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Stanford Robot Car Capable of Slide Parking

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-human-would-drift-like-that dept.

kkleiner writes "Stanford's Junior, the robot car that took second place at DARPA's Grand Challenge in 2007, has learned how to perform a tire-squealing 180-degree spin into a skin-tight parking space. Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off. We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon, but Stanford shows us that at least for some driving tasks robot cars can already meet or even exceed human ability."

265 comments

  1. Rude-bot by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    To counter, I'm inventing the Automatic Finger to quickly signal my frustration at being cut-off from my parking spot.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Rude-bot by dudpixel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      c'mon, if a robot car took your park using the awesome sliding maneuver, you'd have to give it the thumbs up.

      --
      This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
    2. Re:Rude-bot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right after I lowered it into the pool of liquid steel.

    3. Re:Rude-bot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are no "thumbs" on this site, troll.

  2. Three Points by XPulga · · Score: 1, Informative


    1. The proper reference is the Blues Brothers movie, not James Bond.

    2. Parking like this is stupid and wears down the tires unevenly and too fast.

    3. Uneven pavement, potholes, wet pavement, oil puddle: pick your disaster.

    1. Re:Three Points by oldhack · · Score: 1

      And me opening my door and slam them with lawsuit.

      --
      Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
    2. Re:Three Points by AdmiralXyz · · Score: 5, Funny

      I detect insecurity in your tone, human.

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      Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
    3. Re:Three Points by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      I was thinking more of the Ghostbusters.

      Who you gonna call? STANFORD!

      Nope, doesn't have the same ring to it.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    4. Re:Three Points by WSOGMM · · Score: 1

      1. The proper reference is the Blues Brothers movie, not James Bond. 2. Parking like this is stupid and wears down the tires unevenly and too fast. 3. Uneven pavement, potholes, wet pavement, oil puddle: pick your disaster.

      1. They reference it in the article-- if you even read it.

      2. Once again, if you read the article,

      The real story here is Junior’s ability to cleanly switch between various methods of driving.

      3. That would be a disaster for pretty much any human attempting that sort of maneuver. I'd probably still put my faith in robots.

    5. Re:Three Points by dudpixel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      3. That would be a disaster for pretty much any human attempting that sort of maneuver. I'd probably still put my faith in robots.

      To put one's faith in a robot, is to put one's faith in the [ability/morality etc of the] human(s) who designed said robot.

      --
      This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
    6. Re:Three Points by slater86 · · Score: 1


      An even better reference would've been Russ Swift for his Austin Montego TV ad.

      Russ swift
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Swift

      The Ad
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZA6g8r8U2o

      --
      When people ask if I'm an optimist, I say "I hope so". --Bill Bailey
    7. Re:Three Points by pclminion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If your definition of robot is "machine controlled by an intelligent computer program" then I'm sorry to say, you're ALREADY putting your faith in such things, hundreds of times per day. Hell, you're putting your life in a computer's hands on a second-by-second basis just by being within ten miles of a nuclear power plant.

    8. Re:Three Points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2. Once again, if you read the article,

      Who read the what now?

    9. Re:Three Points by causality · · Score: 1

      If your definition of robot is "machine controlled by an intelligent computer program" then I'm sorry to say, you're ALREADY putting your faith in such things, hundreds of times per day. Hell, you're putting your life in a computer's hands on a second-by-second basis just by being within ten miles of a nuclear power plant.

      Unless pebble bed reactors become deployed on a commercial scale.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    10. Re:Three Points by bieber · · Score: 1

      Right, and I trust the ability of my fellow humans to program a machine that can do precise calculations at high speeds to perform this kind of maneuver a lot more than I would trust them to guestimate those calculations and attempt it themselves...

    11. Re:Three Points by WSOGMM · · Score: 1

      Because slide parking has serious moral implications... as far as the "ability" of the stanford programmers/engineers go, I'd be willing to bet that the car they designed can pull off quite a few more successful maneuvers than any of those guys could.

    12. Re:Three Points by HBoar · · Score: 1

      Oh, you really don't think that this would be a practical way to park cars in an everyday situation? Congratulations. They weren't doing it so that future generations of robotic vehicles could slide into parking spots all over the place, it was a fun exercise to further develop methods for modeling and controlling the cars movement in general.

    13. Re:Three Points by mgblst · · Score: 1

      The people who designed those robots spend a lot more time than the average person does, thinking about the road.

      Still, this needs a lot of testing.

    14. Re:Three Points by e4g4 · · Score: 1

      I know - right? All of this talk about the article. Which article? 'The'? 'A'? What does grammar have to do with slide parking cars?

      --
      The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
    15. Re:Three Points by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is this modded informative? This should be modded troll.

      "2. Parking like this is stupid and wears down the tires unevenly and too fast."
      Obviously the point isn't that this is an efficient parking method, it's that it's a fucking awesome method that's being performed by a ROBOT. Of course you can't do this on problematic conditions, that ain't the fucking point in the first place.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    16. Re:Three Points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.

      You obviously have no clue what either one is, you poor thing.

    17. Re:Three Points by dudpixel · · Score: 1

      3. That would be a disaster for pretty much any human attempting that sort of maneuver. I'd probably still put my faith in robots.

      To put one's faith in a robot, is to put one's faith in the [ability/morality etc of the] human(s) who designed said robot.

      Rather than answer all of the other replies to this...I thought I'd follow up and say the above was more of a clarification than an attempt to disagree with the parent.

      I was not saying we shouldn't put faith in robots (or machines), but rather that we should understand what we are putting our faith in. Otherwise it technically wouldn't be faith at all, it would be "hope".

      --
      This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
    18. Re:Three Points by JWSmythe · · Score: 1, Informative

          On #2, I ripped a front tire from it's rim in a Crown Vic once doing that. Well, it was actually a 30mph J-turn, but still the same general movement. Low profile tires help reduce that. In my case, a fun J-turn on a closed course (performance driving training pad, after hours), turned into an exercise of changing a tire when it was 95 degrees out with the sun beating down on you.

          I wouldn't worry about the uneven treadwear. I'd worry more about the stress it's putting on the suspension and steering.

          At the speed and distance they executed that maneuver, and since the driver went past the space already, they would have been able to evaluate the situation. I don't know how well their computer is going to evaluate the road conditions. Did it hear the loose gravel tapping under the car when it drove through the first time. Us humans take all kinds of clues from our environment to make our decisions.

          In performance driving (closed track, of course), I'd have to say a human will still be far superior to a computer. At one course, because I was a "newbie" to their track, I had an instructor with me (their rules). I ran the track hard for 1/2 hour, and got used to how the whole course handled. I parked for about an our while other sets of folks ran. When I went back out, since my tires were now cold, when I hit the first turn (a tight 270), the back end kicked out. I drifted the turn, rather than spinning or sliding off the track, and took it easy for the next couple laps until the tires warmed up again. When we got back to the pits the instructor said to me, "I didn't think you'd make that turn. Most of the people out here would have lost it."

          Us humans learn a lot from practice. I knew immediately what was happening from the way the car responded. It could have been a bunch of other reasons, but I knew my car, and I already knew how it should respond on the track. It wasn't because I'm an amazing driver, or my car is the best in the world, but through experience I know what those little feelings mean. I kind of cheated. When I was a kid, I'd take my 4,800 pound car (that cost a whopping $300 used) with an amazingly sloppy suspension on grassy roads (laid out but never developed) after it rained and would intentionally spin it so I could practice recovering. At first, I'd end up off the road. With practice, I learned to not stop sideways, but to actually bring it under control and continue driving. But hey, I was 16, and my friends loved to ride along while I practiced.

          I guess with all that said, maybe computers will be able to outperform the average driver. I've seen enough people do enough stupid things because they didn't know what else to do, and never went to learn more about how to make their tons of steel drive down the road safely. I wish more drivers would go through a fraction of the proper training that I've done. Most people don't care. "I start the car. I point it to where I want to go. I get there." As long as the computers don't do as badly as the recent Volvo collision avoidance braking demonstration ("truck? What truck?"), I'll be impressed. :)

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    19. Re:Three Points by iwannasexwithyourmom · · Score: 0

      dude ur such a d-bag. this is cool, stop being a party pooper.

    20. Re:Three Points by Barny · · Score: 1

      Actually, if the thing has adaptive suspension, it likely could make up for limited irregular conditions.

      As for "wet road" and "hot road" adverse conditions, those could be calculated rather easily from the start.

      And yes, I agree, if it can pull a park like that (obviously showing it off) it can probably do a regular park a whole lot faster and more accurately than any of us could.

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
    21. Re:Three Points by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 1

      You forgot #4. Getting OUT of that spot later!!!

    22. Re:Three Points by fractoid · · Score: 1

      Unless pebble bed reactors become deployed on a commercial scale.

      That will never happen because it makes far too much sense.

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    23. Re:Three Points by ultranova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hell, you're putting your life in a computer's hands on a second-by-second basis just by being within ten miles of a nuclear power plant.

      Most nuclear power plants have containment buildings around their reactors, that keep anything bad from happening to anyone even if the reactors were to blow up. Newer ones also have reactor designs which the laws of physics prevent from blowing up, no matter what the controller does.

      But hey, keep on scaremongering, so we can keep on enjoying breathing coal ash.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    24. Re:Three Points by fractoid · · Score: 1

      My grammar was slide parking cars when your mammy was in nappies.

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    25. Re:Three Points by takev · · Score: 1

      actually, if this is reliable it seems to be much quicker than normal parking.
      it may help congestion (from ppl slowly parking, while othe ppl wait) in the streets of amsterdam.

    26. Re:Three Points by Glock27 · · Score: 1

      To put one's faith in a robot, is to put one's faith in the [ability/morality etc of the] human(s) who designed said robot.

      Not really. It is to put one's faith in the folks doing the safety-critical testing of the system. Seriously.

      We've fielded quite a few safety critical systems that perform well. In fact, large commercial aircraft are landing autonomously these days, a feat well beyond high speed parallel parking with a puny little car. :-)

      --
      Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
      Score: -1 100% Flamebait
    27. Re:Three Points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Moreover I'd trust a team of smart scientists to calculate this more than my frazzled brain after 12 hours coding.

    28. Re:Three Points by delinear · · Score: 1

      Exactly, it's important to remember that this demonstration is just the team showing off what they can do, but the real world implications of allowing robots to take over some of the more mundane but non-trivial tasks is still important and things like this help focus attention on the project in an amusing way. Having said that, if I could get a robot car that parked like this today, I'd be reaching for my chequebook right now :)

    29. Re:Three Points by delinear · · Score: 1

      The issue is that cars don't work in isolation - there are lots of squishy meat-sacks walking around the place, particularly around parked cars. In a real world situation you'd want to be able to check and compensate for that, so slide parking at high speed wouldn't be a good idea. More efficient use of the available space would be more practical, so slow parking but with much less wasted space between vehicles.

    30. Re:Three Points by mestar · · Score: 1

      "In performance driving (closed track, of course), I'd have to say a human will still be far superior to a computer."

      And I'd have to say you are wrong.

      "Us humans take all kinds of clues from our environment to make our decisions."

      And us robots take even more clues, and faster.

      When I went back out, since my tires were now cold, when I hit the first turn (a tight 270), the back end kicked out. I drifted the turn, rather than spinning or sliding off the track,

      Of course, computers would measure that temperature precisely and factor that in the model. Puny humans.

      "Us humans learn a lot from practice."

      Us robots learn even more, and faster, and we never forget.

      "I knew immediately what was happening from the way the car responded."

      Obviously not, otherwise your end would still be on the road. It was not, you failed.

    31. Re:Three Points by ockegheim · · Score: 1

      According to the excellent article I once found on Slashdot and now can't find, driverless cars will make parking spaces almost redundant. It's fine for a car to park in front of a driveway if another car can signal its intention and the first car can move out of the way. Most cars will be smaller too, designed to carry one person.

      --
      I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
    32. Re:Three Points by ockegheim · · Score: 1

      In fact, here it is!

      --
      I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
    33. Re:Three Points by otter42 · · Score: 1

      We've fielded quite a few safety critical systems that perform well. In fact, large commercial aircraft are landing autonomously these days, a feat well beyond high speed parallel parking with a puny little car. :-)

      Err, no it's not. Landing large aircraft is easy, that's why we did it first.

      Don't confuse easy with complex. An aircraft model might be complex, but it is understood, and thus the math makes it easy. Sliding an arbitrary car across arbitrary ground is NOT easy, as we don't understand the math behind it. Without a model, it's very hard to implement closed-loop controls. What's interesting here is that they mix an open-loop control that works in a particular situation with a closed-loop control that doesn't and get a system that is capable of correcting itself but works with arbitrary situations.

      This would be the equivalent of landing the aircraft in some unmodeled phase of flight, such as in a spin. Now *that* would be impressive.

      --
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    34. Re:Three Points by pclminion · · Score: 1

      Wow dude, I'm trying to make a point about robots using nuclear power as a parable and you believe that my true intention is to frighten people away from nuclear power? You're fucking crazy.

    35. Re:Three Points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and you believe that my true intention is to frighten people away from nuclear power?

      Intentionally or not, that's what you're doing. Pick a better example next time.

    36. Re:Three Points by XPulga · · Score: 1

      Ah, of course it would be unamerican to develop anything that had some practical use or used resources sparingly. Hooray for unapplicable tire-burning screech-parking robots!

    37. Re:Three Points by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

      Robot, I'm very impressed with your skills.

          Us humans can evaluate and make decisions on our own. Myself, I would have stopped or gone around the obstacle. Your decision to drive straight into it and then turn on the windshield wipers was very impressive.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    38. Re:Three Points by dudpixel · · Score: 1

      To put one's faith in a robot, is to put one's faith in the [ability/morality etc of the] human(s) who designed said robot.

      Not really. It is to put one's faith in the folks doing the safety-critical testing of the system. Seriously.

      How about both?

      Its the same with writing software. It is a combination of the programmer(s) being skilled enough to keep bugs to a minimum and the tester(s) being skilled and diligent enough to find the remaining (and inevitable) bugs before the software is released.

      --
      This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
    39. Re:Three Points by dudpixel · · Score: 1

      I think my above comment also applies here. People use the phrase "putting your life in a computer's hands" but really what is usually meant is "putting your life in the hands of those who wrote/tested the software that runs the computer".

      It is possible the computer may be to blame for some problems but far more likely that any malfunctions are in fact due to human error relating to the programming.

      Even if the computer (ie. the hardware) is at fault, this is still due to an error or negligence on the part of a human at some point.

      I know you understand the above, but the general public often misunderstand the concept of computers being programmed by humans, and only doing what they are programmed to do.

      --
      This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
  3. "We"? by oldhack · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon..."

    The Taco Bell University is still not good enough to lick the dirt off the dirty hippie Berkeley boots.

    --
    Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
  4. Toyota by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Funny

    We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon

    Heh.....let's work on getting cars to stop reliably before we start talking about that

    --
    Qxe4
    1. Re:Toyota by Bevilr · · Score: 1

      New Toyota accelerates uncontrollably into perfect sliding parallel parking job

    2. Re:Toyota by Iyonesco · · Score: 2, Funny

      With the new auto-breaking system Volvos stop reliably without even the need for a driver:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNi17YLnZpg

      Er...okay maybe you have a point.

    3. Re:Toyota by Garabito · · Score: 1

      Well, it stopped after all... with a little help from the truck.

    4. Re:Toyota by callipygian1 · · Score: 1

      Looks like that "auto-BREAKING system" worked perfectly to me

  5. Wind noise by Itninja · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know it's all bobo-chis to shot amateur video and whatnot, but can a brother get some noise reduction up in here? I mean, DAMN.

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    1. Re:Wind noise by Barny · · Score: 1

      Well, they did have a Metallica song as the backing, but, well, Lars nearly had an aneurysm that something cooler than him was using their music as a backing...

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
  6. I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 1, Funny

    Way back in the ancient days of 1987, I was given my grandmother's maroon Ford Fairlane (no radio). I carpooled to school with two other guys, including this asshole. I used to show off by swerving down this road, going fast and swerving from one far extreme edge to the other, just to piss the one guy off.

    One day I lost control during a swerve, and did a perfect 180 turn the way this article describes. I ended up facing the exact right way (except the opposite way), and exactly in the right part of the lane. I just pretended like I did it on purpose and drove off like Mr. Cool.

    This was a good thing.

    1. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 1

      It was actually a Fairmont.

      http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/attachments/vehicles-wanted/172653d1238176562-wtb-78-82-ford-fairmont-futura-mercury-zephyr-fairmont-futura.jpg

      From the Crappy Days of the american auto industry. I think it was built on a Friday :-)

    2. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was coming down a winding hillside road road in the country a few years back, at night, driving somewhat vigorously in my MX5 (Miata to the Americans), I hit an unmarked patch of gravel on the road left by some workers right in the middle of a tight corner and went skating , for a couple of milliseconds I thought it was all going to end badly with me tumbling down the hill side sideways, but somehow I managed just your trick, a perfect 180 onto the opposite lane, and I drove off up the hill like nothing had happened.

      Was still a serious brown trousers moment though.

    3. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by HBoar · · Score: 1

      Wait -- Has the American auto industry ever had good days?

    4. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleg_turn

      Here you go.

    5. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Fred+The+Toaster · · Score: 1

      Way back in the ancient days of 1987, I used to carpool to school with two other guys, including some asshole. He used to show off by swerving down this road, going fast and swerving from one far extreme edge to the other, just to piss me off. One day he lost control during a swerve, and did a perfect 180 turn the way this article describes. We ended up facing the exact right way (except the opposite way), and exactly in the right part of the lane. He pretended like he did it on purpose and drove off like "Mr. Cool." He was a douche.

    6. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dangerous car stunts with myself and other people in the vehicle

      So wait, who was the asshole again? The passenger or the guy endangering the lives of everyone in the car, including himself, and anyone else on or near the road?

    7. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by dakameleon · · Score: 1

      Look up the Ford Model T. I hear it sold a few units and changed a few business models.

      --
      Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
    8. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by hasdikarlsam · · Score: 1

      Speaking as a former teenager..

      If you had swerved like that while I was in the car, then - assuming we survived - once we stopped, I would have punched you as hard as I could, preferably on the nose. Then I would have called the police, explained the situation, and made sure your license was taken away.

      Not all teenagers are so eager to get killed, moron.

    9. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he means the crappy days when America still had an auto industry :(

    10. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by delinear · · Score: 1

      A friend's daughter managed to do a 360 spin on a motorway, at night, in the pouring rain. Lucky it was night, actually - the fact that there were no other cars around probably saved her life, and certainly the fact that she didn't trash her dad's car was a big factor, too.

    11. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 0

      Fag :)

    12. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A friend's daughter managed to do a 360 spin on a motorway, at night, in the pouring rain.

      I've done it in traffic on dry pavement during the daytime. If you've ever watched a stock car race and seen the in-car camera from a spinning car, yeah, it looks pretty much like that.

      I was entering the road from the right, and realized there was a car in my blind spot. I steered too abruptly to the right, then overcorrected to the left. After 360 degrees I was in the far left lane (of 4 including the acceleration lane), with a blood adrenaline level that couldn't possibly be legal. Fortunately no one was actually in my path (I have no idea where the guy originally in my blind spot went).

    13. Re:I have to tel lthis story, it's too awesome by tgrigsby · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing you spent a lot of time get your butt kicked or sitting alone in your mom's basement. d00d, lighten up. The point of the article is that AI controlled cars are no longer putzing along at 5 miles an hour and doing a poor job of navigating a semi-difficult maze. They are starting to rival stunt car drivers for accuracy and control.

      Speaking as a former teenager, if you had parked a car like that while I was in the car, I'd have given a rebel yell and then asked you if I could try it. And if you were stupid enough to let me, I'd probably have jacked your car up. Because that's what real teenage boys do. They're not experienced enough to know what will kill them, they have a sense of immortality, and they do some of the stupidest crap and often get away with it because they don't know how dangerous it really is.

      --
      *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  7. Robots still suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This guy does that like 50 times in a minute twelve.

  8. This is awesome but... by bziman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do notice all the tire tracks that don't lead into the parking spot? Like all of the robotics projects I've been involved in, this took a LOT of tries.

    1. Re:This is awesome but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      did you notice the other videos where it doesnt come close?

    2. Re:This is awesome but... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

      IF you read TFA (a novel concept, I know!), it has a longer video which demos several different algorithms which fail variously; and then, ultimately, a final run which combines all of them to succeed. They claim that it is this smoothless combination is what is the real innovation here.

    3. Re:This is awesome but... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      If you read the article, you will see that they tried three different algorithms. The first two failed, but the final one succeeded quite reliably.

      So it's not like they were trying a bunch of times and then only filmed the one that worked (I assume that's what you meant, your post wasn't quite clear).

      --
      Qxe4
    4. Re:This is awesome but... by cyn1c77 · · Score: 0

      IF you read TFA (a novel concept, I know!), it has a longer video which demos several different algorithms which fail variously; and then, ultimately, a final run which combines all of them to succeed. They claim that it is this smoothless combination is what is the real innovation here.

      I think that is really cool AI. But I don't know if failing a few times at a driving maneuver is really going to work for me as a passenger though.

      Of course, I am sure they will work all the bugs out before this is incorporated into a real car.

      Right Toyota?

    5. Re:This is awesome but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "succeed" being a very subjective term. After watching the video, the "successful" run barely put half the car into the 'parking spot', meaning it would have been about 3 feet away from the curb. It was ludicrously close to one side of the pylons. The space in itself was big enough to have easily parallel parked in... and lastly, it would require that the car be DRIVING IN REVERSE DOWN THE ROAD FOR A LENGTH OF TIME.

      By far one of the most ridiculous, retarded, half-assed 'success' stories I've read in a while.

    6. Re:This is awesome but... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think that is really cool AI. But I don't know if failing a few times at a driving maneuver is really going to work for me as a passenger though.

      To reiterate: the failures (on the video) were with a different AI (which they claim is the "conventional" algorithms used today). The success was with their AI, which is a combination of those techniques that, individually, were each failing on its own. There's nothing in the video that implies that their AI fails intermittently at this point.

      Of course, I'd imagine that they've spent a lot of time testing & debugging it, and those skid marks could have come from there as well.

    7. Re:This is awesome but... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Succeed" is clearly defined by ending within the desired rectangle with the precision of 2 feet. It's all in TFA (*sigh*). It even points out that it's nowhere near enough to safely park the car in real-life scenarios.

      The point is that no-one came up with a working model that could do what they're doing on the video before.

    8. Re:This is awesome but... by pz · · Score: 1

      Do notice all the tire tracks that don't lead into the parking spot? Like all of the robotics projects I've been involved in, this took a LOT of tries.

      Sure, sure, but did you watch the rest of the videos where the demonstrate how single-modal control fails badly? That's where the other tire marks are from.

      The point of the set of videos was not that the car can do slide parking per se, however incredibly awesome that is, but that it took a multi-modal approach to achieve it.

      --

      Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    9. Re:This is awesome but... by TheLink · · Score: 1

      They could easily just show the video where the "combined algorithm" succeeds, even if there were times where it failed.

      Anyone seen the endings of those Jackie Chan movies? In the movie proper you see the fancy successes. The ending is where you see some of the other clips where stuff went "different".

      Since they have resorted to "open loop" control, it means the robot is about as likely to make as many mistakes as humans. It's progress I guess, but really, if it can only get within 2 feet of actual spot, I think I could do as well with that many tries - same car, same exact parking spot.

      Whereas you have those "pro" drivers who can get into a random car and within a few minutes (or even less) figure out its characteristics well enough to drive it far better than us "normals".

      --
    10. Re:This is awesome but... by Provocateur · · Score: 1

      Can I have said Robot Transform into Shopper With Recyclable
      Grocery Bag and then pick up my groceries?

      WHat do you say, Stanford? (Forget about the Toss-keys-to-valet
      trick, we KNOW you guys can make it do that, eventually. We're
      damn impressed by this one already!)

      --
      WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    11. Re:This is awesome but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but:

      (1) All subsequent tries under the same conditions will have the same result
      (2) One update and every robot car* in the world can do the same thing

      *OK, maybe there's only that one today, but think of the future

    12. Re:This is awesome but... by cyn1c77 · · Score: 1

      You totally miss my point.

      Junior learns by replaying previously observed driving maneuvers and uses that data to select which AI (physics-based or real-world-learned) to use in a given situation.

      I am concerned that Junior will not choose the correct AI when encountering a new situation for the first time, because it will have no prior data to assist in AI selection.

  9. Autonomous? by Itninja · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If a robot does exactly what it is programmed to do, is that autonomy? Is sounds like they programmed it to perform this maneuver (going backward at a decent speed and sliding into a specific zone), and then it did (after several failures apparently).

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    1. Re:Autonomous? by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but programming it to do it is real hard. Yeah, it's for damn sure that a system like this isn't ready for prime time, but it's still an accomplishment.

    2. Re:Autonomous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but they gave it some leeway in its actions- neither the open or closed loop methods worked by themselves. It makes some judgements of its own.

    3. Re:Autonomous? by Itninja · · Score: 1

      Does it? From what I read it sounds like they programmed it was a litany of possible maneuvers and then put it in a situation where it could only use one. I think the 'towel folding' robot I read about recently is more autonomous than this one. But not nearly as sexy :)

      --
      I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    4. Re:Autonomous? by Itninja · · Score: 1

      It is quite a programming feat to be sure, but the difficulty of the work really has nothing to do with the autonomy of whatever product said work produces.

      --
      I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    5. Re:Autonomous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An excellent point. Alas, I've already commented on this thread...

    6. Re:Autonomous? by aug24 · · Score: 1

      CHRIST! READ the FINE article. WATCH the FINE videos.

      Then... MAYBE... type.

      Worst /. post ever. /rant

      Sorry, but you really exhibited the worst of /. here. And then some moron modded you insightful... *cries gently*

      J.

      --
      You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
  10. Turbo Boost by sanman2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now that the tire-squealing precision-skidding has been mastered, we just need the turbo boost and the annoying nasal voice synthesizer to round out the look and feel.

    1. Re:Turbo Boost by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Damn robots with their sagging cases, showing the whole god damn world their CPUs. Get the hell off my lawn before I call Bruce Schnier on your asses!

      --
      Monstar L
    2. Re:Turbo Boost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And those damn robots steal all my mom's drugs!
      STUPID ROBOTS!!!

    3. Re:Turbo Boost by HybridST · · Score: 1

      iirc "KIT" had at one point destroyed and was rebuilt with an upgraded 8MegaBits (yes bits) of ram.. not that I watched it very often.

      --
      Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
    4. Re:Turbo Boost by Barny · · Score: 3, Funny

      Your hostillity toward the Computer has been noted citizen, please report to the "armour testing lab" for re-assignment.

      Praise the computer!

      note: that is the lab right beside "exotic unstable weapons testing" lab.

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
    5. Re:Turbo Boost by m.alessandrini · · Score: 0

      don't forget the red sliding light

    6. Re:Turbo Boost by delinear · · Score: 1

      Oblig. 8Mb of RAM ought to be enough for anybody.

  11. interesting, but not mind blowing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the little Slashdot highlight, I was thinking this car to do something super human. While it maybe cool, it's not something you couldn't train a person to do and I don't know why anyone would ever need to do this in the real world.

    My question tends to be, why aren't they spending time programming/teaching the car to do real world challenges? Now I make that statement not having researched the cars capabilities, feeling to lazy to right now.

  12. Just a few points... by gillbates · · Score: 4, Insightful
    1. Guided missiles have been able to direct a few hundred pounds of ordnance traveling at mach 5 into a spot the size of a trash can for the last few decades now. The fact that a computer can park a car with perfect precision - while cool - is hardly revolutionary.
    2. Liability and lawyers have done more to keep advancements like these from the market than any engineering challenge every has. The first time a car parallel parks into a toddler, you can kiss the feature goodbye.
    3. While I don't intend any sexism, the fact is that parallel parking is difficult, and many women would rather have the car do it than try it themselves. Parking assist (without the tire-scorching 180) is going to be a very popular feature among the minivan crowd.
    4. This is *really bad* from a freedom perspective. As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it. And with pervasive networking, you can be assured the police will have the ability to remotely disable your vehicle, should the need arise (the can already do it with GM vehicles, which is problematic enough...). I do not look forward to a future where my movement *in my own vehicle* can be arbitrarily and capriciously monitored and regulated remotely.
    --
    The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
    1. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While I don't intend any sexism ...

      Then why did you make any reference to gender at all? You could have made the exact same point without introducing any stereotypes.

    2. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Regarding your fourth point:

      When you're at home, you're on land you own in a structure you own. (Or at least within a structure you rent.) That structure is not moving. You're not posing an INHERENT risk to those around you, as you do when you start moving a multi-thousand pound vehicle down the road.

      I do not look forward to a future where my movement *in my own vehicle* can be arbitrarily and capriciously monitored and regulated remotely.

      I agree with you here ... SO LONG AS YOU ARE OPERATING THAT VEHICLE ON YOUR OWN PROPERTY. As soon as you move out onto PUBLIC roads it's a different story.

      Sorry, but as someone who lives car-free, I don't see this as a "freedom" issue. I see it as a welcome step towards a future in which vehicle owners are not such a massive (pun intended) threat to my life.

    3. Re:Just a few points... by trawg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While I don't intend any sexism, the fact is that parallel parking is difficult, and many women would rather have the car do it than try it themselves. Parking assist (without the tire-scorching 180) is going to be a very popular feature among the minivan crowd.

      heh every girl I know is awesome at parallel parking. I (male) have done it a grand total of twice in the more than ten years since I got my license; I would rather drive another few metres and walk a bit further than embarrass myself trying and hold up traffic.

      I know it's the sort of thing I would learn with practice, but I drive infrequently and its just not a skill I need where I live, so I just can't do it.

      For me, driving is a painful chore that I must do to get from point A to point B. I know some people enjoy it but I find it tiresome, boring, and a waste of time. I cannot wait for the day that I can get in my car and punch in a destination and sit back and read a book or idly stare out the window!

    4. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. While I don't intend any sexism

      *rolls eyes*

    5. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who the fuck said it was revolutionary? Nobody. It's just cool, as you said.
      Oh look, now you're all on about how it's stealing our freedoms. Dude, they made a car that can do a pretty 180 into a parking spot for fun.
      Weeeee.
      I think one of us is taking this too seriously and it's definitely not me.

    6. Re:Just a few points... by Sibko · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While I agree there are some issues with freedom therein, I can also see how taking control of motor vehicles out of the hands of the general person, and into the hands of a computer is going to massively improve safety.

      Think of all the dangerous maneuvers and careless driving you've seen. That will be no more - speeds on highways can be increased, distances between cars can be decreased. You won't be driving the car yourself anymore, but you'll get to your destination faster and more safely than you do now.

      Anyways, I very much doubt manually driving a vehicle will ever disappear. Driving is fun, it's something people enjoy - what this will simply do is eliminate all those times you wouldn't have fun driving, by giving control over to the computer whenever you feel like stopping.

    7. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sexist.

    8. Re:Just a few points... by MojoRilla · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd gladly hand control of my car over to a computer if it would get me to work in half the time, and let me do other things while I "drive". And this will someday happen. Where I live, traffic slows down because of a bend in the highway. Rubbernecking causes massive jams and delays. There has to be a better way.

    9. Re:Just a few points... by mmaniaci · · Score: 4, Insightful

      anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent

      That's about the only thing you said I agree with. Driving is stupidly dangerous and I can't wait until computers are driving every car on the road. Freedom? Pfff, driving a car doesn't make you free. The idea is just marketing done by the auto industry to make you feel American and Free by buying 5 cars per family and the gas that goes with 'em.

      Also, there is a HUGE FUCKING DIFFERENCE between a bomb, where the payload is intended to destroy, and a car carrying passengers. Think about fault tolerance...

    10. Re:Just a few points... by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 5, Funny

      While I don't intend any sexism

      I guess it must just come naturally then.

      --
      Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    11. Re:Just a few points... by ThrowAwaySociety · · Score: 1

      This is *really bad* from a freedom perspective. As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it.

      Probably only on public (taxpayer-funded) roads. Which I'm entirely in favor of. Public infrastructure exists to meet the needs of the public at large, not for individuals to play at being Dale Junior. I'm sure "stunt driving" by humans will remain legal on closed courses and tracks.

      I expect a transitionary period with controlled-access roads like interstate highways and motorways going automation-only first, and surface streets following. And frankly, I can't wait.

    12. Re:Just a few points... by suomynonAyletamitlU · · Score: 1

      This is *really bad* from a freedom perspective. As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it. And with pervasive networking, you can be assured the police will have the ability to remotely disable your vehicle, should the need arise (the can already do it with GM vehicles, which is problematic enough...). I do not look forward to a future where my movement *in my own vehicle* can be arbitrarily and capriciously monitored and regulated remotely.

      You know, there's a reason why "slippery slope" is classified as a logical fallacy rather than a logical argument.

    13. Re:Just a few points... by chromas · · Score: 1

      A series of (pneumatic) tubes.
      Get the scientists working on the tube technology, immediately. (tube technology)
      Chop chop! Let's go!

    14. Re:Just a few points... by mgblst · · Score: 2, Funny

      I know, how dare anyone post something that isn't COMPLETELY REVOLUTIONARY, and change the way everybody does everything, in their lives. Anything less than that is not worthy of my attention. That is why I am so much fun at parties.

    15. Re:Just a few points... by e4g4 · · Score: 1

      Think about fault tolerance...

      We all know the value of splash damage...

      But in all seriousness, driving with the intent of getting yourself to a destination is no fun at all. There are all these rules, speed limits, and other drivers ruining the whole experience. Cars as a mode of personal transportation are horribly inefficient and unbelievably dangerous. The act of driving itself can be tons of fun - if you enjoy driving, do it on a track (at whatever speed, and performing whatever maneuvers you'd like). The rest of us will take the subway.

      --
      The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
    16. Re:Just a few points... by sl149q · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Look at what the intense lobbying and marketing going into anti-drunk driving. The best example being MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.) To (rightly) save +10,000 people a year from being killed.

      Once we have robotic controlled cars that can reduce traffic accidents by a suitable amount there will be a similar incentive to get rid of the bad driving of humans. Think MAHD (Mothers Against Human Drivers.) And I think saving another 10,000 plus people a year and further reducing insurance rates etc will make it worth it. People will be able to work or entertain themselves during their commute instead of trying to multi-task and get into accidents.

    17. Re:Just a few points... by spitzig · · Score: 1

      It makes some people feel free. Personally, I prefer the freedom to read while in a car/on a bus/whatever.

    18. Re:Just a few points... by adolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Driving in circles on a track is also no fun at all if you want to, you know, eventually end up someplace else.

      But I think I have a good compromise:

      You keep riding the subway in $bigcity, and I'll keep driving my cars in rural Ohio for fun. These are not mutually-exclusive things.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    19. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Driving is fun in the same way that horseback riding is fun. You'll find that driving will go the same way -- it'll become a medium-cost hobby for those who are interested in it.

    20. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is a HUGE FUCKING DIFFERENCE between a bomb, where the payload is intended to destroy, and a car carrying passengers. Think about fault tolerance...

      What if the car is carrying terrorists?

    21. Re:Just a few points... by Krneki · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Leave the AI to drive your car and if you feel bored play the last car simulation while you wait to arrive at your destination.

      There is no reason we have to wait stuck in traffic because you feel you are losing your freedom to drive like a jackass. :)

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    22. Re:Just a few points... by istartedi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What's always interesting about those statistics is how big a difference recessions make (fewer people rushing to work, fewer accidents) and how little difference speed limits make.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    23. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't intend any sexism, but you're going to be sexist anyway?

      Score!

    24. Re:Just a few points... by delinear · · Score: 1

      Ditto, here - my other half loves parallel parking and sees it as something to be proud of (and honestly it amazes me the spaces she manages to squeeze a 4x4 into), but for me, I too can count the number of times I've actually had to do it versus parking three or four car lengths further away and walking in the last 15 years on the fingers of one hand. I've also known guys in the car industry who routinely perform maneouvres that seem insane to me. When I went to test drive my last car, the guy asked if I wanted to pull the car out of the parking lot, it was between two vehicles with another parked across the front leaving a swing out to the left with literally an inch and a half clearance either side - visually from inside the space looked about a foot narrower than the car width to me! Needless to say, I declined (didn't want to ding up a bunch of shiny new cars to prove a point) so the salesman confidently drove out forwards, we did the drive and then he reversed into the same space. It's all about practice and experience, like most things in life, and I really don't think gender is an issue.

    25. Re:Just a few points... by fprintf · · Score: 1

      Just to counteract your sexism, my wife is an awesome parallel parker. In fact, when we go to the city she often will take the car once we see a spot. I can do it well enough, but she is really good at it, nailing it perfectly on the first try... always just a few inches from the curbing.

      --
      This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
    26. Re:Just a few points... by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      The more traditional Senator Stevens "series of tubes" is more reasonable. How many of us drive many miles to work just to sit at a desk and type/read slashdot all day. That could easily be done at home and just imagine the savings in wear on your pants too.

    27. Re:Just a few points... by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      Since when have politicians behaved logically? If automated cars become mainstream it's almost certain that only government agents will be allowed manually controlled vehicles. There is no question that it would reduce crime/terrorism, and that is all the justification that is necessary.

    28. Re:Just a few points... by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      I agree. I ride a motorcycle and love it but the writing's on the wall for manually controlled transport on public roads. Likely there will be reserves and parks where you can ride or drive for fun but the benefits of automated control make the switchover inevitable. It makes about as much sense to be turning a steering wheel as it does to be retarding the ignition manually these days.

    29. Re:Just a few points... by otter42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1) Yeah, that's just wrong, and missing the point. We can guide missiles into tiny spots because we have incredibly good models of their flight path. We can drive a car into a tiny spot in exactly the same way. What's interesting here is that they mix together a LQR controller with open-loop, in a way that does not require hand-tuning and gives excellent, repeatable results.

      If we had a dynamic model of the car as it were sliding sideways, I'm sure we could use Lie brackets to discover all sorts of interesting accessible trajectories. But we don't. So this is pretty good control, and might quite possibly be a step toward the type of controller we have in our brain (able to use a combination of open-loop (I did this last time and it worked) and closed-loop (what I'm doing isn't working, I need to adjust) controls)

      2) True, but even more likely: if your automatic-parking Mercedes scratches my car while parallel parking, who's responsible for the damage? You (as the driver) or Mercedes (who promised that this feature would work)?

      3) As another poster stated, since you don't mean it, it must come naturally. I think many people find parallel parking a chore and would rather have a machine do it for them.

      4) Yup, tough toodles, kid. Your freedom to kill others is only a freedom to the point at which we cannot find a better solution. If you were complaining about not being able to go somewhere you want, I would be behind you 100%. However, you seem to be complaining that you consider it a freedom to drive how *you* want to. Considering the atrocious results (both accident rates and people making moronic decision to buy tank sized SUVs because "they're safer"), this "freedom" is pretty poorly exercised.

      --
      www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
    30. Re:Just a few points... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      That's about the only thing you said I agree with. Driving is stupidly dangerous and I can't wait until computers are driving every car on the road.

      They could do this today, if the road is two parallel rails of steel. Or a Monorail! (Cue redundant simpsons references that will be modded funny by moderators giddy with the power of their first pack of modpoints) We don't have this because Americans think their cars make them free. Never mind that the state reserves the right to yank you out of your car and pack you off to the precinct any old time, and impound your car because they feel like it. What's the worst that will happen to them? They pay the fees, with your money. What's the worst that can happen to you if you don't have your car for a week or two? We could imagine about that all day.

      This is why advertising that does not make specific claims should be outlawed... We can all^W^W^WMost of us can agree that committing fraud for profit should be illegal. So why is it OK to make a commercial designed by head-shrinkers to make people feel like cars enhance freedom, and to reassure them that their car purchase was the right decision, specifically to enhance profit, when the automakers know these things to be false? They're lying to the customer with the intent of preserving profit. Only, because it's subtle, it's legal? To me, that's like suggesting that it's not date rape if you wake up after it all happens, and the only perceived result is that you're a little sore.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    31. Re:Just a few points... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You keep riding the subway in $bigcity, and I'll keep driving my cars in rural Ohio for fun. These are not mutually-exclusive things.

      Not if driving cars in rural Ohio for fun isn't sustainable. Not that I really have an opinion on that, I haven't run the numbers. Here's a silly question: why does any auto racing series which claims to have a technical component still use internal combustion engines? Shouldn't auto racing be electric by now? Or at least running on a carbon-neutral fuel?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    32. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding, I wouldn't mind a car that || parked for me, and I am definitely not a woman.

    33. Re:Just a few points... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Driving is "Freedom" in that you're free to move about greater distances without having to wait for a train, get felt up by TSA agent, or oggled by Pervy McPerverson going through a backscatter scanner.

      The moment government requires all cars to be fitted with computers to drive you where you want to go, you'll be necessarily less free than you are now.

      But with pervasive tracking already available via most cell phones, I find the point almost moot already.

      Be careful for what you wish for, you might just get exactly that, and it might not be what you thought you really wanted.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    34. Re:Just a few points... by ballwall · · Score: 1

      I could see mandatory automated interstate driving. That might be a reasonable compromise, while eliminating a huge bottleneck in most cities. Plus it's probably a much easier problem to solve.

    35. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can't even get people to keep cars mechanically up to standard, what makes you think the operating software won't get "altered" or maintained at all?

    36. Re:Just a few points... by Rich0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Agreed.

      Also - if cars drove themselves we wouldn't need so many of them. My car could drop me off at work, and then drive home to take care of my wife all day until I need it again.

      If I needed a car unexpectedly I'd just punch something into my smartphone and in 2 mins a rental/taxi would drive up to pick me up.

      Public transit would make a whole lot more sense if a car dropped me off on the train platform, and another was sitting there ready to pick me up for the last mile when I got off at the other end.

      For a big family vacation I could have a second car just shuttle my luggage. Maybe it would drive at 45mph for maximum economy and leave early or arrive late.

      No need to own a big truck, but I could have one with two minutes notice if I need to haul something. If I need to drop something off at a neighbor's there would be no need for me to even ride along for the trip as long as they're to unload at the destination.

      Stores wouldn't need parking lots. Each town would have big parking garages strategically located, and cars would drop people off and go find something to do with themselves until needed. Just think about how much less asphault we'd need, and how much that would be better for the enviornment/etc.

      Oh, no cars idling anywhere either, no red lights, etc. That has to be great for improving gas mileage.

      Lots of options if you get rid of the human drivers. For far less than we spend on all the problems caused by our current transportation system we could probably fix it...

    37. Re:Just a few points... by suomynonAyletamitlU · · Score: 1

      Politicians are still human in exactly the same way your or I am. They may be capable of amplifying their faults with power and screwing up entire countries, but they are not inherently mad.

      Further, there is actually no reason to truly think it would reduce crime. Computer systems are actually pretty easy to hack, even if they check in regularly, and criminals would very quickly have a monetary incentive to crack it. It's no different from DRM, in a way.

    38. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll drink to that

    39. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, he wasn't sexist for saying many women would like to have a car that can parallel park itself. He's sexist for thinking the same isn't true about men. I really love to drive, sometimes, but seriously does anyone love to parallel park?

    40. Re:Just a few points... by residieu · · Score: 1

      Exactly, I don't feel any danger to my masculinity by saying that I hate parallel parking as much as anyone. It was not a necessary skill where I grew up (parking mostly in driveways and parking lots) and I never learned to do it well.

    41. Re:Just a few points... by denzacar · · Score: 1

      I'd gladly hand control of my car over to a computer if it would get me to work in half the time, and let me do other things while I "drive". And this will someday happen. Where I live, traffic slows down because of a bend in the highway. Rubbernecking causes massive jams and delays. There has to be a better way.

      Hmm... sounds to me as if you are describing some kind of a automated, efficient, secure and cheap mode of transportation that wouldn't depend on other drivers' actions or road conditions. And at the same time, relieve you and everyone else of the duties as a driver.
      I'm sorry to disappoint you, but something like that is impossible.
      Not only would you have to create specialized vehicles (from scratch), you would also have to create specialized roads made out of something a lot more durable so that they could facilitate speeds and control necessary.
      Perhaps even putting such roads and vehicles on a completely different plane from the roads currently used?

      No, no, no... you are dreaming my friend. Something like that will never happen.
      A fine dream though, but you could have just as well wished for a teleport like the ones on Star Trek.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    42. Re:Just a few points... by jollyreaper · · Score: 1

      This is *really bad* from a freedom perspective. As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it.

      Yeah. The only guys who would insist on driving their own cars are paranoid cops who have a pathological hatred of mechanoids and AI, constantly spinning theories about how the robots are taking over.

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    43. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I cannot wait for the day that I can get in my car and punch in a destination and sit back and read a book or idly stare out the window!

      I don't understand why you insist on punching in your destination. You know, the basic concept has been around for a while, and it even works with voice recognition. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimanddi/124346198/

    44. Re:Just a few points... by couchslug · · Score: 1

      Driving is remarkably convenient in most places, and for the miles travelled and useful work done the cost in blood is cheap. We casually tolerate vastly greater casualty counts from other less useful activities.

      I have more than five vehicles, but I only drive one at a time. They transport me whence I would go, with what I wish to take. Not having them would reduce my choices/freedom/income.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    45. Re:Just a few points... by 4D6963 · · Score: 1

      Oh please, guiding missiles is fairly trivial, mostly compared to this. When you're far beyond stall speeds it's just a matter of comparing your vector with where you want to go and adjusting where your nose is pointing accordingly.

      Here what's done is non-trivial because of how hard it is to even simulate accurately the slide. Actually they're pretty much just using a replay so when you think about it that's somewhat unimpressive.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
    46. Re:Just a few points... by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 1

      You already can. It's called a "bus." For a small fee one can be driven to one's destination without having to do any driving oneself. You are free to read your book, stare out the window, listen to music, whatever you please.

      --
      sustainable living
    47. Re:Just a few points... by izomiac · · Score: 1

      It's not that bad from a freedom perspective. You still have control over where you go. You'd lose the ability to make arbitrary and dangerous maneuvers on public roads and the technical ability to flee from the police. Both of those are already illegal, so you have no right to do either. Adding a monitoring system is a distinct issue.

      IMHO, the main problem with cars are that they are a symbol. Teenagers conflate the concept of a car with freedom of movement. So cars == freedom == good in the minds of most people. Knives and guns, OTOH, are conflated with homicide. So most people think knives & guns == bad. This simple, literally dog-level intelligence of "cars good, guns bad" seems to override higher thought. Driving a car is not the only way to have freedom of mobility and they maim & kill a lot more people in the US than weapons of all types. What's worse, since driving is seen as a right of passage, a mark of maturity, people cling to it even more so.

      IMHO, self-driving cars would been a decent boon to society. Fewer accidents for starters, since they wouldn't be adopted otherwise. Less pollution since you could switch from gasoline to a less energy-dense fuel as you wouldn't be relying on the driver's memory and expectations in designing the vehicle. And getting people off their driving fetish should reduce the glamor of using a car and might help combat the obesity epidemic. It'd put them back into being a tool rather than some mystical thing we center our lives around.

    48. Re:Just a few points... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Guided missiles have been able to direct a few hundred pounds of ordnance traveling at mach 5 into a spot the size of a trash can...

      and my wife keeps saying dogs are knocking it over
           

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    49. Re:Just a few points... by adolf · · Score: 1

      Baby steps.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    50. Re:Just a few points... by gillbates · · Score: 1

      Yep, theoretically it's a logical fallacy. Most of us understand that. But history says otherwise - several times throughout history, society finds itself on the downhill slide of the slippery slope.

      In terms of logic, yes, a slippery slope is a fallacy. But, as the Bush years and "post 9/11 world" rhetoric have shown, fear is a powerful motivator. Could your average American be induced to give up their freedoms, perhaps little by little, for the promise of increased safety? By all means, (sadly) YES!

      --
      The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
    51. Re:Just a few points... by gillbates · · Score: 1

      Speaking of fault tolerance, I find it rather remarkable that an object containing sensitive electronics which sits in storage for several years before being used can, under widely varying conditions, find its way to a target that even an expert sniper couldn't hit, and explode correctly. An object moving nearly 1000 meters per second has perhaps a one millisecond margin of error for optimal effectiveness against an armored target such as a tank or bunker. Especially considering that the same margin of error in a car would make a difference of only a few inches.

      And yet a human can routinely park a car with the same tolerance.

      --
      The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
    52. Re:Just a few points... by rdnetto · · Score: 1

      As soon as computers can reliably and safely drive cars, anyone who *dares* drive the car themselves will be considered negligent; they'll probably pass a law against it.

      I think it'll be more like a manual transmission - you need a different license to drive one (at least you do in Vic, Aus) and if you get in an accident, you're liable since you were in control.

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
    53. Re:Just a few points... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not fond of the anti-government trend, at least not in the way that it's being played out.

      I'm far more concerned about the power of big-biz than I am big government. We still at least elect our leaders (all problems related to this noted and understood--though the real issues with this, money for example, circles right back around to big-biz!)

      I don't remember voting for Wal-Mart, for example, and they have immense power as the biggest seller in the world. Anyway, enough of my mostly unrelated comment ;)

      The rest of your comment is well written and I agree.

    54. Re:Just a few points... by DRACO- · · Score: 1

      Yes Baby steps.. Currently they are coping with the personnel hazards of flywheels, large banks of batteries, different chemical makeups of batteries and how to handle things when they blow up, catch on fire and go flying up into the stadium crowd. Fire suppression, using water in some cases is trouble with shorting big banks of batteries brimming with energy.. Yes.. Baby Steps.

      --
      Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
  13. LDoBe by ldobehardcore · · Score: 0

    This is essentially like playing lunarlander. The trajectory has to be just right, but once you nail it, you can do it a thousand times. I'm pretty sure this video only exhibits the persistence of the programmers, not the intelligence of the vehicle.

    --
    Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
    1. Re:LDoBe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, this isn't like playing lunar lander. Or maybe it's like playing lunar lander with crosswinds because the same trajectory would never work the same way twice. The problem they encountered was that their physics model doesn't predict what happens to the car when it's sliding. The solution they came up with was to compute new trajectories while merging in old trajectories that fit the same situation.

      dom

  14. Dodgy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They got it to slide in the same place over and over again, then put the cones in place.

  15. mecanum wheels by tagno25 · · Score: 1

    Why not just put mecanum wheels on an all wheel drive electric car?

    1. Re:mecanum wheels by yukk · · Score: 1

      Why not just put mecanum wheels on an all wheel drive electric car?

      ... Because they want it to go more than 5km/h ?

      --
      The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
  16. Well, except for the part... by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, except for the part that you very likely could have killed yourself and two other people, possibly more. You were extremely lucky, as 99 times out of 100, when you lose control of your car while swerving, EXTREMELY bad things happen. The fact that this once it didn't doesn't make this an awesome story, it makes it a bit of a sad one to hear that your stupidity was rewarded.

    What you did shouldn't be glorified. These maneuvers are exciting to watch on television and in the movies when performed by professionals with years of training and under extremely controlled conditions (and, incidentally, medical personnel immediately ready in case of accidents, some of which have killed even those professionals). But frankly, it sounds to me like the guy who was pissed off wasn't the asshole. I would have been pissed off too, and would have rather taken the damn bus than ride with you again. Maybe after two or three people you know are killed in car wrecks, you'll look back on this story and "awesome" will no longer be the word you use to describe it.

    Seriously. I feel like you're saying, "I played Russian Roulette with FIVE bullets loaded in the gun, and I won! It was awesome!" No, it wasn't awesome. You were a dumbass.

    1. Re:Well, except for the part... by pclminion · · Score: 1

      Oh shut up. The guy was a TEENAGER.

      I have a friend who swerved as he was coming over a rise and a truck was hanging ass into his lane (he was going a bit too fast). Swerved across the road, then back, hit the gravel, spun it, flew into an orchard, and miraculously flipped end-over-end 6 times keeping a perfectly straight line down the aisle. He crawled out the busted window and walked away from it.

      Similarly awesome story to retell. In an infinity of alternate universes that guy is dead. No question about it.

    2. Re:Well, except for the part... by ksemlerK · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Car goes "out of control".

      1. Apply steady brake pressure, (DON'T PUMP).

      2. If power assisted brakes are not responding, use manual ("emergency" brake). Apply steady pressure.

      3. Downshift to slow your vehicle. Use the transmission against the engine.

      4. Shift into neutral. You may blow up your engine via over-revving it, but it's better then losing your own life.

      5. Turn off engine to "OFF position or "ACC". Do not lock the steering wheel or remove the keys from the ignition. You will lose power assist, but you will be able to stop the vehicle. (it will just be difficult to control the vehicle, but it can be done even at 65MPH).

      6. Head for the guard rail, and steer into it. You will eventually stop.

      --
      Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
    3. Re:Well, except for the part... by KingSkippus · · Score: 0, Troll

      Oh shut up. The guy was a TEENAGER.

      So? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize he was a TEENAGER, that makes it all right. I forgot that teenagers are invincible, and that as adults we should look back fondly on the stupid ass things we did that should have, by all rights, caused us to get killed and take others with us.

      Don't be a putz. What the GP described wasn't an accident. He wasn't "going a bit too fast," it was willfully and criminally negligent. "Hey, let's go toss 50-pound weights off a skyscraper an laugh about how close they come to bashing someone's skull in. It will be awesome! Afterward, we can run down the street and shoot guns in random directions!" Ah, those zany teenage shenanigans.

      Again, this wasn't awesome. The GP was a dumbass, period, end of story.

    4. Re:Well, except for the part... by TheLink · · Score: 1

      What he did is exactly why insurance companies charge much higher premiums for young male drivers, and why parental guidance is highly recommended.

      Lots of people here like to say "censorship= evil" etc, but basically you don't want to make it so easy for teenagers to get stupid ideas - they can come up with plenty by themselves. Once they've survived that period, then sure.

      --
    5. Re:Well, except for the part... by mgblst · · Score: 1

      Exactly, please don't have kids.

    6. Re:Well, except for the part... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You are wrong, whether or not you are willing to admit it. It is, actually, awesome.

      His actions being stupid, reckless, and dangerous are not detractors from this being awesome. In fact, the reckless and dangerous part, in combination with nobody getting hurt, are the very things that make this awesome.

      You clearly have a bad concept of awe. You yourself believe this event to be one in a hundred, yet he rolled that magic one on his first roll (roll being the metaphor for uncontrolled swerve, not swerving in general).

      This should inspire awe, and is therefore awesome.

      Now, don't forget to drink your prune juice, Grandpa Killjoy McPoopyPants.

    7. Re:Well, except for the part... by e4g4 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I didn't realize he was a TEENAGER, that makes it all right. I forgot that teenagers are invincible

      The point is - he was a teenager. His UID belies the fact that he's no longer a teenager. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't swerve side to side across the road anymore, or carpool to high school. I'm willing to bet that he doesn't drive in an unsafe manner at all, anymore. I'm also willing to bet that the reason for that is due, in part, to that little story. Have you ever been behind the wheel of a car that, even momentarily, was completely out of your control? Did it give you a fear-for-your-life adrenaline rush that you'll never forget? Unless you are a stunt driver, if the answer to that first question is yes, the answer to the second is _always_ yes (unless you were drunk, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms).

      In conclusion, I'd be happy to find you the number of a proctologist who can help you with that stick problem.

      --
      The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
    8. Re:Well, except for the part... by Alex+Belits · · Score: 1

      That's what you do if your car for some insane (and likely impossible in reality) reason accelerates by itself.

      If your car is actually out of control, that is, sliding and not responding to steering and brakes, the last thing you need is locked up brakes or ramming a guard rail at 45 degrees angle.

      --
      Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    9. Re:Well, except for the part... by ksemlerK · · Score: 1

      Anybody who has a minute of winter driving or gravel experience has an idea on how to regain control of a sliding vehicle.

      1. Do the opposite of the throttle of what you were doing immediately prior to the slide. (If you were accelerating, let off of the accelerator and lightly apply your brakes; if you were braking, stop doing it, and keep your engine above a slight idle.)

      2. Steer in the opposite direction of the slide, (I.E. where you want to go).

      3. If necessary, shift into neutral, (NOT REVERSE OR PARK).

      4, Do not panic. If recovery is done properly, the most that will happen is you'll be in a hair raising situation for a couple of seconds before regaining control of the vehicle before wither continuing on your way, or coming to a non-collision stop.

      Most "out of control" situations are caused by driver error, and not an actual mechanical failure of the vehicle systems. Yes, a "stuck throttle" is very rare, but losing all nethods of control is pretty much not going to happen. Failure of brakes, steering, and acceleration all at the same time in the same vehicle will almost never happen. If it does, about the only chance you have at that point is to either jump, or hang on for the ride.

      --
      Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
    10. Re:Well, except for the part... by iwannasexwithyourmom · · Score: 0

      fuck you moron shit eater.

    11. Re:Well, except for the part... by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "censorship= evil" etc, but basically you don't want to make it so easy for teenagers to get stupid ideas

      No, no, no. If you allow it for a good reason, people start doing it for bad reasons.

      Just don't censor the videos of teenagers doing stupid-ass stunts and ending up as chunky hamburger. And make them compulsory in Drivers Ed.

    12. Re:Well, except for the part... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with you. The story is awesome, but not allowable just because he was a TEENAGER. The guy was a dumbass.

    13. Re:Well, except for the part... by avxo · · Score: 1

      ksemlerK, clearly you don't even have a minute of winter driving or gravel experience. Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite so misinformed about what to do. I hope that nobody heeds your advice and that I never run into you on on the road...

      If your car is sliding on gravel, rain or ice you want to steer INTO the slide, not in the opposite direction. Te same applies if you misjudged a turn. If you end up going in a turn too fast and your car is understeering or oversteering. Simply reduce the turning angle on the steering wheel. This will effectively result in the increase of the turning radius.

      Playing with the throttle in the middle of a turn when the car is sliding while cause dramatic weight shifts and result in behavior that you may not be expecting -- the car will likely oversteer and most drivers will NOT be able to recover.

    14. Re:Well, except for the part... by Krneki · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you but a lot of stupid things done in the past are now one of the best memories I have.

      It's life, you will eventually die anyway.

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    15. Re:Well, except for the part... by 7-Vodka · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      This ^^ my friends is what we call a "party-pooper".

      It is a rare breed which when in it's natural habitat, takes an oddly small kind of pleasure in boring the crap out of all who are within earshot by talking down at people with exciting stories as if being sensible is somehow the new cool and they are taking it to a new level. That's right, disdain for other people's exciting stories. Good is bad, boring is cool, everything is turned on it's head!

      Let us move along before he starts to post again, poo-pooing the story of when a girl at a night club flashed for this kid's camera and elaborating on the dangers of sexual activity.

      --

      Liberty.

    16. Re:Well, except for the part... by delinear · · Score: 1

      Nobody objects to you doing stupid things and dying as a result. That's your choice, and adrenaline junkies believe the life affirming feeling is worth the risk. Doing stupid things that endanger the lives of others is a bit harder to swallow.

    17. Re:Well, except for the part... by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh shut up you crab in a bucket!

      People also were extremely lucky to get to the moon, as previously 99 times out of 100, everyone would have died a firey accident.

      If you only think about what could happen, you have to lock yourself down in a sterile environment below ground and everything.
      Take a fucking risk will ya?

      I’m not saying go crazy. I’m saying learn to know what you can do and what not, and get to your own limits. Because that’s literally the difference between a genius an someone complaining all day long about everything he “can’t” do.

      There is a difference between Russian Roulette and this. Since you vastly improve your chances with skill in doing slides with a car. Look at professional Rally drivers. That’s how skill can change things.
      And considering he did stuff like this very often, he definitely got some training and skills.
      It was not the wisest thing, as it was a bit over his skills. But far from a 99% chance of death as you paint it.

      Also, 180 degree turns look far worse as they are. Actually the dynamics of such a rotating forward motion make it the wisest choice to stop the rotation when you are forward facing. If you are on gravel, you can do it after a couple of tries. On ice (with spikes) it’s even pretty easy.

      Take the five inches of padding of yourself, pull of the warning labels, and learn to handle situations. Get some skill and live, will ya?

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    18. Re:Well, except for the part... by russotto · · Score: 1

      If your car is sliding on gravel, rain or ice you want to steer INTO the slide, not in the opposite direction.

      Most misleading advice ever given in a driver's ed course. Yes, you steer into the slide. If your rear wheels are sliding to the right, you turn the wheel to the right. But what does this look like from the driver's seat? You're driving along, and now your car is suddenly turning _left_. If you remembered only "steer into the slide", you then turn your wheel left... turning your slide into a spin. GP had it right -- you turn the wheel the way you want to go.

    19. Re:Well, except for the part... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The big old Steel American cars could take it. Modern cars can't take it because someone decided it was more important that the driver and passengers survive than the car.

    20. Re:Well, except for the part... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real problem is where to get such experience if you're relatively poor and don't live in a rural environment. (Ok, there's police/EMS/or military that may provide extreme driving training. But if you don't care for or qualify for such jobs, then what?) Usually the cops and most other people tend to frown on practicing, regardless of how empty, or abandoned/desolate a parking lot may be. Videogames may be fun and try to simulate such things, but they really don't provide anywhere near the tactile and visual feedback that driving in a real car does.

    21. Re:Well, except for the part... by avxo · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid you're wrong. Following your advice -- to turn "where you want to go" -- will likely end up with the car out of control and in a spin.

      If you are on ice, rain or gravel with your car is sliding to the left and you turn the wheel "where you want to go" (which is, most likely, to the "right") you simply won't recover. By turning right as the car drifts left, you're not only going to cause the front wheels to eventually lock up, which is bad enough, but you will also end up spinning. Similarly, if you misjudged a turn and entered faster than you should and are now seeing your car understeer (as most modern, front-wheel drive vehicles will) turning the steering wheel "where you want to go" won't help you recover either.

      Driver's ed courses are correct -- steer into the slide. And I'm not stating this information just by relying on "driver's ed courses." I've been racing since I was very young on most anything you can imagine -- from karts, to rally cars.

  17. Faked? by jaryd · · Score: 1, Troll

    A youtube comment points out there are people in both the driver and passenger seats. The person in the driver seat looks to be spinning the wheel, and then ducks down as the car comes to a stop. There is a response from the uploader claiming the driver is there for "safety reasons" -- pretty dubious in my opinion. What is safe about a driver and passenger inside an autonomous car? Don't they have remote kill switches for that?

    1. Re:Faked? by Barny · · Score: 1

      Fair few racetracks and testing areas will not allow a vehicle to be operated without someone at the wheel (insurance is hell).

      Found this one out when I was in high school and a few of us made a remote control datsun 120y. The problem we had was that no one trusted anyone else enough to sit in a car someone was driving with the remote kit.

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
  18. Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by SuperBanana · · Score: 3, Informative

    Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off.

    Bullshit. Yeah, he's one of the best- but he's doing that in a 500hp AWD car, not a 100HP FWD diesel station wagon, at speeds several times higher than what Stanford was doing. Call me when they can do what he does.

    It's also extremely difficult for a human to pull off crochet if they haven't been taught how. Or to shoot a rifle and hit a target a mile away. Or fly fighter jets in formation feet apart. Yet we do that. The question is: how hard is it to train someone, and how consistently can they do it, and how much effort did it take to get the computer to do it?

    The answer to the first part: Top Gear did a show segment where they had Russ Swift teach a bunch of people off the street how to do it. If I recall, they were grandmothers. They were going for a larger area, but come on- they were octogenarians.

    The answer to the second part:

    Apparently Stanford hasn't heard of rallying or gymkhana. Tens of thousands of people do stuff way, way more impressive than what Stanford is demonstrating- at much higher speeds in much more powerful cars. It's not hard, and the Stanford guys are grossly overexaggerating the complexity of the problem to model, as well. The whole point is that you use the car's momentum and lock wheels to make it slide predictably. Practice makes perfect for timing and aim (in the case of Top Gear, they practiced with inflatable boxes that were harmless to the cars.)

    And, how many tries do you suppose it took the Stanford team to get it right?

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
    1. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by pclminion · · Score: 1

      Wow. What bug crawled up your ass? If it's so fucking easy, why the hell should I be impressed by what's-his-face doing it?

    2. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by HBoar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, he's one of the best- but he's doing that in a 500hp AWD car, not a 100HP FWD diesel station wagon, at speeds several times higher than what Stanford was doing.

      It's a hell of a lot easier to pull off maneuvers like that in a powerful, lightweight, AWD car set up for sliding than it is in a family wagon....

      Do you know anything about control theory? At all? It certainly doesn't sound like it. They're not just programming the car what to do and when, the car sees where the cones are and works it out for itself.

    3. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by mgblst · · Score: 2, Funny

      Call me when they can do what he does.

      Ok mr super unimpressed, you forgot to leave your phone number.

    4. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      I'll raise you one: Ari Vatanen driving up Pikes Peak:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgeCQGu_ug

      And Ari's not only a wonderful driver, he doesn't need to do spin-out videos just to show off how great he is.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    5. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      obviously, you know nothing more than a bunch of prejudices.
      The VW Passat exists as disel, but also as a normal gas engine.
      the hp ranges from 110 (eco version) up to 300hp.
      Audi recently won LeMans with a diesel racing car ... By far. Ergo: don't underestimate diesel.
      slide-driving a badly weightdistributed car is more difficult than a well balanced one.
      A computer was driving that car, not a human professional.

    6. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Cool video, cool stuff. But there is good reason these stunts are done on closed tracks only.

      Anyway to come back on learning capacity: we have been building computers for just over half a century now, and they are getting quite powerful. And indeed some AI is appearing.

      OTOH the human brain has been in development for millions of years. Admittedly trial and error is less efficient than the direct approach like we have with computers, still I would say the learning capacity of our brains is far more mature than anywhere our computers will get in the near future.

      And for sliding predictably: for our brains it's predictable, after a lot of tries. However as the Stanford people point out it is as yet not possible to accurately predict this using mathematical models, particularly the sliding part they couldn't manage. Thus they had to use self-learning systems, that practiced, and learned how a car reacts to certain control movements, and repeat what works. Just like we do with our brains.

      It will have taken them many tries to get this right. But it would be interesting to compare this to how many tries you and me would need to be able to pull off this stunt. Personally I have never even tried but I have done a slip-course: sliding around a specially prepared track as training of what to do in case you get in a slip during normal driving, mainly how to get out of the slip.

    7. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chill out, dude, you're completely missing the point and getting defensive for no reason. Everybody knows humans can do it. Nobody knew (until now) as to how to get a robot to do it.

    8. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by grimsnaggle · · Score: 1

      I happen to work in the same shop as that vehicle. It's an extremely impressive piece of work, both hardware and software. The grad students put in a lot of time to make it happen.

      Simply being confident in your position down to a fraction of an inch is no small feat. They have multiple error-corrected GPS units, wheel encoders, slip detection, and a finely tuned-in Kalman filter cleaning up the whole mess. And that's just to know where they are.

      Modeling this kind of motion isn't easy. You have slip and spin, variable friction between wheels, body roll and yaw, etc. It took armies of engineers decades to get missile guidance working as well as it does. Plus, criticizing the actual stunt completely misses the point of the exercise. Their interest is in dynamically using the best aspects of multiple models, choosing which elements are important in real-time.

    9. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by tom17 · · Score: 1

      Good rallying is truly truly beautiful.

    10. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by nedlohs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wow, way to miss point and be an idiot at the same time.

      You must get really pissed off when people show off their computer programs that do natural language processing. I mean a 6 year old do better, and we manage to teach almost anyone to do it without difficulty much better than the stupid computer can.

      Or their little robots doing stuff with video recognition in order to recognize and move blocks around - I mean toddlers can do that!

    11. Re:Stanford hasn't heard of gymkhana, apparently. by otter42 · · Score: 1

      How this post got modded up is beyond me. It demonstrates the most amazing lack of knowledge on the subject. What is impressive here is that we have a computer doing something a human does. That's always impressive when it's done the first time, and you get mad street cred when it's reproduceable. There are many, many things humans do that we do not understand how to model and thus cannot yet control. Heck, we don't even know how to tell a robot to walk through a crowded room of people (do I ask my boss to pull back from the table, or brush up against my mother-in-law?), so parroting that someone can do it better is hardly impressive. "Someone" cannot be manufactured, micronized, improved on, or reproduced countless millions of times.

      Oh, and in case you didn't notice, the last author of this paper is Sebastian Thrun, head of the Stanford project that won the DARPA Grand Challenge and took second place in the DARPA Urban Challenge. I suggest you read the paper in order to understand what's being proposed here, and then we can talk shop.

      IAACE. (I Am A Controls Engineer)

      --
      www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
  19. Umm... I have a question. by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If one parks a car this way, is it possible to un-park it?

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:Umm... I have a question. by chromas · · Score: 3, Funny

      Doesn't matter—they always explode just as you're approaching them.

    2. Re:Umm... I have a question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure. Put on the hand-brake, start burning out with the front tires, turn the wheel and release the brakes.
      How do you un-park?

    3. Re:Umm... I have a question. by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      If one parks a car this way, is it possible to un-park it?

      Depends if it is a Hummer or a Hyundai parked in front of you.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    4. Re:Umm... I have a question. by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      I always learned that to un-park your car you basically just go the same way you got in... some pushing to the side may be necessary in this case but should be doable.

    5. Re:Umm... I have a question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, silly. You just do that whole maneuver in backwards to un-park. :p

    6. Re:Umm... I have a question. by SnarfQuest · · Score: 1

      That didn't look like a Pinto to me???

      --
      Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
    7. Re:Umm... I have a question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's not a Pinto then you might be a fictional character in an action movie. See you in the three sequels.

    8. Re:Umm... I have a question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They were working with a 2 foot error margin, meaning the space is 4 feet longer than the car, so yeah, you should be able to easily un-park it.

  20. Just like Hollywood repeats a scene... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    look at the obvious tire marks on the pavement. This was done several times before. Stop and think everyone...
     
    They start the car at a precise position, have it do a backwards run and slide. Then place the cones to miss the tire tracks...repeat program.
     
    Just like most action scenes with cars from Hollywood (where you see the repeated skid marks right where cars are in a chase scene), this was obviously done a few times before...Why should anyone believe the cones where there and the car figured out how to do this using its camera

    1. Re:Just like Hollywood repeats a scene... by HBoar · · Score: 1

      No, you missed the point, the car works it out itself -- you can move the cones wherever you want and it'll park between them.

    2. Re:Just like Hollywood repeats a scene... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I foresee a rash of pranks involving cones randomly placed by strangers.

  21. Meh by BluBrick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'll get the car into the tight spot - call me when the car can autonomously find a parking spot.

    --
    Ahh - My eye!
    The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
    1. Re:Meh by kramerd · · Score: 1

      Thats sounds much easier...just find a bank of parking meters and have the system point out (by numbered parking spot) which ones are already paid for (even just have a car in them, by weight displacement in the space). In specific areas, it may already be a cell phone app.

  22. Impressive... by Eil · · Score: 5, Funny

    But where's the style? I thought it was common knowledge that the very first thing you're supposed to do after you've programmed a park to screech into a parking space is install a loudspeaker behind the grille which yells out, "heeeee-like a glove!"

    1. Re:Impressive... by Eil · · Score: 1

      goddamn it, I'll sooner win the lottery than post a joke to slashdot without a glaring typo in it

    2. Re:Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      goddamn it, I'll sooner win the lottery than post a joke to slashdot without a glaring typo in it

      CAPITALIZE the FUCKING S.

  23. Telling by sharkey · · Score: 1

    Makes sense that a bunch of nerds would use their mom's station wagon for the project.

    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  24. VW's luxury brother already poked fun at this... by 1984 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... before it even happened. A few Lexus introduced the automatic parallel parking feature, and Audi responded with this:

          http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3593724097279407250#

    Amusing retort. Irrelevant for 99.9%+ of people, but sold right into the person you'd love to be.

  25. Human vs. robotic sensor suites by macraig · · Score: 1

    This really isn't so surprising at all. Humans have a rather limited sensor suite compared to some of the robotic systems we can now build. Maneuvers like the one described are all about full panoramic visibility and awareness, something humans don't really possess... at least not individually. Is it any wonder that humans so often cooperate in similar situations where one set of fixed eyes and ears really isn't enough? Think about a squad of soldiers: it's as much about combined awareness as it is combined firepower. We can design robotic systems what don't have that limitation.

    1. Re:Human vs. robotic sensor suites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      My wife may have a limited sensor suite but her chest more than makes up for it.

      Oh, and 9 times out of 10 she can match that robot although the cost of the new replacement car on the 10th try somewhat negates the previous victories.

    2. Re:Human vs. robotic sensor suites by macraig · · Score: 1

      That's kinda the point of robotics, ain't it? Successful repeatability. We can add boobies to the package later.

  26. Dun Dun Dun-DuttleDun Dun-Duttle Dun Dun Dun! by TheSlyPig · · Score: 1

    One more step towards kit!

  27. Copycat vs Brains ? by droopycom · · Score: 1

    So basically they show that their car can learn by copying some known process in addition to their physics model.

    Yet I'm curious to know how the car decide that they should use the learned process rather than their model. I mean, if they learned this parking maneuver on gravel, and tried that on slick pavement, anybody would probably fail. Can this car actually do better? I would be curious to see if the car can learn a maneuver in some given conditions and repeat it in slightly different conditions.

    1. Re:Copycat vs Brains ? by pipedwho · · Score: 1

      In theory, the AI could learn (and/or be taught) just about every conceivable road surface and driving condition and how the parameters are inter-related. With appropriate external sensors, and for a single test manoeuvre, it is likely to be able to best just about any human driver.

      This is simply an example of a robotic driver AI being demonstrated with more flare than the usual run-of-the-mill reverse park.

      A vehicle AI driving blindly is equivalent to letting a blind man drive a car. The real innovation comes in having the AI interpret the input from a variety of sensors, including 360 degree cameras, speedometer, multi-axis accelerometers, radar/sonar, laser surface friction estimators, tyre temperature, forward looking road surface temperature/IR sensor, etc.

      Driving is as much about anticipation as it is about dexterity and control. AI driving is similar in that it needs a base level of control over the vehicle and some simple programmed sequences. However, AI can also be trained with various anticipatory capabilities where various sensors are used to predict likely outcomes.

      With increases in processing power and memory, AI driving 'skill' will one day surpass that of human drivers. At that point, it won't be long before AI drivers exceed even the best race/stunt drivers, and will of course not suffer from human distractions such as road rage, mental fatigue or testosterone.

  28. Intuitive Parking Assist by NicknamesAreStupid · · Score: 1

    Standard on the Lexus LS460L, though not as thrilling. The Japanese auto manufacturers just don't seem to have a flare for the dramatic.

  29. Pffft... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    You should see it play GTA, dawg.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  30. News at 11 by modecx · · Score: 1

    So, about 0.011% of the population died from a car accident last year. Whoop-tee doo. It's totally crazy fucking dangerous, Mr. Little! It's inevitable: you're going to die. Your family, and everyone you ever knew, they cannot escape this fate. Are too many killed by vehicle? Sure.

    It's especially upsetting when this happens to the young and those full of potential. But, you're right, a car can't make a man free, even if it can be a significant, even enjoyable part of his life. The Freest man I ever met knew of his mortality, and yet had no fear of it. Fear of injury or death is after all fear of life, and for me at least, being afraid of life is no way to live.

    --
    Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
    1. Re:News at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      So, about 0.011% of the population died from a car accident last year. Whoop-tee doo. It's totally crazy fucking dangerous, Mr. Little! It's inevitable: you're going to die.

      In 2001, 0.001% of the US population died in terrorist attacks. In the past 10 years, 0.0001% of the population has died annually from terrorist attacks. This has motivated $1T wars in middle east ($30k per capita), $7B annual spending on TSA ($20 per capita per annum), and a national campaign of fear. Proportional to the risk, we should be spending somewhere around $100T/year on highway safety and law enforcement. Instead, CHP has a budget of $2B, and national spending is less than $100B.

      So, either we need to increase highway safety enforcement about 1000-fold (which should easily buy us each our own robot controlled car), or we should reduce war-on-terrorism spending by 1000 fold

  31. Extremely difficult? by Iluvatar · · Score: 1

    Extremely difficult for humans my behind:
        Grannies Handbrake Parking Challenge - Part 1
        Grannies Handbrake Parking Challenge - Part 2
    (from BBC Topgear) :-)

    Seriously though, congratulations to the Stanford team, this is pretty impressive at this speed.

  32. Why is this impressive? by ryty · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry for those of you that disagree, and I understand your side as I do applaud the many hours (assuming) of hard work it took to program this beast in to the functionality it has; but, why is this impressive? For the level of computations per second and the price of said computations available today, I feel like there should be a "general" programmatic sense about it. One should not have to program a car to park in parallel, but rather, do whatever it is asked to do. Some call this artificial intelligence, others call it autonomy, I call it the right way. Until things are done this right way, I'm sorry to say that I can't really be impressed. Tell a car, not programmatically, but rather verbally, to park in parallel, and it should do it using the best means it finds suitable. Whether it be to slide park, based on speed of the manoeuvre, or slowly park, based on precision, or perhaps a middle-ground low to medium speed slide park with real gravitational, physical, and real-world aspects taken in to account, it should be able to make the decision of how to do it, then do it, then un-do it just as easily.

    --
    if you were me, you'd think the same way
    1. Re:Why is this impressive? by tom17 · · Score: 1

      I hope you are allowing a certain amount of time to 'teach' every move you ask of it. You couldn't go up to someone who has never driven (or played driving games) and expect them to do this without some training...

    2. Re:Why is this impressive? by ryty · · Score: 1

      Of course. I'm mostly saying that teaching a robot to drive a car forward is different than teaching a car to drive, period. If the robot knows (via taught skill) how to drive, and similar to humans, how to react when given parameters don't work perfectly with planned decisions, I think it would be a lot more comprehensive.

      --
      if you were me, you'd think the same way
  33. Well, Sebastian is German... by dbc · · Score: 1

    Various members of the Stanford DARPA challenge team have spoken at the IEEE Robotics & Automation society meetings here in Sili Valley, including Sebastian Thrun. All said at one point or another that one of their secrets of success was tuning the driving algorithms to "drive like Sebastian" (direct quote) because he "is an aggressive driver" (direct quote, delivered with a tone of understatement.) Sebastian Thrun likes cars... and robots. Right now I'm wondering what his arrival in the faculty parking lot looks like.

  34. Re:VW's luxury brother already poked fun at this.. by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 1

    Awesome.

  35. So... by durrr · · Score: 3, Funny

    In the future, not only will cars drive themselves, they will do so in the most action packed manner possible.
    I'm looking for funding to put ramps and pyrotechnics all over national highways.

    1. Re:So... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      ...they will do so in the most action packed manner possible.
      I'm looking for funding to put ramps and pyrotechnics all over national highways.

      They are called "Pintos"; satisfy both those uses.
         

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  36. There are better ways to park in a tight slot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As shown by Steven Chow in Shaolin Soccer: Woman parks the car.

  37. Impressive by jandersen · · Score: 1

    - but what would be more useful in practical terms would be a car where the wheels could be turned so you could drive sideways.

  38. Does it also.. by HopefulIntern · · Score: 1

    ...shout "like a glove!" in a silly, over-annunciated voice?

    1. Re:Does it also.. by Zalminen · · Score: 1

      Heh, good to see I wasn't the only one to think of that movie :D

  39. already exists by leuk_he · · Score: 1

    Actually car navigation can get information (dutch) from parkings to find free places. The only problem here is to define a universal format to publish this information.

      Automated parking is existing long time. My prius II (=2006 model) can parallel park automatically and detect the white stripes on the surface. However since i can park it faster myself i do not use it. (the video camera is however a good help)

  40. exceeding human capability? HELL NO! by Skal+Tura · · Score: 1

    That wasn't actually good in terms of human capability.

    Infact that was quite easy. Show me when there's only maximum of 10cm (pro race driver everyday accuracy limit for high speed) of space, ACTUAL sliding(drifting) and regular RWD car, going forwards at atleast 40km/h (slow speed).

    That isn't even impressive for a robot, as that can be mostly static programming, no AI required. Yes, that stunt actually is that simple.

    When it starts to be impressive is done on slippery surface, where conditions change rapidly on the current surface. That needs some sensory skills, adaptation, estimation etc. But on dry tarmac, reversing a FWD is simply higher speed precision(somewhat) driving.

    But honestly, looking at the average joe behind the steering wheel: That is bloody hell impressive .... For an average joe with absolutely no car control skills.

    FYI, i speak from experience. I do things like that regularly. Comes with the territory of being a drifter.
    FYI, harder things than that are required here in Finland just to get your driver's license at all.

    --
    Pulsed Media Seedboxes
    1. Re:exceeding human capability? HELL NO! by tom17 · · Score: 1

      FYI, harder things than that are required here in Finland just to get your driver's license at all.

      I'm an ex-racer too, mainly UK rallycross & then normal circuits and I often think about this kind of thing. In fact, just this morning I was wondering what it would take to get this kind of training for everyone in Canada. Then I forgot it lol.
      It would be so so so useful given that we get slippy winters and even just that people are generally crap and could do with being a bit more.. 'capable'.

      Sigh, I can but dream.
      (Btw, I got in trouble this winder for doing the move in the vid in a private car park :( I hate pigs man.)

  41. Thanks for checking this out by zkolter · · Score: 5, Informative
    Hey everyone,
    Thanks for checking this out! To answer a few questions that have been asked:

    This video actually was indeed shot the first time we put the whole system together. Of course there were other runs, both demonstrating the alternative approaches and before we had everything working properly, that didn't succeed, but the final system was pretty reliable as autonomous driving goes. That said, we'd want to test this quite a bit more before I'd be willing to lie down where those cones are, and a big issue here is that the maneuver does shred through tires pretty quickly and is pretty tough on the car in general :-).

    Second, I certainly wouldn't argue that what we're doing here rivals the very best human drivers (the claim we're making is just that this is one of the more challenging _autonomous_ maneuvers that has been demonstrated). The best humans are certainly able to drive incredibly impressive stunts, and we only claim to be making progress towards this level of ability. However, it's worth noting that this particular maneuver is probably one that _most_ people would have trouble with (I know I certainly can't do it!).

    Let me know if there are any other questions, and I'll do my best to clarify.

    Thanks!
    Zico

    1. Re:Thanks for checking this out by Toze · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sir;

      Thank you for building the future. It looks neat.

      Respectfully yours,
      The present.

      --
      No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
  42. Autonomous, yes. RTFA!!! by mangu · · Score: 1

    It sounds like they programmed it to perform this maneuver (going backward at a decent speed and sliding into a specific zone), and then it did (after several failures apparently).

    No, they gave it free choice:

    Standford has given the car the ability to choose between two different ways of driving. Junior can follow traditional physical models of driving or it can try to replicate a move its seen before. The latter choice is good for hard to understand but repeatable tasks, such as making James Bond look like a pansy.

  43. Difficult? by tom17 · · Score: 1

    the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off

    Impressive as it is, for a machine (though I must say I was expecting a handbrake turn, not a j-turn with not much active involvement during the slide), difficult for a human it is NOT. It's a very big gap.
    "extremely difficult for a human to pull off" is the kind of stuff Russ Swift does.

    1. Re:Difficult? by conureman · · Score: 1

      Back in the '70s, my friend Dave got a ticket once for having his car parked on the wrong side of the street (facing backwards). This was probably mostly due to our drunken buddy Pear jumping up on the hood of Dave's Mustang and yelling "FUCKING PIGS!" at a passing cop. Upshot was, Dave decided it was time to practice handbrake parking so he could pull into any space regardless of which way he was approaching from. He had already gotten quite adept at bootlegger turns, so within a few days he was quite good at it. Strangely enough, parking spaces seemed ONLY to be available on the opposite side from where we were after that. Dave slapped the curb a little too hard once and broke a rather spendy 12"x15" alloy rim, and that took some of the fun out of it, so he quit doing it so much.

      --
      The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
  44. What problem does this solve? by damn_registrars · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    If we're parking vehicles in spaces they can't get out of, aren't we only making the congestion and parking problems in large cities worse?

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  45. Consumer Reports says don't buy a Jetta wagon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like the Lexus SUV

  46. Re:VW's luxury brother already poked fun at this.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    However, they DO sell automatic parking systems (called VW park assist) for the new VW Golf Plus, at least in Europe...

  47. I, for one, welcome... by gitoffmylawn! · · Score: 1

    our new robotic valet overlords.

  48. yes, and....no by SuperBanana · · Score: 1

    It's a hell of a lot easier to pull off maneuvers like that in a powerful, lightweight, AWD car set up for sliding than it is in a family wagon....

    AWD makes it harder, because you have two different vectors if you're steering in any direction; the front wheels pull in whatever direction they're aimed, and the back wheels always push in line with the car's body. And the more power you have, the harder it is to control that power; remember, the vehicle weight is the same, but you've more than doubled the engine power.

    Also, that family sedan has cheapo all-season tires which are both very progressive and don't have much dry traction, which is why they're able to do what they're doing at such a slow speed.

    They're not just programming the car what to do and when, the car sees where the cones are and works it out for itself.

    They're programming the car what to do and when, based on where it sees the cones. It's neither unique nor novel. And all they're doing is switching models when (gasp) the car switches from its behavior being based on static CoF to dynamic CoF (ie, not sliding to sliding.)

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
    1. Re:yes, and....no by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

      The more power you have, the easier it is to break traction when you want, and therefore it's easier to control the slide. AWD makes it easy because you have 2 vectors, since it gives you more control in a slide.

      The maneuver is difficult to pull off, which is why the people that can do it are well known for it.

      Given how much practice it takes to slide a car like that with any precision, I think they've done a great job.

    2. Re:yes, and....no by HBoar · · Score: 1

      AWD makes these things MUCH easier. Especially with new the new actively controlled differentials that they use.

      Funnily enough, modern cars have variable throttles, they aren't just on or off. Try it -- if you push the throttle only half way down, you'll find the car accelerates slower. With a powerful car, you have the ability to break traction easily if desired, but you can still just drive more gently and retain it if you want! With a gutless car, you have to perform some violent maneuver just to break traction.

      If you really think it's that simple to control a complicated dynamic system like this, you really have no idea about control theory and should stop commenting on it.

  49. the issue is proper driver education by SuperBanana · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We don't need fancy robots; we need better driver training. In the US, you demonstrate basic proficiency in skills that matter 95% of the time when everything is going swimmingly, answer a very limited subset of the rules/laws of the road, and then get handed your license, and never need to do any of that again. Why are we shocked when people then miserably fail when the shit hits the fan? In other countries, you have to learn and demonstrate actual car handling skills, like recovering from a skid...and people routinely fail the driving tests on the first try, because it's actually difficult.

    I think in most states you need more training to own a firearm than you do to be handed the keys to 2 tons of metal that causes 40,000 deaths a year. The culture here is so poor that people use the term "accident" to describe collisions.

    We also need laws that make it criminal negligence if you distract yourself to the point of not controlling your vehicle properly and cause a collision.

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
    1. Re:the issue is proper driver education by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure we're just talking about education - we're talking about reaction times and fallibility.

      Why shouldn't my car travel an average speed of less than 45mph on minor roads without stops on my way to work? Right now I probably average 20mph tops - 45mph when driving, and 0mph at lights/etc.

      Automated vehicles would just proceed at fairly high speeds the entire distance of a trip with greatly reduced risk of accidents/etc. On highways they would cruise at 100mph or so, with a few inches clearance between cars to maximize aerodynamics. Presumably cars following the same routes would huddle together, ordering themselves to minimize aerodyanmic profile.

      You can't mix this kind of system with human drivers, regardless of how much training they have. What will you do when you come to your first intersection between two four-lane roads without a traffic light with traffic moving through at highway speeds in all directions simultaneously? With automated cars each car would get a reservation for every spot along the intersection, with sufficient margins for error/failures/etc. No human could safely navigate under these conditions.

      The real issues (as others have pointed out) are the liabilities. Today Ford's cars kill maybe 1k people per year, but they have no liability. If they automated their cards and killed only two people per year they'd be sued for everything they own. Our legal system doesn't care that they've saved 998 people per year - only that they are now subject to some kind of liability for the 2 they didn't manage to save.

    2. Re:the issue is proper driver education by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We don't need fancy robots; we need better driver training

      Yes Comrade, and as soon as we create the New Soviet Citizen, communism will work.

      Anytime your plans call for people suddenly and magically becoming smarter or more responsible, you have an issue.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    3. Re:the issue is proper driver education by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looking up the actual stats, the training and legal differences don't seem to make as much of a safety difference as expected. In European countries, several have lower deaths-per-100,000-population stats (though a few are much worse than the US). However, the US is middle of the pack in deaths-per-billion-km-driven (and the overall spread is narrower, too).

      Given all the other differences between driving in the US and Europe, I'd say the other circumstances may well account for the safety differences. (Stupid SUV overuse in the US, for example. Much higher percentage of cars having traction control in some EU countries is another example. Road quality and traffic congestion - sometimes being a tradeoff between accident frequency and accident severity. Slow uptake in penalizing driving with a goddamn cell phone held to the side of the head. Major differences in the numbers of people driving illegally (without a valid license at all), and differences in law enforcement for those cases).

      I'm not saying better training doesn't help. I'm just pointing out that the stats imply that, contrary to the occasional slashdot opinion, not all Americans are idiots and not all Europeans are geniuses, the training differences seem to mostly average out and the remaining gap can very plausibly be accounted for.

    4. Re:the issue is proper driver education by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, yes. Same old story. We don't need machine X, because education Y can partially solve the problem. You can make the argument for nearly any consumer technology.

  50. if it's autonomous... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...why do we see two hands on the steering wheel at the completion of the maneuver?

    Try this again without any people in the car.

  51. Grade, A- by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    A fair job of programming; but it will be checked against existing code. Typical of all intelligent apprentices, the following objectives were not demonstrated for a complete grade. They are in order of incompleteness:

    1. The Parking Maneuver did not end the vehicle in the "Center" of the parking place.
    2. The wheels were left in a position that would eventually alter the Front Alignment.
    3. The maneuver has to be successfully demonstrated 3 times in a row.

    Complete the project for a "Pass" for your grade.

    Good Job :-), but no gold star.

  52. "skin-tight"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That didn't look very "skin-tight" to me. I park in spaces with that little wiggle room all the time on my street. Maybe the placement of the pylons is misleading and they could have been much closer to where the car finished, illustrating more accurately how little space was required...

    It's awesome that a robot is doing this.

    But doesn't much help those of us who park on dense city streets, because we never have that much lateral space at our disposal!

    1. Re:"skin-tight"? by jc42 · · Score: 1

      My thought exactly. I've seen my wife park the Mini in spaces with less than a foot clearance on either end. The car in that video was at least 6 feet from the front pylons.

      I'm impressed that they programmed a robot to do that controlled slide, but I'm not impressed by the supposedly small size of the target space.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  53. First anonomous cross city drive by SnarfQuest · · Score: 1

    Were waiting to interview George, the passenger for the first cross-city autonomous test drive. The trip itself took thirty minutes, however it has taken an hour and a half, so far, to unlock George's knuckles from the dashboard.

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  54. Let me know when it can beat a snowboarder by tgrigsby · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but until it can park a car with swagger, it's still just a over-glorified RC car.

    --
    *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  55. Can You Park Better Than a 5 Year Old? by tgrigsby · · Score: 1

    Hell, my kid can do that. Let me know when it can do something a five-year old can't do...

    --
    *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  56. Jake and Elwood did it better by Hamfist · · Score: 1

    The Blues Brothers had the forward version of that, only more precise. One of the neatest car stunts I've ever seen.

    Not only that, but some guys on Youtube decided to recreate the scene. Insanely funny.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gw3mo6Pqwg