk, you can be found guilty. If you're in the driver's seat in an automated car and the car could be switched to manual control, you could be convicted of DUI if you're drunk.
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If you are inside a bar, with your car keys in your pocket; that STILL can count as 'physical control'... A lot of DUI laws are influenced by teetotalers who don't want people to be able to drink at all (ala Prohibition). I don't drink myself, and I have zero sympathy for drunk drivers, but some of it is being pushed a little too far than needed.
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http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.504 [wa.gov]
also fun reads:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-05-29/news/heather-squires-was-arrested-for-dui-without-drinking-a-drop-of-alcohol/ [phoenixnewtimes.com]
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/562773 [minotdailynews.com]
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It can mean intersections designed just for autopiloting cars. No signals needed, and instead of forcing traffic to stop, cars can be slowed down or sped up to keep an intersection constantly moving. Road upgrades is something that is something very few municipal areas want to deal with, and usually if it is a new highway, it is a toll road. This would allow existing infrastructure to work faster, especially if breakdown lanes are able to be used, and cars spaced on a road by width (SMART cars can be pac
building pedestrian bridges / underpass will cost (Score:2)
building pedestrian bridges / underpass will cost a lot so that sounds cool but likely will not happen in lots of areas.
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pedestrian underpasses also have the problem that they can easilly end up being dirty smelly horrible places due to a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and the fact they get less natural cleaning than an exposed pavement does.
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We can at least try.
Roads are for transportation not pleasure. If you want that drive on private roads or a track.
what happen when it miss reads an light? (Score:2)
That can be very unsafe / lead to a big accident.
I know of quite a few unusual road Unusual traffic light situations / intersections in the local metro area.
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It seems a bit unlikely that a computer will miss read a color. I would say that a human is far more likely to not see a light. Besides, I imagine that once an automatic car system is in place, they will not be looking at a light, but rather receiving a radio signal with the current light conditions.
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not missing an color but reading the wrong (Score:2)
not missing an color but reading the wrong head or choking on Unusual traffic lights / intersections.
radio signals can be hacked / blocked / jammed / or misread as well. And a small gps accuracy issue can place a car on a main road with an green light when it really on the forage road that has an red with an radio based system.
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not missing an color but reading the wrong head or choking on Unusual traffic lights / intersections.
A computer would be less likely to get this wrong than a human. Especially since the "weird intersection" is probably already in its knowledge base.
radio signals can be hacked / blocked / jammed / or misread as well. And a small gps accuracy issue can place a car on a main road with an green light when it really on the forage road that has an red with an radio based system.
Self driving cars have multiple sensors: GPS, cameras, radar, inertial sensors, rotation sensors, compasses. The readings from these sensors are continuously crossed checked. If the GPS suddenly reports that the car has instantaneously transported itself to a new location, I don't think it will be blindly trusted.
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If the GPS suddenly reports that the car has instantaneously transported itself to a new location, I don't think it will be blindly trusted.
You're in the middle lane of I65 going 65MPH surrounded by other cars when YOUR car suddenly decides it doesn't know where it is and needs to stop. Welcome to computer dementia. Happy travels, citizen!
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You're in the middle lane of I65 going 65MPH surrounded by other cars when YOUR car suddenly decides it doesn't know where it is and needs to stop. Welcome to computer dementia.
Protip: If a problem is obvious to you after five seconds of thought, then it is likely that it is also obvious to a team of professionals working on the system for years.
There is no way in hell that this system will "suddenly stop" just because a sensor malfunctions. It will just use the other available sensors to determine the safest course of action to follow. That may mean continuing to drive, or it may mean pulling off the road as soon as it is safe to do so. But it certainly isn't going to just sh
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But it certainly isn't going to just shut down.
I didn't say it just shut down. I said it decides it needs to stop.
You admitted it doesn't know where it is. If the GPS failed, that means the GPS-based course and speed indications are unreliable. Of course the designers may have have thought of their idea of what to do in such a situation. Just like you've had time to think about it and can't see any course of action that would be called "needs to stop" that isn't "just shut down" or "suddenly stop."
You blink, and while your eyes are closed you forget
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You admitted it doesn't know where it is.
No I didn't. I admitted that it would know that one sensor (out of dozens) had failed.
If the GPS failed, that means the GPS-based course and speed indications are unreliable.
Correct. So it would use the other sensors.
You blink, and while your eyes are closed you forget where you are and what direction you are going. Sounds like dementia.
Why would it "forget" where it was? It could just read the inertial sensors to detect any acceleration, read the rotary sensors in the wheels to determine its velocity, and calculate where it is from its last known position. It could also continue to use cameras for lane detection, cameras for landmark recognition, and a combination of cameras and radar for collision avoidance
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There's a traffic light near where I live that is unusually dim. Furthermore, with LEDs, it is possible that the light can be covered in snow. A human can see the dim red through the snow whereas a computer may not. Finally near where I live they have put in some funky new lights that indicates you can only turn left, but must yield to traffic. Threw me for a loop the first time I saw one.
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Finally near where I live they have put in some funky new lights that indicates you can only turn left, but must yield to traffic. Threw me for a loop the first time I saw one.
It may have confused you the first time, but it would not confuse a self driving car. The SDC would already have the rules for that intersection in its knowledge base. There are about six million intersections in America's road system, so a kilobyte or so of info on each will easily fit on a thumb drive.
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I bet it misreads a light less frequently than a person blowing one accidentally/because they weren't looking.
So let me get this straight (Score:2)
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Multiple auto manufacturers disagree with your "a few decades (or) more" assessment.
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They might talk big but when it comes to actually taking over responsibility and liability for the driving, put your money where your mouth is. I bet we'll have years passing where companies have cars they think is almost ready but nobody wants to go out on a limb and say if this car runs over some school children then sue us for manslaughter, not the guy in the driver's seat. More and more advanced assistance that still leaves the final responsibility on you sure, but that truly self-driving car I think co
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It seems odd how they are trying to go "straight to the road". Seems like they should be having self-driving cars continually running at big businesses such as warehouses, airports, etc delivering materials, etc and see how many accidents they have
Automated fork lifts are already becoming fairly common in larger warehouses and factories. These are actually fairly easy, since you have a controlled environment and areas that can be marked as off-limits to humans. Airports have an *awful* lot going on ramp-side, so it would take a bit more effort to automate the fleet of trucks, tugs, and other service vehicles. I'd wager that self driving cars will be here before significantly automated air ports.
Impressed by the most unimpressive aspect (Score:3)
Detecting a red light is probably the easiest thing in the whole system.
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You're not impressed that a car AI can do something that most people can't?
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maybe at basic intersections (Score:2)
But as I said before that are lot's of ones where it can miss read them.
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Surely you mean "misread" not "miss read".
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Detecting a light colored red is very easy. Differentiating between every red light you are likely to see on the road and an actual stop stoplight is a bit harder. Detecting the transition to yellow and determining if it's safe to stop is also a bit harder. Determining where the stop line is, also a bit harder. Doing it all with 8 9's of accuracy? Damn hard.
Re: (Score:2)
Vision is something that's easy for humans but very hard for computers.
What worries me with cars like this (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that drivers will stop paying attention and/or take their hands off the controls. Then when something bad happens that the automatic system can't handle they will be in a much worse position to deal with it than if they had been driving the car manually.
The same is true to an extent of autopilots in planes but with a plane you usually have much more time to respond to problems than in a car. Still at least one plane has crashed because the pilots accidentally disabled the autopilot and failed to notice.
Great start... (Score:2)
This is a good start but if cars "evolve" to be full automatic I hope they're going to include a bar in the final design. No more excuses for sobriety :)
Dead man switch needed (Score:2)
As it helps reduce road fatigue, this seems a really good thing. However, it should require some sort of feedback that says when a driver is unresponsive in some way, the car pulls over and parks.