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Australia Has Moved 1.5 Metres, So It's Updating Its Location For Self-Driving Cars (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a CNET report: Australia is changing from "down under" to "down under and across a bit". The country is shifting its longitude and latitude to fix a discrepancy with global satellite navigation systems. Government body Geoscience Australia is updating the Geocentric Datum of Australia, the country's national coordinate system, to bring it in line with international data. The reason Australia is slightly out of whack with global systems is that the country moves about 7 centimetres (2.75 inches) per year due to the shifting of tectonic plates. Since 1994, when the data was last recorded, that's added up to a misalignment of about a metre and a half. While that might not seem like much, various new technology requires location data to be pinpoint accurate. Self-driving cars, for example, must have infinitesimally precise location data to avoid accidents. Drones used for package delivery and driverless farming vehicles also require spot-on information.ABC has more details.
I'm sorry, but when driving I do not have "infinitesimally accurate location data". I have eyes and ears, I and use them to not get in accidents. Turns out that many things on roads are not fixed at all and may appear or disappear at any time...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, self-driving cars don't need any location information at all to avoid accidents.
It's not like a GPS can tell them if a light they're approaching is red or green, if there's a car in front of them, or if that hypothetical car is currently slamming on its brakes. It can give them an idea of where to turn, but it can't tell them if there's a pedestrian, a car, a wall, a lake, a big gaping sinkhole in the road, a flooded section, or something like that in the spot where it wants them to turn.