Self-Driving Golf Carts May Pave the Way For Autonomous Cars

itwbennett writes: Researchers from MIT and Singaporean universities are experimenting with self-driving golf carts that use less (and relatively cheap) gear than self-driving vehicles while relying on computation-efficient algorithms. In addition to a webcam, each cart is equipped with four single-beam LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors from German maker Sick that have a field of view of about 270 degrees. Two of the sensors were mounted in the cart's front and used for determining its position and obstacle detection. The other two were cheaper, shorter-range sensors and were mounted on the back corners of the cart to scan for obstacles behind and on either side of it. The cost of the sensors was still high (on the order of $30,000) but that's less than solutions used in more sophisticated robotic vehicles. (Google has used $80,000 Velodyne LIDARs on its earlier self-driving cars.) A YouTube video shows the carts traveling the winding paths of a public garden in Singapore at a leisurely 24 kilometers per hour — slow enough for the computers to process all the obstacles (mainly pedestrians and animals). The researchers envision the self-driving vehicles being used in a shared transportation system, as rental bicycles are used in many cities.

Comments

Self driving golf carts

[rossdee]

do they have self putting golf carts too?

Self driving cars...

[Feral Nerd]

I'm going to love self driving cars. I will never own one, they'll have to tear the steering wheel out of my cold dead hands, but pranking self driving car owners will be funny as hell: https://xkcd.com/1559/

Re:Self driving cars...

[Qzukk]

Just think, you can finally be a huge dick to people on the road without worrying whether they've got a gun and a temper!

Oh wait, they might still have a gun and a temper, and now they don't need to have either hand on the wheel while they're trying to fuck you up.

I doubt it

[DrXym]

Driving on a golf course is a relatively trivial problem to solve compared to driving on a road. Low speed, predefined routes, predictable conditions. Aside from putting some sensors on the cart to stop it running into something or someone, some basic navigation functionality and what to do in low power / fault scenarios it doesn't have a huge amount of complexity to worry about.

A more pertinent question is why is this being done at all. Are people so fat and lazy that they can't even drive a golf cart now?

The market for this

[gila_monster]

A month ago, my department at work held a golf outing (I did not attend, but they are remarkably popular here). Over 70 people participated. Over the course of that Friday, three golf carts were rolled, one badly enough that the driver ended up with a broken arm and had to be carted to the ER.

Several engineers are now permanently banned from that course, and we may end up not having any more golf outings. So there is definitely a market for self-driving golf carts.

The downside, of course, is that they may well end up designed by the idiots who rolled them in the first place.

Re:One question ...

[tomhath]

The submersible option is only available in the deluxe package.

Re:Why?

[tomhath]

Many resorts (and resort towns) use golf carts for transportation. They would be perfect for moving people around to the beach, golf course, spa, shopping, etc.

Re:AUTONOMOUS CARS NOW!!!

[wonkey_monkey]

Yes, just like ALL cars are STILL REQUIRED to be PRECEEDED by a man carrying a FLAG.

Oh, no, wait, they're not, because progress.

This is just one piece of the puzzle

[dcooper_db9]

Here's how I envision the gradual expansion of these technologies.

On the one hand we will have the open network; the public roads. Over the next two decades we'll see more and more automation integrated into our cars. Within 10 years we'll have the first vehicle-to-vehicle traffic negotiation devices show up. These will initially negotiate with the road signs, traffic signals and other vehicles. Within 20 years these devices will replace the signs and signals. The red light will be on our dashboard. The speed limit that currently shows on our GPS will have the force of law. At first the driver will be assisted by the automation technology. The computer will only take over when the driver is about to crash or run someone over.

Gradually the computer will take more and more of the driving role. It will park itself. It will brake at intersections. It will let off the brake when the light turns green (but the driver will press the gas to move forward). It will control the speed of the vehicle so the car can't go too fast. If an emergency vehicle approaches the car might pull off the road to let it pass.

In the meantime automation technologies will be integrated into private road and off-road networks. Golf carts will almost certainly be used in such a network. Standardization will allow industry to designate closed roads for moving goods between buildings and then within industrial parks. Then someone will want to connect the industrial park with the airport or seaport. Maybe they take a low use rail line and convert it to a closed road. Cities will probably close off downtown areas to non-automated traffic. People will hail a "cab" to get around downtown and use mass transit to travel outside the city.

As the technology advances the closed and open road systems will start to interact. You might drive to the airport but have your car drop you at the gate and then find a place to park itself. You go shopping and your car pulls up so you can load the groceries. In perhaps 30 years time the industrial system and the public system will be mature. Eventually we reach a tipping point where we just switch everything over to automated transportation.