Autonomous Road Train Project Completes First Public Road Test

theodp writes "Covered earlier on Slashdot, but lost in the buzz over the Google driverless car is Project Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), Europe's experiment with 'vehicle platooning,' which has successfully completed a 125 mile road test on a busy Spain motorway. Three Volvos drove themselves by automatically following a truck in the presence of other, normal road users. The Register reports that on-board cameras, radar and laser tracking allow each vehicle to monitor the one in front, and wirelessly streamed data from the lead vehicle tells each car when to accelerate, break and turn."

Comments

Target For Terrorists

[DaneM]

This seems like a very cool idea, but I can't help but think that any system like this that goes "widespread" will be a prime target for crackers looking to do a little terrorism. Seeing as many public-use devices--pacemakers, and others that have been reported on Slashdot--utterly fail to be secure against such attacks--and since this one requires wireless receiving wireless signals in order to function, it's only a matter of time before an enterprising "cyberterrorist" decides to cause a pileup. Therefore, I question the wisdom of enacting such systems, even though the technology is cool, and could be very helpful if it worked properly (and reliably).

I often wonder if a Shweeb-like system, modified with partial motorization for long stretches of (high-speed) highway, uphill areas, etc. might be a more sensible approach. Sometimes advanced technology doesn't make things "better," despite how fun it is to think so.