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GM Working On Interactive Windshields
this_boat_is_real writes "Rather than project info onto a portion of the windshield, GM's latest experiment uses the entire windshield as a display. Small ultraviolet lasers project data gleaned from sensors and cameras onto the glass. General Motors geeks are working alongside researchers from several universities to develop a system that integrates night vision, navigation and on-board cameras to improve our ability to see — and avoid — problems, particularly in adverse conditions like fog."
As in the movie, not the BASIC command. Seriously, that's what the mockup (I'm assuming it's a mockup) looks like...Tron-mode.
This has some real potential, I hope it isn't another bit of vaporware....
Living With a Nerd
Given GM's historical failures, and their new immunity from market forces (thank you taxpayers), it's not the place best suited to develop this kind of tech, if indeed this tech is necessary. What's wrong with driving more slowly in the fog? Why do I need HUD, or worse, banner ads, on my windshield? If Toyota, once the paragon of automotive quality, can bork up the drive-by-wire system, it doesn't bode well for GM. I don't want my windshield blue-screening on me.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Can I get these laser beams on a Camaro Shark?
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"Wow, it's like those other cars are coming right towards me!"
Finally, someone who matters (that is, someone with money) starts working on some projection technology. This has quite a bit of potential. Hopefully, they'll stick with it long enough to make something useful of it, instead of abandoning it early on.
"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." --Joseph Stalin
Would it be somehow physically possible to have the information visible only from the inside? Doesn't matter much for ordinary data, of course, but if you're going to rig it up to a car computer...
Emotions! In your brain!
It looks like you are trying to crash.
Would you like to
( ) Buy more insurance
( ) Change your beneficiary
It gives new meaning to BSOD.
And the Blue Windshield of Death will actually cause your death.
I live west of my place of employment, and the recent time change has given me it's yearly double-whammy. When you live west of where you work, it means that you're driving east in the morning to get there, and west in the evening to get home. Depending on start and stop times, it means that the sun can be right on the horizon, blinding you at both times. This happens for a few weeks each spring and fall, until the sun rises earlier and sets later, so that the visor can adequately and easily block it. Then time change comes, knocking the sun back down to the horizon.
I want an "active windshield" that knows where my eyeballs are, knows where the sun is, and blackens just the right spot (with a little margin, of course) to shade my eyes. Compared to that, any heads-up displays are secondary.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Awesome now I can enjoy handsfree video chat!!
Its called a HUD (Heads Up Display) - jet fighters have had this sort of thing for a few decades.
Great, so instead of a new windshield costing $100-$200, you'd have to pay $2000 to get one from a dealer.
Yes, I live in Utah where the endless road construction has cracked two of my windshields in the last year so this is a concern for me.
Making "decent", efficiant, cars before working on further power drains.... I would love a car with a better alloy of steel, or even perhaps frames of aluminium bronze, with lightweight plastic coverings.... Immune to rusting out after five years.... And maybe a decent engine. Or go the path of Honda.... Build an electric car as you want it: the best motors, interior, etc, but instead of a ton of batteries, use a fuel cell to hold the energy in the form of quick to refuel hydrogen.... If a battery can ever be made that fits and fuels, cool, but until then you can get the kinks out everywhere else until that advancement has been made....
I say, make fewer, better cars.... Cranking out miles of unsellable crap doesn't help in the long run...
and
Yeah, "could" appear "at some point." This is epic vaporware. Maybe spending millions researching cool gadgets and never bringing them to market is part of the reason GM went bankrupt.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I know it's nighttime, but let me just put my sunglasses on to view my ultraviolet HUD.
Its most importantly the roads and drivers.. Drivers being one of the hardest things to fix but roads being the expensive thing to fix. Some roads are great, but some are destined to claim the lives of hundreds of people over the life span of the road.
What i don't get, is why we don't engineer our roads to be safer? If you build a road between a valley and there are 100 deer accidents a year, don't you think it would have been better to have built a raised road so the deer can go under the road and through the only choke point in the entire valley rather then get themselves killed and a few humans while they're at it?
I don't think fog is a problem.. slow down
I don't think rain is a problem - slow down and make sure your tires are safe to begin with
However both those problems can be addressed with roads once again. - roads that correctly drain water so you don't hydroplane off into someones yard or into opposing traffic. Roads that have grade variations so you know when you're traveling outside your direction of travel - so on and so forth.
Love technology, but firm believer in the simplest technology being the best technology since its less prone to failure and mistakes.
However, since this appears limited perspective of the driver, how annoying will this be for passengers? Passengers will see lines projected onto the windshield that don't match up with the road from their perspective. I wonder if polarization technology can be used to limit the projected lines to the driver's perspective only.
-Turkey
Using a 2D display space (the windshield interior) to provide information about a 3D (real-world outside foggy road) space carries flaws.
The display needs to know the driver's eye position to create an accurate representation of where the edge of the road should be in their vision. Without this, I assume the display would be calibrated for an "average" driving position. This poses problems not only for short, tall or just low-slung drivers slouched in their seats, but also fails to accommodate that in low visibility most people change their driving position and "crane their necks" or stick their heads forwards in order to give the impression of being able to see better through the fog.
Unless this is done VERY carefully, I'm afraid it'll just end up distracting most drivers. Yes, head-up displays have existed in fighter jets, etc. for decades, but those pilots are highly trained to process all the data given to them. Throw an average driver into a car that suddenly starts highlighting road signs, etc. and you risk distracting him. What happens if the system freaks out as you drive down a street with tons of road signs? You could end up flooding the windshield with lots of neon lines as the system tries to highlight all of them. And how do you decide exactly what to highlight? Suppose it highlights a person crossing the street in darkness a mile down the road? The driver will get distracted trying to figure out what the car is warning him about.
Now imagine all this being done with a teenager behind the wheel who just got his license...
I'm still waiting for the "Back to the Future" cars to start surfacing. We were promised those cars over 20 years ago. Where are they?
Oh, and "hover boards"... Where are they? I don't see 'em...
When, GM? When will you give me what I want?!?!
No government funds for you!
Holy happy hippy crap!
How do they draw a line that represents the edge of the road without knowing the exact position of the drivers eyes? This is just half of the puzzle.
My other signature is a car
It can improve safety of driving in poor weather conditions immensely comparing to current situation. But I'm afraid it will have a reverse effect in reality: increasing driver's confidence ("the HUD displays the road far ahead, so there is no danger") will result in increasing the speed in these conditions, and result in more serious accidents because the system can't foresee everything - obstacles on the road, slippery surface, other cars that don't have it and drive blindly - the kind of accidents slow and cautious driving would help against, or at least minimize impact.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I still won't buy a car from them.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Most likely SAAB technology. They were first who intended to use HUD in a car, after all.
Tnx $god SAAB continues its life outside GM. FU GM!
Now I can install a stock market app on my windshield that lets me watch GM stock fall in real time.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Allow people to better see in fog and they will drive faster.
I wonder if we will be able to play Need for Speed on the screen. Just imagine getting kicked out of the bedroom by your wife. Instead of sleeping on the couch and watching TV till you fall asleep, why not go to your car and play some Need for Speed!
not with lasers, but it's great for navigation commands and speed display.
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
IMHO this tech is an important step to perfecting cars that can drive on their own. Sure right now it's giving feedback to the driver, but the same underlying system would be used by a computer to navigate the car. Although, I don't think people would ever be comfortable with the idea of a car driving itself. For some reason people tend to not trust devices that can make a split second decision in a nanosecond, I'm assuming its for the same reason as in the movie "I, Robot". Computers a calculating and will make the decision for the best outcome.
I remember a joke: There was this guy driving along and he sees a hitch hiker. Being nice he stops and picks the guy up, a mistake he almost immediately regrets as the hitch hiker won't shut-up. After about an hour of non-stop babbling the driver figures he could scare the guy into shutting up. The driver spots a cyclist on the side of the highway. He slams down the accelerator and screeches off toward the cyclist veering away just before the imminent collision. Passing the cyclist the driver hears a thud and interrupts the hitch hiker, who didn't seem to take any notice and kept on talking, the driver says, "What was that?". The hitch hiker responds, "Oh, it looked like you were going to miss him so I opened the door."
If the computer was driving that joke wouldn't be nearly as funny... well, if it was funny at all.
When I started designing machinery, I was told to never underestimate the stupidity of the end user. So, I had to learn to idiot-proof my designs. Now so long as enough of them interact with their windshields I could actually start designing for more intelligent people before I retire. Hell, I might even open up a car lot!
but does it run linux...
I want mine to run GTA ... and witness the havoc that ensues...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
if road travel became "automated" I would break the computer and regain manual control of the car. I can hold my speed steadier than my cruise control; I can react to traction loss faster than the traction control in the computer (I can feel it before it causes the wheels to slip that much, thanks to steering and engine braking response); and I see problems before they become problems, like nervous/confused drivers (I've made note of a driver 2 lanes over, followed for a mile, and then signaled and started to change lanes; and suddenly he's drifting into the lane I'm changing into, which is exactly why I waited a mile to see what he was going to do! But I'm ready to react to that).
I've yet to find anything a computer can do better than me, and I've watched people lose it when traction control kicks the back of their car -- a valid action, except they've gone way too far beyond the limits of the road and nothing will recover them-- and managed to (barely) steer around them without traction control, with my car trying to spin and slide, with me making 50 little adjustments to my steering, throttle, braking, clutch, gear stick... half of this is probably me actually being aware of what my vehicle is doing, instead of cruising along while the computer does all this to keep me steady and I have no idea I'm failing to keep road connection until I really, really need to push it.
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R030A Bridgestone performance summer wet-dry tires (don't use in snow; get performance winter tires for that) will hold onto the road like nothing, rain or shine, no hydroplaning. They hold up for a while. They're suitable for racing... in the rain. They also costs $150+ each; $30 tires that float around when it rains are more appealing to consumers, because what do I need fancy tires for?
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...would be to build in network where these HUD-enabled cars can talk to each other so the car behind can be alerted of conditions or danger by the car ahead. Eventually, once enough of these are on the road, your entire route could be planned out before the trip even takes place based on information it receives from all the other vehicles.
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..Roads are cheap in contrast to lives
But the people who maintain the road do not pay anything when you die ... so roads look expensive to them
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The GM display is for augmented reality, highlighting the road, signs, etc. not just displaying your speed.
Wired had this in Found: Artifacts From the Future
http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-01/found
Technoli
...is for this kind of windshield display to block out oncoming headlights. All too often, oncoming headlights are so bright that it blocks my ability to see the road in front of me. If it was possible to selectively block out bright lights (when not near railroad crossings of course), it would be so much nicer to drive at night. I know this will never come to market though because it is a technology that is begging to malfunction.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
We see that now with four wheel drive SUVs, which are inevitably the ones you see that have gone off the road when it snows because the jackasses think their four wheel drive makes them invulnerable. They quickly discover that physics is a harsh mistress.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I bought a GM car in 1998 partly because it had a heads up display. I have to say that it was awesome. For those that are talking about the distraction factor, you shouldn't opine unless you've used one. My display was on a Grand Prix GTP and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss that car.
The HUD on that car was done by reflecting an LCD display into the windshield. It displayed way more than just your speed. It gave you the outside temperature (excellent for the season in New England where the temp would be around freezing and it was raining, snowing, or drizzling out). It also showed you what radio station you were on, whether or not your headlights were on, and your blinkers among other things.
But the coolest part of it was when you drove a lonely, 2 lane road at night through the hills or the mountains. In such cases, I would turn my dashboard lighting off completely. I still knew my speed and other info from the HUD, and thus never had to take my eyes away from the road.
But more importantly, when the dashboard lights were off, and it was dark, the road and it's surroundings slowly began to illuminate for me, the same way that a dark room slowly gets brighter when you come in from bright sunlight. After a few minutes, the otherwise completely dark SIDES of the road would begin to glow and you could see the trees and fields far better than with your dash lights on. This saved my life one night...
I was driving on a back road in NH and a deer came dashing out of the woods, and crossed the road in front of me. I was able to see the movement at the side of the road because my eyes had adjusted to the light. I reacted by slowing down early, and this allowed the deer to cross the road before I got to it. Had I seen it just a little later, I probably would have hit it. Either way, at 60mph on a dark road at night, a HUD is your best friend.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
I live in the SanFrancisco area and I must admit the drivers out here are worse than in Boston or NewYork. Not because they are aggressive (which they are not), but because of the distractions. I see drivers with earbuds in, blocking their ability to hear another car and it's horn; having to fiddle with the DVD player for the kids in the back; programming the neverlost/mapping/GPS software on their console; and trying to make a call on their hands free handset.
Shit, most drive automatics anyhow, so their left foot isn't doing anything, so you could probably hook up 1/2 of a Wii-fit board to the dead pedal and let them do that. Display that on half of the windshield.
We've got tons of stop and go traffic during rush hour, and I absolute hate being the last car in the traffic jam, because about once a month the person behind isn't paying attention and comes screeching to a halt no matter how slowly I come to a stop.
I rather see innovations that make people better drivers, rather than a bunch of crutches or distractions. Anybody know how to read a fucking street map anymore rather than putting in Grandma's house into the GPS to get there? With the invention of self parking cars, that's one more skill that will be gone in a few years. I already have friends that cannot parallel park, and they don't have this feature on their car, so we just circle the block for 45min until they can find a spot we don't have to parallel park their fucking huge SUV.
Fighter Pilots have HUDs and take massive amounts of training prior to getting into an actual plane. We allow people to get behind the wheel as long as they have a licensed driver next to them. Can that licensed driver do anything in their Ford Festiva if the newbie gets into a problem? Nope. Now put a HUD in front of the new driver, or any driver for that matter and you're guarantee to distract them.
> GM Working On Interactive Windshields
We already have windshields people interact with whenever they hit a wall.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I can react to traction loss faster than the traction control in the computer
Doubtful.
(I can feel it before it causes the wheels to slip that much thanks to steering and engine braking response)
Before it slips "that much"? A traction control system can notice the same slippage, and it can react to it a hell of a lot faster than you can. Maybe not in as nuanced a manner, but sometimes a brute-force approach is a better choice.
I've yet to find anything a computer can do better than me
I'm assuming you mean in the context of cars? If so: Anti-lock brakes. There's no way a human driver can replicate the reduced stopping distance provided by anti-lock brakes. We just can't react quickly or precisely enough.
Cadillac and I believe a few Buick and Oldsmobile cars have had a simpler version of this for at least a decade now. In certain models of these cars, your direction and speed are projected onto the lower part of the windshield directly in front of the driver. Sure it's simple, but I was actually very fond of being able to see how fast I was going without having to look down at the dashboard. I look forward to seeing what else they can do with this as long as it doesn't become yet another distraction from the road.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
If you build a road between a valley and there are 100 deer accidents a year, don't you think it would have been better to have built a raised road so the deer can go under the road and through the only choke point in the entire valley rather then get themselves killed and a few humans while they're at it?
It's a lot cheaper and easier to just shoot all the deer and build a normal road.
The new GM, same as the old GM.
... a Camry .
So busy coming up with the car of tomorrow, they never have a car to sell today.
Maybe GM needs to stop dreaming up laser-enhanced windshields and build... say
I predict driving will be completely automated by the end of the century. The only HUD you'll need will be will be for your email (or whatever replaces it by then) notifications & RSS feeds if you're watching the scenery go by.
The biggest hurdle is that GM is going is to have to get a eye-augmentation surgery figured out that enables us to see in ultraviolet. Every new car comes with free cyborg surgery! You too can see in ultraviolet! Or, they could just use visible light lasers. You know.
How much are those going to cost to replace when a rock chips them?
I just don't think that technology that will cost that much should be on a device that is called a windSHIELD for a reason.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
I don't know how useful / distracting an entire interactive windshield will be, and I can easily see possible issues; but I had a 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP with a true HUD that projected speed, turn indicators, etc. up on the glass. When you combined it with the radio control knobs on the steering wheel, I really only had to take my eyes off the road to look at the rear-view or side-view mirrors. It was not distracting at all even though it was directly in front of vision when looking straight out the front from the drivers seat; and it really helped / eased concentration in my opinion. It didn't add squat to the cost of the car and the only downside was that the windshield was expensive if you had to replace - you had to use a special coated one instead of just any replacement. Personally, I cannot figure out why all cars don't come with one. I truly miss mine.
No, my twitch reaction time at those speeds is almost immediate. The problem is going 90mph with 6 inches of clearance is not feasible; the stopping power individual cars have, with different tires, different brakes, different parts of the road they're on, different suspension characteristics (meaning load shifting onto/off of the braking wheels) will mess with their ability to hard-stop in an emergency.
I don't WANT a perfect computer to react to an unpredicted event at 90mph with 6 inches of clearance. I don't want a perfect ME to react to an unpredicted event at 90mph with 6 inches of clearance. It's not physically going to happen. I want 150+ feet of clearance at 90mph; I can do it with 30, but if my ABS kicks in I might need 40. Better tires might prevent the ABS from kicking in; except my tires are made for wet-dry sports performance, it's too warm for ice and snow, but there is a gear grease leak in some semi and I just slid half a tire on grease-floating-on-water. Trust me I want that 150 foot buffer.
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I've out-stopped ABS but that's only because I'm trained to threshold brake near-perfectly, while ABS is about 80% efficient. A human can break 95% efficiency with perfect threshold braking, but it's hard.
Traction control cannot recognize that kind of slippage. Traction control and ABS use sensors that recognize wheel spin speeds; however, I can recognize nuances in my steering, and slight differences in the car's handling. I can recognize multi-wheel slip (i.e. if both drive wheels are slipping but within 1% of each other); I've had my car on ice registering 110mph, while I was going like 1mph at best lol... I saw it, the car didn't.
Electronic stability control uses wheel spin speeds to measure not only slippage, but vehicle travel direction. It then compares this to the path of travel set by the steering wheel, and makes adjustments via the brakes and steering system(!) to alter the path of travel to match driver intent. Most vehicles with ABS and TC don't have ESC; all vehicles with ESC have ABS and TC. I dislike the principle design of ESC (that being a computer adjusting my steering and brakes), but no comments on its efficacy.
There is no way a vulgar traction control system can out-drive me, or any vaguely alert driver in general. There's a difference between driving and operating a car, just like there's a difference between target shooting and firing a handgun wildly into the air. Any idiot can pull a trigger, but it takes skill (obtained by training) to aim properly and account for the nuances of the wind and the distance to travel, the motion of the target, etc. In the same manner, any idiot can hit the gas and turn the wheel; but most people don't understand vehicle dynamics or even basically what tires do (much less suspension, or proper cornering techniques, or braking techniques besides pumping the brakes, etc).
http://skipbarber.com/driving_school/mazda/
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I have to say it: I always wanted night vision like Jackie Chan in that movie—hopefully with some kind of safety so it can't be used (easily) without the headlights on. Heh heh.
"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
The test model was just regular sunglasses with a pair of small paper dots stuck in the relative position of the sun.
The production model will use LCDs to blacken an equivalent region actively determined by a built in low res camera.
The paper dots work. The LCDs should work even better. Hopefully a way to de-uglify them can be found, but then again people seem to love ugly sunglasses.
-- The reader anything less than completely failing to not misunderstand this sig is cursed.
It depends on where the fog rests. If it is a couple feet above ground, your normal headlights will just reflect off the fog, while your fog lights can still hit the road directly and reflect back through the fog.
It's rare, but fog lights really can help. I've never owned a new car, so whatever options I get are whichever come with the car I can afford. Then again, I've been in some in-town driving situations with no other cars around, where I could actually see better with all my lights off, and just using the city street lights.
You probably don't need an exact solution for this. If you divided the windshield into a 10x10 grid, and assume that the driver's head is in a particular position in the cabin, you might be able to shade just that square, and cast a shadow over everywhere the driver's head would likely be. This would en up shading a lot more than just the disk of the sun, bit it'd be an overall improvement, since you wouldn't have been able to see anything in that area anyway.
What you describe are perhaps some implementation inefficiencies. Many ABS systems operate the actuators in a binary fashion, and they are not designed for variable brake pressure, only for pressure/no-pressure. There's nothing preventing a better design, only status quo.
Whatever you're claiming to be sensing so well, a computer can certainly sense better -- with proper sensors, that is. Most cars do not have a 6DOF inertial platform, even though that would be a good starting point for any decently-performing stability/traction augmentation system.
A computer-controlled antilock system, with servo actuators (vs. binary on-off valves) can, and will, in stable enough conditions, control wheel slip down to 1-2% accuracy or so. It will maintain that wheel slip way faster than you or I can. It needs an inertial platform, or at least a longitudinal acceleration sensor, to do that. The wheel speed sensors are not really reliable for estimating the vehicle speed once the wheels start locking up. You need inertial reference for that. The wheel speed sensors are only useful to compare the individual wheel's speed to that of the car, given that you already know car's speed!
You claim that ESC "uses wheel spin speeds to measure not only slippage, but vehicle travel direction" -- sorry but ESC typically uses a lateral accelerometer combined with estimate of vehicle's speed, and with steering column angle.
As for cruise control: those are purposefully designed to be soft. It's rather easy to have cruise control that will keep your speed to better than 1% under all reasonable conditions. It will need input from an inclinometer (inertial reference!). I have had a Volvo 940 wagon with a rather sloppy cruise control that I replaced with a custom controller with inclinometer, and a beefy electrical model servo to replace the original vacuum-controlled actuator. After model identification work was done (I settled on multiple FIR models), I took it for a spin in some rather hilly terrain and you could hardly see the speedometer needle move. On typical "flat" roads, it felt rock solid, and the measured speed would be within a +/- 0.5% band around the setpoint. Oh, and it worked down to 10mph, not to the silly factory 25mph limit.
The biggest point with "solid" cruise control is that other cars aren't solid at all, so on highway it may be advantageous to have piss-poor PID-based stock cruise control -- it will maintain inter-car distance much better if the car in front of you is on cruise control, too.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Do not look into windshield with remaining eye
Have you ever done the experiment where someone holds a metre rule between your hands, and suddenly lets go? You have to catch it when they do, and measure how far it dropped. Human reactions are awful compared to a computer.
If you hit something your airbag will fully deploy (several processes occurring in sequence) before you even realise you've hit it.
Look at the "stopping distances" at the bottom of this page. The blue is the "thinking distance" and the red the "braking distance". You need to know that for the theory part of the UK driving test. You also need to pass a hazard perception test -- that's something computers (AFAIIA) aren't so good at.
I suspect computer controlled driving won't be popular for plenty of people because it will be slower. The developers/manufacturers of the system won't be willing to take any risks, but most drivers take lots of risks all the time.
If you build a road between a valley and there are 100 deer accidents a year, don't you think it would have been better to have built a raised road so the deer can go under the road and through the only choke point in the entire valley rather then get themselves killed and a few humans while they're at it?
That's very expensive.
It's quite cheap to put up some warning signs, perhaps not have fences/hedges too close to the road, and expect drivers to drive at a sensible speed.
is deer-seeking missles - merely for force protection measures, mind you.
Whatever you're claiming to be sensing so well, a computer can certainly sense better -- with proper sensors, that is. Most cars do not have a 6DOF inertial platform, even though that would be a good starting point for any decently-performing stability/traction augmentation system.
Yeah, they would need a full set of gyroscopic stabilizers and accelerometers to determine microscopic changes in vehicle momentum without mechanical changes (i.e. without wheels slipping). Humans operate primarily off homeostasis and will "feel" things they can't offhand quantify or recognize when tested; it's not binary. It's like a carpenter that's used the same hammer for 2 years, you hand him another hammer from the same production run and he fumbles with it for a bit because it doesn't feel the same as his hammer, even though it's theoretically balanced the same and weighs the same.
Besides just considerations of actual, realistic traction loss (I'm thinking particularly of climbing a hill in snow on sports tires, with my car thrashing wildly all over the place), there are other considerations made in my daily driving when my wheels slip. Sometimes my car does something funny and I choose to ignore it. I mean, I ease off the throttle or whatever, because I'm obviously going too fast or cornering too hard; but my car isn't heading for people, parked cars, or telephone poles, so I don't care to correct my trajectory. I still come out in my lane, so there's no reason for me to react by correcting my vehicle's path; I do have to correct my driving to regain full control and prevent further traction loss, of course.
So while in some cases my reactions are "better" than the computer's, there are cases where I just don't care. And as you said, it takes a huge and complex (and expensive) system to do proper traction and stability control... which I'm not going to get very easily, so I'll just learn to drive.
The wheel speed sensors are not really reliable for estimating the vehicle speed once the wheels start locking up.
Bingo. Better systems went in race cars, then got banned. They're too expensive for passenger cars.
You claim that ESC "uses wheel spin speeds to measure not only slippage, but vehicle travel direction" -- sorry but ESC typically uses a lateral accelerometer combined with estimate of vehicle's speed, and with steering column angle.
Interesting. I thought ESC was just more sensitive to small changes in vehicle mechanics, not that it was trying to feel out what the vehicle's doing. I know TC is just an additional computer program on top an ABS platform.
It's rather easy to have cruise control that will keep your speed to better than 1% under all reasonable conditions. It will need input from an inclinometer (inertial reference!).
If the engine RPM changes, then the vehicle's speed changes. It is impossible to vary the engine RPM at all without varying the vehicle's speed. If it goes down, open the throttle more.
The biggest point with "solid" cruise control is that other cars aren't solid at all, so on highway it may be advantageous to have piss-poor PID-based stock cruise control -- it will maintain inter-car distance much better if the car in front of you is on cruise control, too.
This is the other reason I don't bother with cruise control. I'm too busy driving. Everything around me is moving, nothing is fixed, and nobody is going exactly 90mph with no variance. People are moving between 70-90mph, and I have to move with them; and over the course of a mile they might vary within the full 20mph range! If they want to ride at 90 I'll take another lane, I prefer 80 (I'd love to cruise at 150, on a race track in a better car; not on the highway, even though my suspension is fucking nice).
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I've caught the ruler in less than a centimeter. Most of my peers have distances greater than 5cm.
The computer can see the ruler move. A human can see the guy holding the ruler flinch, or look down real quick, or suddenly tense up just before dropping it. If the object is to not drop the ruler, but to react 1:1 when the ruler is in danger of being dropped, I'll always 100% beat the computer because I'll react just before the ruler is dropped; if the object is to stay within the constraints of the game and not react until after the ruler is dropped, the computer will beat me.
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I've done plenty of track days, and I've been to quite a few driver schools as well, and participated in some sanctioned amateur racing events. While on track, I prefer a car with no driving aids, and I also prefer a car with a manual tranny. I do know the reality that a well designed ABS and stability control system -- as well as a well designed semi-automatic clutchless shift system is faster...but as a driver, I prefer to be directly connected, and in full control. That being said, I disagree with your assessment of what driving aids can (or can't) do for you, and that your own skill is greater than what these can do. Frankly, I think that you're overestimating your skills...unless you possess super-human abilities, which are beyond those of most professional racers.
Can you deliver (or reduce) braking power to a specific wheel? (ABS and stability control systems can)
What about deliver (or reduce) torque to a specific wheel? (stability control systems can)
If your threshold braking is so much better than ABS, why was it banned in F1 racing over 15 years ago?
Why are traction control systems both included in and heavily regulated in racing (e.g. F1)?
If a trained driver can do better than a computer, why are active differentials (which are essentially modified traction/stability control systems) fitted in professional rally cars (WRC & IRC)?
Are you suggesting that you're a better driver than the professionals at the highest levels of racing?
Also remember that stability control systems do not drive the car. The driver does. The system will not out drive you, but consider that a trained driver with the right traction control system can. I'll grant that not all stability control systems are created equal, some will just make a car understeer, some are "performance" oriented, and there are outright racing systems which can do very impressive things, in the right hands. These certainly can make a car go around a track (again in the right hands).
Finally, consider that you are in the 95th percentile of drivers. There may be a few manufacturers out there who design a model or two for people like you. However, most drivers do not have the training that you do. They have no clue about things like car control and vehicle dynamics beyond knowing that the wheelie thing in the middle makes the car turn, the pedal on the left makes the car go, and the pedal on the right makes the car stop. As far as mass-market cars go; they're designed for the rest of the drivers. These drivers will never go do any advanced training. They don't care, and never will; that's the reality around us. Car geeks like us have to share the road with those people. If this technology makes those drivers safer, they make people like you and I safer...and the roads have never been safer than they are today.
-Turkey
Oh, by the way, on the "thinking distance." Here in America we have really braindead drivers. So, I'm going 30mph, in the second lane (2 lane road). It's me, empty lane, parallel parked cars, curb.
So I'm halfway past a parked car.
Sans signal, the NEXT parked car (about 2-3 feet between that one and the car I'm next to) pulls out quickly to turn into the opposite flow of traffic, and stops, dead in front of me, about 20 feet.
My foot was already on the brake before his nose got halfway into the empty lane next to me. I had already estimated from his path of travel that he was going to pull in front of me. I didn't even know there was someone in the car until the car moved.
I can't stop that fast from 40... well, I have, but I can't reliably. But that's okay, I've already checked both mirrors (rear view and passenger's side view), there's a car coming up on me (I don't have blind spots, when you leave my side mirror you're halfway in my peripheral vision). I'm already in second gear and I've dropped down to about 25mph.
Clutch comes up, my wheel's turned FAST, I'm flooring it, my car surges forward, out-accelerates the car behind me with 2 or 3 car lengths of clearance, and dips behind the guy that just pulled in front of me.
Effectively, another car appeared out of thin air about 20 feet in front of mine, not moving, while I was going 40mph. I was already in the next lane and behind him before I knew the car was even there. You're quite right; if the airbag would have deployed, I would have seen it before I saw the car I hit; my brain sure as hell didn't register the damn thing until I was already around it.
This is not smooth, careful thinking. This is not some amazing luck in a panic reaction. This is meticulous, trained, controlled response. It's a sequence of events that just happens because it has to happen, because nothing else can happen. You don't diagram the pedals in your head, visualize the brake pedal, think about how much braking force you get at each stage of depression, and apply that much force 5 seconds later. You don't even think about lifting your foot. The brakes are down before you even know you're off the gas.
There's a racing school here. They have two types of classes: Racing and Driving. The Racing class teaches you race track skills, how qualifiers work, what the rules of the track are, all that stuff.
The Driving classes, however, teach you all the relevant skills for the road-- some of these are racing skills, some are refined for unpredictable conditions on the road. They teach you everything from vehicle control in adverse conditions (i.e. if your car skids sideways or spins) to road etiquette. They teach you how to react to sudden hazards, they make you do it again and again until every collision avoidance technique is drilled into not just your head, but your hands and feet. When someone pulls their car out in front of you, when some moron runs out into the street from behind a van, when there's an accident right in front of you, your brain shuts down immediately and your car goes exactly where it needs to go.
It's too bad it costs roughly $5000 to go through an awesome set of street driving classes (never mind the racing stuff). It should be mandatory. Here in the US we're expected to roughly understand traffic law and how to operate a vehicle (gas, brakes, steering wheel, no clutch); there's no requirement to understand anything about vehicle dynamics, tires, suspension, maintenance, any of that. We expect you to go the speed limit, stop at stop signs, and use your signal when you turn. That's it. That's all it takes to get a license in the US.
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Take the system that tracks the driver's gaze and add some logic to it to refuse to start the car if their eyes can't see over the steering wheel. Offer it first in Florida.
Have gnu, will travel.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That's it. That's all it takes to get a license in the US.
Now consider that even this is too much for a lot of morons on the road. Your idea isn't necessarily bad, but unfortunately it'll never, ever happen because of those same morons who would be utterly unable to learn and follow those details.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Dude I failed my driving test when I got licensed 10 years ago, I know. I couldn't park, and they licensed me anyway.
My test was 3 right turns in a parking lot (with signal) and parallel park. Also I had to wear a seat belt. That's all it takes.
I know, people are too stupid. The bigger issue isn't that they can't be forced onto a skidpad and made to do vehicle recovery for 8 hours straight; it's that they'd have to pay for it, either with jacked-up taxes or (more likely) out-of-pocket to a driving school. We have to pay roughly $300 for driver's ed here and $15 to get a license; driver's ed is taught by private companies, so they don't get paid by tax money, so if they incorporated a high-maintenance skidpad and collision avoidance course then they'd have to charge more.
When it comes to saving lives versus spending money, people will always save their money. $1000 more to get a driver's license, because of new mandatory programs that will save 15,000 lives a year? Oh hell no, we're not spending that kind of money once in our damn lives to get a driver's license, fuck that shit.
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