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The Documents From Google's First DMV Test In Nevada
An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum contributor Mark Harris obtained a copy of the DMV test Google's autonomous car passed in Nevada in 2012 and associated documents. What has not been revealed until now, is that Google chose the test route; that it set limits on the road and weather conditions that the vehicle could encounter; and that its engineers had to take control of the car twice during the drive.
It's also important to note that this test took place 2 years ago, a lot of development and improvements can happen in 2 years.
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The only slight problem with that is that in order to react at all in time, you must be paying the same amount of attention as you would if there was no autonomous drive system at all. This is otherwise known as the human being in the loop. Removing the human from the loop in aircraft automation has been a source of unending problems, and only recently one could say that it's a reasonably well understood problem - if not quite solved just yet. Don't forget we're talking about trained professional pilots here.
So, when faced with a self-driving car, the relatively untrained non-professional driver will always be so far out of the loop, that there's no way for him to overtake control safely in real time.
Of course, the solution for that is simple: the car's control transfer must, by default, happen in a fail-safe state - with the car stopped, with emergency blinkers on, etc. Only if the control transfer is explicitly acknowledged in a preset time, would the fail-safe be bypassed.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Commercial aviation is now safer than it ever was in the past.
Fully autonomous driving is doable IF it is only along routes that have been verified and to some extent instrumented. I predict we'll see a few Approved Routes initially, such as stretches of Interstate. Fairly soon, the approved routes will account for the majority of vehicle miles driven. Then there will be a long tail of routes and conditions that won't be automated anytime soon. Basically, just like cellphone coverage.
Along the same lines, it doesn't seem difficult to take control of the system while it's actively driving. It's not hard to disengage cruise controls or stop a car using Park Assist or Lane Assist from turning into something not seen by the sensor system. Why is it hard for me to grab the wheel from the "hands" of the auto-pilot in the Google car?
Here's the best example I can think of -- let's say you are the understudy for a radio actor with narcolepsy. You both have the script, you the understudy are following along word for word as the actor is performing. Suddenly the actor falls asleep and the words stop. How many seconds pass before you pick up where he left off? You are as aware and able as you can possibly be without actually anticipating something you can't anticipate, and I believe it would still take me a few seconds to switch myself from simply paying attention to audibly reading words.
Second scenario is the same except that you are both in sound booths reading the words and the actor is the only one with a hot mic. I believe it would be faster for me to be reading aloud with the actor and trigger my mic to go live at the necessary time -- however in doing so I am saving no effort over doing all the reading myself in the first place, so the application to automated vehicles is somewhat limited.