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Google Patents Self-Driving Car That Glues Pedestrians To The Hood In A Crash (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Google just got a patent for a special kind of coating on self-driving cars that could help prevent pedestrian injuries. The company wants to coat autonomous vehicles with a sticky substance so that if they hit a pedestrian, the person would be glued to the car instead of flying off. "[The pedestrian] is not thrown from the vehicle, thereby preventing a secondary impact between the pedestrian and the road surface or other object," says the patent, granted on Tuesday. Google explains that an "adhesive layer" would be placed on the hood, front bumper and front side panels of a car. A thin coating would protect it until an impact occurred. Google is paying Arizona residents $20 per hour to test its self-driving vehicles.
with all the options
between the car and another object/vehicle
Twinstiq, game news
They're not always good.
Auto safety features inspired by Carmageddon. That's just what we needed.
I wonder if you get a steam achievement for collecting multiple pedestrians?
"The pedestrian is not thrown from the vehicle, thereby preventing a secondary impact between the pedestrian and the road surface or other object,"
Or...
"The pedestrian is not thrown from the vehicle, thereby ALLOWING a secondary impact between the pedestrian and the next car it hits."
Don't worry- the car won't be damaged because your body will cushion the impact!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If you are able to glue the face of the victim to the hood such that they suffocate. Remember this is America and lawsuits are like a friendly hello.
What we should be discussing is why they have Yuri Kochiyama as today's google doodle with a whitewashed description of what she stood for. Apparently idolizing Mao and Osama Bin Laden is somehow important to google.
Self-driving cars are going to be fun after all.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I can see the job application now:
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Naaaaa nanana nana nana na na na ... Katamari Damaciiiiii...
Perfect song for the car.
Ryan Fenton
It will only stick pedestrians. Not dirt, birds, cats, etc ;-)
Before they realize this might have some unexpected problems.
Not sure if this was totally thought out but just a "hurry and get the patent filed before someone else does" moment.
It can’t JUST be a sticky layer, otherwise it’ll last about 5 minutes before it gets a layer of environmental debris on it.
...this is what you get when you legalize recreational marijuana.
There's bugs in their idea. Literal bugs. They're already a pain in the ass to scrape off a vehicle. This conceivably makes the problem worse. I suppose if you live in the valley the homeless are thicker than he insects, but this is worthless outside of the bubble. . . . err valley.
A thin coating would protect it until an impact occurred.
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Or the car was washed. Or the sky did that thing where water fell out of it. Or the sun hood got hot and cooked it away.
Any coating thin enough to GTFO upon impact with a person quickly and effectively enough for an underlying adhesive to garb and hold them against the force of the impact isn't going to last long in normal conditions.
That thin coating will get destroyed by bugs, bird shit, rocks, scraping snow of your car, high-pressure water from the carwash, etc.
Whoever thought of this idea never owned a car in his life, and those who decided that this idea was any good are idiots.
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...you don't even have to slow up to grab someone off the street, just jump the sidewalk, glue them on and haul them away to a secluded point for hiding.
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Will the windshield wipers get rid of the deer?
And some days you're the bug.
Okay, so the concept is the person is hit by the car and does not go flying 20 feet when the car hits them. They have an outer-shell that is reasonably strong so you're not picking up bugs, grass, etc. Sounds like a plan.
My question is "How do you get the person unstuck afterwards?"
So I'm standing in the road and the car hits me, I stick to his hood and I'm now traveling the speed of his car, let's say 30 MPH. He jams on his brakes because, let's face it, there's a guy stuck to his hood. The nice thing is that I'm not going to fly off the car at 30 MPH. The car comes to a stop and the driver gets out and asks if I'm okay. I may have some bumps and bruises, but I'm good.
Okay, that's gotta be pretty good stickum to hold my 180-pounds to the car while it's decelerating. So how do I peel myself off the hood of his car? I mean, I would imagine that any stickum that can hold me in place while a car decelerates from 30 to 0 is not going to let me just get up afterwards.
And Lord help the hairy shirtless men who get hit. That's gonna hurt!
A very quick skim of the patent says that there would be a coating on top of the adhesive coating. This top coat is designed to break during impact, exposing the pedestrian to the adhesive underneath.
I'm not sure the patent designer considered what to do when the car is inevitably hit with gravel or other objects that are sharp or have enough energy to break the topcoat.
to the term "bumper sticker".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I suspect the logic for this idea comes from considering an elastic collision between a heavy and light object.
for a car with mass M, and intial velocity Vi and pedestrian of mass m, with initially no velocity and then final velocity Vp we can write:
MVi = MVf + mVp
MVi^2 = MVf^2 + mVp^2
for conservation of momentum and energy.
Solving these equations for Vp we get
Vp = 2 Vf *M/(M+m) ~ 2Vf
so an elastic collision throws the pedestrian off at a speed of twice the car's velocity, who then hits the ground.
If the pedestrian sticks to the car their final velocity if half that and four times less energtic.
Even if it's not a fully elastic collision the point is taken it's better to stick to the car.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Isn't the point of autonomous vehicles to avoid hitting pedestrians?
par for the course when you only hire PHD's
Not all pedestrians are homeless, especially in places outside of the "bubble."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Glue all over your car... for one, it's stupid and nobody is going to buy cars with glue all over them. Secondly, it doesn't present the level of confidence in self driving cars that I would have hoped.
I'm pretty sure this is just part of Google's whole skynet thing they have going on. Like it's watched Terminator dozens of times and decided that what it needs to do is snag John Conner with a self driving car before he can become a thorn in Google's side.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Rocks kicked up by other cars?
The neighbor kid's Frisbee?
Various other types of road debris?
Hopefully, they've found a way to keep this from happening or it won't be too long before your Google car will look like a garbage dump on wheels. The FA didn't say anything about how often you'd need to take your Google car in to be resurfaced with a new layer of glue.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Seagulls, rabbits, insects, small birds, bird crap, advertising flyers, parking tickets, sand, dirt, dust, anyone who happens to lean on the bonnet... what a great idea!
And good luck washing that...
Any coating thin enough to GTFO upon impact with a person quickly and effectively enough for an underlying adhesive to garb and hold them against the force of the impact isn't going to last long in normal conditions.
Hmm...so you know the chemical properties of every material that will ever be invented?
That thin coating will get destroyed by bugs, bird shit, rocks, scraping snow of your car, high-pressure water from the carwash, etc.
Whoever thought of this idea never owned a car in his life, and those who decided that this idea was any good are idiots.
This wonderful adhesive which I see no mention of what it actually is - is going to be freakin' awesome! It will maintain it's adhesive properties from Death Valley summer daytime heat to Minnesota and Alaskan winters.
It will spread out rapidly enough through the broken non-sticky layer to capture the unfortunate pedestrians What's more, it will be immune to gravity even in the hottest conditions, and stay exactly where it is put. whether in the proposed honeycomb structure, or free range sticky stuff.
The plastic that gets cracked to release the sticky stuff instantaneously will also maintain all of it's properties over a 100+ degree F temperature range as well.
It's probably more practical and successful to pass laws forcing people to wear human airbags or not allow anyone outside unless they are in one of those human sized hamster balls.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Cartoonists are licking their chops.
Table-ized A.I.
...You'll literally turn your car into a giant fly strip? Someone should patent a cover for this to keep your car clean -- sound almost as good of an idea as the original patent.
Since you're already in trouble.
For when you hit a moose at least you can feed your family for the next while because it won't escape.
I came here to post the same thing, but what you said was even better than what I was going to write.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Google is paying Arizona residents $20 per hour to test its self-driving vehicles" I'd want more than $20 to be hit by a car and stuck to it's hood!
I am not a number - I am a free man!
The summary implies that you'd have to hit the surface really hard before it became sticky. There's a non-sticky coating over the adhesive. Presumably they'd formulate it so that you get something that doesn't crack when a bug or even a bird hits it. A pedestrian impact would be hard enough to crack it and release the adhesive.
That still doesn't mean it's a practical idea; but it's better than some people are making it out to be.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I know the relevant chemical properties of every material used to coat the exterior of cars. Hint: They weather.
It stands to reason any material designed to VERY rapidly change or break down upon impact would weather more quickly.
Any material effective for the stated purpose would be stripped away quite rapidly. This is a pie-in-the-sky patent for a dumb idea.
The design is that you have a crispity crunchity outer shell with a delicious gooey nougat underneath. In practical use it seems like it would degrade quickly - the front of my car is peppered with rock chips, and there are probably many more impacts that didn't leave a scar, that would affect such a material.
It is hard to take Slashdot articles seriously these days. Lots of hype and wacky stuff announced as almost ready. Who runs this now? They must have a seat next to the kool aid tank.
I can think of dozens of reasons why the adhesive idea is stupid. Here is where thinking goes bad: one single scenario is considered and then they stop thinking. The scenario is: new car, no hand buffed wax, warm climate, city speeds, honest driver who will stop and help injured people, and a mild hit at a cross walk.
The average all-in-one car polish includes an abrasive, and over the years would likely remove any film, or the car may be impossible to wax and buff.
The climate where I live goes down to -20 C at times, and I'm in the southern zone of Canada. Cars are often covered by several inches of snow or ice. Does the adhesive work at cold temperatures, or does it activate and cling to several pounds of snow and ice?
The adhesive would bind to clothes and any carried objects. It wouldn't necessarily keep the person still and depends on the strength of the clothing. In some cases of loose garments, it could lead to dragging the body on the road if they didn't stop quickly. This can be an important factor because there are hit and runs.
How does it deal with adhering to skin? Sounds like it could be worse than a typical crazy glue accident.
So do these people have a wacky idea, get it posted to slashdot and have people like me do the work of hitting the potential flaws?
Well, those toilets don't clean themselves, you know.
What about the rest of the stuff that normally lands on cars? Like bugs, birds, leaves, squirrels, chipmunks, poop, dust...
I live in Wisconsin. On the back roads, it's not uncommon to see deer attempt to cross traffic, and there are quite a few unlucky motorists who manage to hit one.
Now, if the impact doesn't kill the deer, I have an angry/terrified deer thrashing about on my hood.
If the impact *does* kill the deer, I'll need to have tags with me, since I'm now transporting a deer that I just killed.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Actually no, if you drive into a flying bug that weighs over 10 pounds (enough to break the coating over the sticky surface) then you would most likely very much want this feature.
A 10 pound bug being driven into at 40ish mph would be enough to completely shatter your front windshield and cause significant damage if it was aligned such to hit your head. Potentially enough to break your neck and kill you if you were going at highway speeds (65 mph or more)
Silly question: are you by chance in Australia?
What about that rock tossed up by the car in front of you?
The 10-pound rock? You're already going to be having a very bad day, adhesive or no.
Is there going to be a big label on the car warning about the dangers of touching it?
They are based in the state of California.
This greatly simplifies the score tracking in Death Race.
Some settling may occur during posting.
If this ever comes out, I give it five minutes before some drunk folks decide to try to stick themselves to their friend's car and go down the road at a high rate of speed for the thrill of it. Let's hope that flypaper is strong enough to hold at 50 or 60 miles per hour.
I guess you have never used a sticky rat trap. That stuff does not run and will stick to you as soon as you touch it. Just cover the car with that glue and people will stick to it permanently.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I guess you have never used a sticky rat trap. That stuff does not run and will stick to you as soon as you touch it. Just cover the car with that glue and people will stick to it permanently.
Looking outside at the oak pollen and catkins, and the huge amount that falls right now - in our township they have to continually dispatch trucks that unblock teh storm sewers this time of year, those rat Trap or flypapber solutions will las about 5 hours before being covered.
This is a flying car solution. In truth, I suspect there was a degree of ganja involved in whoever came up with the idea, and now we are trying to re-arrange the world to fit it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Never mind that the surface of a car can be blazing hot even in the winter...
You keep your car for longer than six months, like some sort of peasant?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
This could be a good way to get rid of those pesky fast food wrappers, and keep them from blowing around the street.
Which, the drivers who get to run into people or the test pedestrians who get hit? I'd pay google to drive if certain people I know volunteered to be the pedestrian.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I think the obvious solution here is that similar to jaywalking laws, there should be a law that any pedestrian cross a street should be required to wear "Glue Suits" that would glue them to any objects that hit them.
If you think about it, this is really much more beneficial as it also works with the legacy car systems of today - you would be glued to the vast hood of a '76 Buick just as well as you would to the sloping sides of a Google Egg Car.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Or, maybe it's not a kidnapping, it's a surprise adoption!
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
So I guess your answer to my question is that you got in a tricked out DeLorean and traveled to 2046 and grabbed the latest copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and brought it back in time?
Nah, I've just driven on a freeway before.
Do you get paid $20/hr for driving the car or getting hit by it?
If it works, this sounds like a great way to kidnap someone.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.