Linux Hits the Road

An anonymous reader writes "Vicroads does regular surveys of the roads in Victoria, Australia, to determine where they need to be patched or otherwise repaired. It used to be done in a vehicle travelling at 20 kph: slow, tedious, and hazardous to the traffic around it. Now, thanks to Linux, it's being done at speeds of 80 to 100 kph. The Melbourne Age has the details. Short version: the cost has fallen from $1.2 million Australian to $850,000. Not bad..."

Comments

But where will this technology go from here?

[cvk]

This high-speed video capture is definitely the way to go for a first step, but of course the situation will be hugely improved when all that data can be taken back to the lab an scanned for drivability by software instead of by human brainpower.

Perhaps when the sun is low shadows would be cast over potholes that would lead to lower temperatures inside the crater than on the surface of the road. That would make infrared cameras an obvious choice for picking out the cold-bottomed potholes.

Or perhaps a rear vehicle could shine a light at an acute angle to the ground that would turn potholes into shadowy pits for easy detection by a forward vehicle on the other side of the pothole?

So many possibilities. (So many challenges!)

Linux not the answer

[DerekLyons]

Actually reading the article shows that Linux is incidental to the 'breakthrough'. The improvement comes from video processing software, not from the operating system of the computers that perform the processing.

This is a newspaper article?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

A newspaper article about Linux that backs up its claims with details, has not one hint of FUD.

Soeriously now, an nwspaper article that mentions
limitations in the firewire drivers.

I mean the readers are expected to know what drivers, RAM, firewire, is.

They call Linux robust and hint that windows isn't.

There is no catch!!!

Now this is unbelievable!!
This must be a hoax article.

You don't really get stories like this in the newspaper

Re:car video guidance

[HBI]

I have often dreamed of a system whereby I could have four missiles stored in the quarter panels of my car. They would be vertical launch tubes with caps painted the same color as the car, to be less conspicuous.

At the appropriate moment, I could press a steering-wheel mounted firing button to launch the missile. The missile would launch, locate the double yellow line in the middle of the road, and track it until it found the person blocking traffic. It would then break left till it circled around, slightly above traffic levels, do a pop-down maneuver, and lay into a slight up-angle as it strikes the driver's side rocker panel of the offending vehicle, knocking it off the road.

Unfortunately, I don't believe the kinetic energy imparted by a small missile of the 50 lbs variety can actually do that to a 2 ton SUV (it's a given that someone in an SUV is blocking traffic. Ok, maybe a minivan). But I can dream, can't I?

In the process of thinking about this, I realized a couple things that may be of interest to you. First, not all roads have the same kinds of painted lines. Some have shoulder marks. Some have buzz strips. Some have single yellow lines, and some have double. Some have single yellow lines with a dashed line on the other side (signifiying a passing lane). Assuring an optical sensor would be able to digest all these differing inputs would be challenging, to say the least.

Also, what happens when a road has a middle passing lane with double yellow lines, dashed on the inside? Those confuse human drivers, I can guarantee an optical sensor would not be happy with that.

What about turn lanes? NJ is famous for those stupid jug handles. Obviously a 'turn/go straight' decision would have to be made. But what happens when the primary road turns slightly at the point of the turn lane? Some interesting behavior of your automated system could result.

I also doubt that GPS has the resolution to actually handle driving down a road. The promised CPE is big enough that you could ram into a telephone pole at just about any time.

This is a really tough problem. I ultimately think that a passive response device along the lines of an RFID would be necessary to keep vehicles travelling in the correct direction. These would need to be installed along all road surfaces. For those which aren't equipped, we'd be stuck with the current method.