Self-Driving Cars and Downloaded Minds - Part I

Some recent articles and news items bring home the realization that, from the mundane to the fantastical, the world of today seems to be edging closer and closer to the world of science fiction.

Let's start with the mundane. The October issue of Popular Science, which was devoted to automobiles of the future, has an 8-page article on self-driving cars. Google is in the lead in this area.  The company is currently beta-testing a self-driving car based on Google Chauffeur software and light detection and ranging technology ("lidar"). Lidar is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light. [Wikipedia]

 

 

 

[Image is from Popular Science]

 

Once the human driver activates the autonomous system, the vehicle transfers control of the brakes, gas, and steering to an onboard computer. The vehicle's roof-mounted lidar unit "probes 360 degrees with 64 laser beams, taking more than a million measurements per second." The data from the lasers are combined with a prebuilt navigation map of static infrastructure (telephone poles, for example) to give an accurate picture of the car's surroundings down to a distance of about 4 inches. The software then identifies moving objects (pedestrians, for example) and reacts accordingly.

 

When Chauffeur encounters a situation that it cannot interpret or finds a glitch during its self-

diagnostic checks, it system alerts and hands control back to the human driver. Glitches occur about once every 300 miles with the "incredibly low" bar that Google has set - in the words of Chris Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving car project. In 500,000 miles of closely controlled test driving there hasn't been a single accident caused by the Chauffeur system. 500,000 miles is about the average automobile accident rate in the U.S.

Detroit's reaction has been lukewarm to hostile; there are numerous state, national and international legal questions (how do you define a driver? whom do you sue when there is an accident?); and the current cost for a lidar unit is in the range of $80,000. 

Still the concept of self-driving cars is intriguing.  Sooner or later they will become a reality.   Proponents see fuel savings, elimination of traffic jams with computerized intersection managers, and fewer accidents in the future promised by self-driving vehicles.  Price and safety are the major factors to be overcome.

Besides Google's work, Volvo has "a simple auto-drive system called platooning, in which its cars autonomously follow a professional driver. It uses technology that's already built into every high end Volvo sold today, plus a communications system." The NHSTA's soon-to-be-announced vehicle-to-vehicle communications standard "would, at least in theory, enable all makes and models to platoon. And lidar could eliminate even the need for a lead driver." Both GM and Mercedes are working on systems that "use a combination of radar and computer vision to center the vehicle in the lane and maintain a safe distance from the car in front of it."

As the article notes, the real engineering and safety challenge is making sure the drivers stay alert. We have enough problems with them texting and talking on their cell phones. Not sure I'm ready for a highway where everyone thinks there is no need for them ever to look at the road. 

So much for the mundane...we'll take a look at the fantastical in the next post.