Slashdot Mirror
VisLab Sponsors Milan-to-Shanghai Driverless Trek
incuso writes "VisLab announced the most advanced challenge so far ever organized for autonomous vehicles. Two driverless electric cars will perform a trip from Italy to China to demonstrate the feasibility of autonomous driving in real traffic conditions. Each vehicle will be equipped with five laser scanners, seven cameras, GPS, inertial measurement unit, three Linux PCs, and an x-by-wire driving system. The mission will start on July 10 in Milan, Italy, and will reach Shanghai, China, on October 10 (10/10/10) on a 13,000 km route though Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and finally China."
Should an autonomous car be called an auto-automobile?
Who fuels the cars on the way? Do they know how to spot gas stations and ask the gas station attendants to fill them up? How do they pay?
that it is probably illegal to drive such an automaton in real traffic in any country, incl. "Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and finally China."
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
What happens if someone cuts off the 2nd vehicle?
Didn't you read the summary, the auto-automobile has five lasers! Cut off at your own risk!
I think I would rather not be the CEO of the first company who's "autonomous" system exhibits "Toyota" like behavior.
The first avoidable death attributed to such systems should see the end of this nonsense.
I cannot however, argue with the ecologically friendly developments that this experiment will hopefully promote.
I just saw the route on the map and man, are they going a looong way just to avoid the middle east conflict zone!
So, to "demonstrate the feasibility of autonomous driving in real traffic conditions" they are sending the cars not only through areas that, for the most part, have fuck all traffic, but also on a trip that practically no-one would do anyway. Well done.
The . as a thousands separator should die.
Especially when there's no decimal separator around.
Put a space if you really want to make it easier to read :
13 000
13 000.00
13 000,00
but
13.000 is just plain wrong.
When renting a car in a western European country, the first thing that Hertz will tell you, is that you are not allowed to drive the car to an eastern European country. Because "the car will not make it back." Hertz says the same thing when you rent in Texas: "You cannot take this car to Mexico".
So what anti-theft-AI is planned for these vehicles? Maybe those lasers can do more than just scan?
A car loaded with so much luxury high-tech accessories would surely make a tempting target for a thief. Maybe the cars will just autonomously disappear?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The first vehicle will drive autonomously in selected sections of the trip and will conduct experimental tests on sensing, decision, and control subsystems, and will continuously collect data. Although limited, human interventions will be needed to define the route and intervene in critical situations. The second vehicle will automatically follow the route defined by the preceding vehicle, requiring no human intervention (100% autonomous). This will be regarded as a readily exploitable vehicle, able to move on predefined routes; at the end of the trip, its technology will be transferred to a set of vehicles to move in the inner part of Rome in the close future.
The first vehicle is a bit more than a drone and the second one is a bit more than a mere follower. From what they say, once the trip has been made once, a vehicle could be autonomously doing the road without following anyone. That is an interesting achievment.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Well, strong motor and chassis, good tires, suspension, tough bumper let you drive over one of the two problems. But then again, there are also roads on the way.
ah yes.
The thing there is that claims made in the Mirror rarely have any basis in reality or to put it more bluntly they pull figures out of their arse.
As a general rule whenever the mirror says "scientists have found" or some such without naming any names or research establishments then it's almost certainly something written in the PR department.
When they do name names and research establishments it's also normally bullshit but gets followed by denials from the researchers in question that their work has anything to do with what is reported in the mirror.
I'd propose that perhaps they meant *per year* but even that would make no sense as it would put your odds of surviving cancer until the age of 10 a little on the low side.
Hell lets try comparing their odds of dying of cancer with their figures for deaths on the road.
They claim 2500 people die per year from traffic accidents in the UK. Reasonably close.
They call that 8,000 to one odds.
They give cancer 2.5:1 odds.
If you take that 2500 and multiply to figure out how many people would have to die of cancer in comparison it translates to about 8 million.
Which is ballpark figure, very rounded about as many as will die over the next generation.
So what's happened is they've taken the *per year* traffic deaths and compared them to the *lifetime* cancer deaths because apparently the column writer Matt Roper is a massive retard.