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Volvo Testing Autonomous Cars On Public Roads
cartechboy writes: "Multiple automakers have already committed to selling autonomous vehicles by 2020, but only a handful of them have actually started testing and developing them. Now Volvo is putting self-driving test cars on real public roads in Sweden among other, non-autonomous traffic. 'The test cars are now able to handle lane following, speed adaption and merging traffic all by themselves, Volvo engineer Erik Coelingh said in a statement. 'This is an important step towards our aim that the final Drive Me cars will be able to drive the whole test route in highly autonomous mode.' The goal for the Drive Me project is to deliver 100 autonomous cars to customers in Gothenburg by 2017."
when GPS still send us to wrong destinations.
It's a Republican-created term to make these dangerous things sound even more sinister. They hate technology so they hate these cars. Of course, they also hate these cars because it makes driving safer. Their kind loves dangerous things like fast cars and guns. They want to force those things down the throats of the rest of the population. Fortunately, most people in the US are sensible and not members of that awful group, but it doesn't stop them from ruling over us since they're the ones with the money.
It's the mode created by lawyers to maintain that you are responsible for the vehicle's operation. because if the software fails, it's Volvo's fault. Imagine you drive through a oil slick, the vehicle takes a corner too fast before becoming aware of the reduced traction. In automatic mode, it's the car's fault, in "highly autonomous mode" it's still yours.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Why do I feel like I'm watching the start of a bad SyFy movie?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Volvo is just now putting autonomous cars on public streets, so google is getting all the glory for a good reason - they are years ahead. Google had logged 300,000 miles by 2012, and now have reached 700,000 miles. And in contrast to highway driving like in this blurb (lane following, merging), google is way beyond that; highway driving is almost a given and google has moved on to construction sites, pedestrians, cyclists...
How does radar detect negative space?[like pot holes]
It doesn't. It detects that the distance to the ground is greater than the surrounding road and infers the "negative space" (whatever that means) from that information.
Is the car aware of where each tire is relative to a pothole, and can it plot a course around it?
Why wouldn't it be?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
No, I'm pretty sure he means that the computer is going to put the "stay between the lane lines" rule before the "dodge the pothole" rule in the list.
There you go, you've solved the problem. Put the "dodge the pothole" rule above the "stay between the lane lines" rule, but below the "mow down little timmy" rule.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
And how many cars has Google ever sold? With $150k of extra equipment bolted on, they neither know nor care about the realities of car production. Volvo is intent on actually putting these things in the hands of real paying customers. To Google it's just another cool toy to play with. Hire some good AI people and have fun - who cares if it has nothing to do with their business.
More importantly, there are too many unknowns about the Google cars (despite them having been around for years), and about the Volvo cars. How do the cars perform in the rain? Snow (I'm betting Volvo thinks about that more)? How often does the autonomous feature kick out and require the human driver to take over? How much time does the human have to respond? In testing, how often do the human drivers take over control because they anticipate that the car is entering a situation where the autonomous control will have problems? Etc., etc., etc. Without that information we have no way of knowing if it will soon be a viable technology, or it's just a cool demo. However, Volvo is planning to sell these things in 2017, so they're probably working hard on a realistic approach. What year has Google claimed they'll ship product? Sergey's "5 years"? Sure, and I predict we'll have fusion power in 10. Honest. I hired some cool physicists who say they'll have it done by then.
I'm not sure why you think your computing background means you know dick about autonomous cars.
They don't use radar at all and lane lines are only one of multiple visual cues used.
But google's long-shot may well pay off, too. If google can get just a few thousand highly-instrumented, networked cars driving around, they will have the world's most detailed and up-to-date multi-sensor maps of the roadways by a HUGE margin. This may enable cheaper cars with fewer sensors to be viable, because all they have to do is a sanity-check on the high resolution map and monitor obstacles such as cars and pedestrians. But they will download (on the fly) the location of every stop light, detour, pothole, school zone, you name it. By linking to google's data center, each car will be as familiar with its surroundings as you would be if you drove up and down the same street all day. Thus it is possible all car makers will end up paying google handsomely if they want a competitive automated car.
They will still be expensive at first, but getting critical mass is the hard part. After that, roads will be instrumented and detailed real-time maps will be maintained, so the cars won't need such high-end sensing capabilities in the long run.
https://groups.google.com/d/ms...
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
That does not happen, or it shouldn't anyway...
It will alert you that it can't detect the key, but the engine isn't going to shut off.
If you take the key inside when the truck is running, it will ding at you every minute and if you try and turn the truck off, it will warn you that a restart will require the key.
If the battery dies in the fob, there is a small physical key inside that can be used to get in the truck if required.
Keep in mind also that OnStar can remotely start the truck for you as well if you have a problem, and you can drive it that way without the key fob if you know the password.
Just get in (unlock it either by using your phone, or calling OnStar, then press the blue button and tell the adviser that your key fob isn't working, they'll ask you your security question then turn the truck on for you.
It really isn't as hard as many people make it out to be.
OK but this really becomes a question of the car "failing safely." If the car is able to judge when it is unable to drive safely (say, a blizzard) and can then stop and tell the human driver to take over, it'll be OK. If the car gets confused and just shuts down on a highway where everyone is going 80MPH, the car is going to create a dangerous situation when it's unable to continue. (Although, in all fairness, breakdowns in conventional cars do occur on the highway and it doesn't necessarily mean death to the driver)
The big problem, as I see it, is that the reason I want an autonomous car is because I want to go sit in the back seat, light up a cigar, pour myself a scotch, and read a good book on a long road trip. However, if you still need a driver capable of taking over and driving, it kind of kills it. And I would bet it will be much more annoying to be watching a car drive itself and think "OK do I have to take over now" then just driving myself.