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EU Approves Anti-Collision Automobile Radar
Oscar writes "The European Union has approved frequencies for short-range radars that can detect collision dangers and automatically apply cars brakes.
The technology should be available by mid-2005.
'Short-range radar can save lives,' said Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner responsible for the decision, which opens radio bands while preventing radio interference to other essential users of these frequencies. Full text of the legislation is available in English, French, and German in PDF format."
There isn't going to be a sudden switchover from person-driven cars to AI driven ones. Instead you'll see the steady accretion of functionality that covers one situation after another, until there's nothing left for the 'driver' to do.
My Journal
My wife needs this on her car.
In the EU your car drives you!
Golly, I can't wait for my Windows OS car to slam on the brakes for no reason whatsoever while I'm in the passing lane on the Interstate!
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
let the stereotype arguments begin here.
Though to be fair the last study I heard showed that women were more likely to have a shunt in a car park, where said radar might prove useful. Wereas men were more likely to lose control and hit a tree. Radar less useful there.
CJC
But what happens to the car behind you who's too close and doesn't have this system and your car brakes sharply. There's a reason rear view mirrors exist and there's a reason humans drive cars.. because we know what's happening all around, computers don't
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
(Having never seen Minority Report, this might be redundant.)
I wonder if cops will be able to use this (after it becomes widespread, naturally) to stop criminals? There are two ways I could see this being used. First, like Lo-Jack, perhaps stolen cars could be stopped after it has been realized that they are definitely stolen. Secondly, crooks who are speeding away (or slowly driving away - see also white Bronco) could be stopped without causing excessive danger to other drivers (cf current police chases).
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I'd like to see that in the US, along with logic to determine if the car is tailgating and has been tailgating for more than a couple of seconds.
Along with the integration of a cattleprod in the driver's seat, of course.
However, since they auto industry doesn't employ BAEFHs (bastard automotive engineers from hell), a simple "Warning - tailgating" or a beeper would be acceptable.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I think in iRobot the system there was ideal. Cars were directed to destinations by computers and the only input the human provided was where to go.
Also I did like what appeared to be the drive system of the cars to be large balls that could move in any direction powered by magnets levitating the car off them and moving them around.
Hopefully they'll be able to implement a system to ignore signals from, say, a device that puts out pulses the same frequency, at rapidly increasing intervals, tricking the car into thinking it's about to hit something.
Think of the cheap availability of radar jammers.
Apply copiously to a stream of traffic to find the few cars that automatically brake.
Watch the cars behind them plow into them.
Profit! (If you're a body shop or tow truck)
Of course, the signalling is going to be sufficiently difficult that you have to aim it at the car you intend to fool and send a special signal specifically designed to affect just the one car. If the system sees a car 50 feet ahead, then one a few inches ahead it'll probably ignore it is a spurious signal if the changre happens 'instantaneously'. If it sees a car move into its lane from the side the signal would be different, and if the car in front slowed quickly the signal would also be different.
Still, I can't wait for people to start complaining about accidents that happened because they thought the car would stop, or rear end collision because the car did stop. There's so much liability that car makers are about 15 years behind where we could be.
-Adam
As well as a form of oppression. Now, we will all have to suffer for the stupidity of others. Just like with cell phone bans and draconian drug measures, we pay for a group of complete morons/socioopaths who can't seem to figure out how to live in society.
I wonder where the "acceptable" distance from the car in front will come from? Acceptable for whom? A distance that a young adult can stomach and handle is far outside the scope of your average geriatric. So will we force young people to feel like they're on the Wedway People Mover(TM) or will we just polish off the oldest 5% of the driving populace through heart attacks and strokes? What if you find yourself in a "guillotine" situation that requires either a very inefficient and dangerous deceleration or a sharp accceleration and a cut-through? What if the brakes cut in just as you're changing that lane? I could go on and on.
Sorry, this idea sucks.
Until someone can demonstrate that a computer can out-think (and I mean out-think, not out-calculate) a human, this is ridiculous.
Actually, has anyone bothered to read TFL? It only allocates spectrum for this technology (which one can safely assume is required to avoid conflicts with other devices operating at similar frequencies). There's no actual mention of how the signal from these short-range radars might be implemented -- and if I were managing a large automotive company, I'd probably require that signal to be used for nothing stronger than a warning, for precisely the liability reasons you and other posters bring up.
It is a particularly bad idea to suddenly apply the brakes if the road is icy. Or if you are in the middle of a turn. Or if you are merging onto a highway.
Normally I drive a car with Antilock Braking System. Last month, I had to take in my sister's old Honda to get serviced which didn't have ABS. My driving habits were so used to ABS that I almost got into a few accidents (it was a miserable snowy day) because my innate response time was screwed up by this technology.
Until it's universal, I think I would rather pass on this radar functionality and stay low tech.
This is like putting the cart before the horse.
Honestly, 90% of the problems on the roads are not due to us not having enough techology in our vehicles. Alot of it is due to incompetent drivers.
If people on the road started to pay attention to how they were driving, and drive within the bounds of caution, we wouldn't need all this fancy technology to protect us.
Consider how many people get into collisions because they are busy chatting away on a cell phone, and are not paying any attention at all to the road in front of them.
Or what about on highways, when there is an accident? Sure, that in itself will cause traffic problems, however, how much of these problems can be attributed to rubberneckers who slow the whole system down even more?
I believe that if more people thought about it, and tried to put more thought into their driving, we wouldn't need all this.
In Ohio, they had alot of troubles with ABS. What happened was that the state troopers got a new radio system. There was a small problem however. Whenever a trooper used a radio beside a newer Caddilac with ABS, the Caddy would start braking hard randomly as the driver was driving.
When they eventually started looking into this, it turned out that the state trooper radio was tuned to the same frequency as that used to control the Caddilac ABS, therefore causeing these problems.
Now, I don't know if anyone died from this, however, it seems to me that a new braking technology like this would be subject to alot of assorted bugs. Like an earlier poster mentioned, someone with a radar jammer could really screw you over. It seems to me that anyone with any electronic ability would be able to find someway to make your life miserable.
Oh yeah? Well my wife is so fat that SHE needs backup radar.
- 'The system will use radar to determine the distance to the next car ahead on the road and how fast it is going. A computer chip in the so-called smart car will monitor the speed of the motorist's car.
All three automakers are using a warning system for the driver and some of the systems initiate the braking process, slowing the car while leaving it to the driver to apply the brakes fully if needed. Toyota's system is the most comprehensive:If a motorist uses the system's new type of cruise control and does not see vehicles ahead slowing or stopped, the smart system would sound an alarm and an indicator button would flash, telling the driver the car must slow down, Colgin said. The cruise control system also would automatically apply the car's brakes, he said.
In instances in which very hard braking was required, the driver also would have to step on the brake pedal to stop the car in time, he said. If the cruise control system was off, the car would only warn the driver but not brake, Colgin said.'
The system would also use a camera to ``see'' the road ahead and ``understand'' when vehicles were turning along a curved road. That way, the smart car would be able to figure out which car is ahead of it in a lane, even when the lane is not straight ahead, Colgin said.
``This is a fully automatic system which sorts out which is the most threatening vehicle ahead,'' he said. ``It is meant to solve the problem of the inattentive driver.''
Senior research executive Tetsuo Hattori explains that previous braking, steering, vehicle stability and traction control systems functioned independently. "With VDIM, each system is integrated and seamlessly managed. Moreover," he says, "control is actuated before the vehicle exceeds its movement threshold. This assures a high degree of preventive safety and significantly improves upon ordinary driving performance in terms of traveling, tuning and stopping."
Hattori adds that VDIM "begins integrated control of the brakes, engine and steering before the vehicle reaches its limits, thereby achieving higher preventive safety performance and ideal vehicle kinetics." [In a test drive on simulated ice, the system did not allow the driver to veer off-course and spin the car.]'
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
a technology of this can also be quite dangerous at times:
imagine you're crusing down the street at 70km/h [44mph] and you drop your twinkie [or any other food or beverage you may happen to be consuming] onto the floor. naturally, you reach down to pick up the fallen foods, and imagine your breaks are automatically applied, bringing your head right into your steering wheel, causing an enourmous gash on your forehead, and you start bleeding uncontrollably and grip the steering wheel, and you swerve trying to take back control of the car, but you're on a bridge, so you slam into the side rails and right off the bridge into the river below...
pffft, safety my ass...
Enjoy an e-piphany
If you are not tailgating then you don't have to stop suddenly, you can slow down giving the driver behind you more time to brake.
If you are right up against the car in front you don't have that extra time to give the driver behind you and so then he does hit your car. Not your fault, but small comfort when you still couldhave avoided it.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Avoiding a car or avoiding an extreme thunderstorm. Hmmm. Tough choice.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Thanks, Topher, you saved me. I may be crazy, but I can't help but envision a scenario where I'm driving along, or, no, my wife or daughter is driving along at night with this installed, and someone decides that they want them stopped.(for whatever reason)
Would this person be able to stop my wife's car entirely by simply getting in front of them and coming to a complete stop? If so, the implications of this are horrifying. (Sorry for the frightening scenario, but it could conceivably happen)
Short range auto braking radar will save many lives and countless pointless pileups on the motorway/highway, caused by people's reactions not being fast enough.
Ideally, it'd only trigger when you are already deciding to brake and just about starting to move your foot towards the brake. In emergency situations, every millisecond counts.
Like ABS, it will have a simple on/off switch on the dash.
Will this make such radar-detecting devices useless, by giving too many false positives?
PS. No, I don't own one, I'm just curious.