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Autonomous Shuttle Brakes For Squirrels, Skateboarders, and Texting Students (ieee.org)
Tekla Perry writes: An autonomous shuttle from Auro Robotics is picking up and dropping off students, faculty, and visitors at the Santa Clara University Campus seven days a week. It doesn't go fast, but it has to watch out for pedestrians, skateboarders, bicyclists, and bold squirrels (engineers added a special squirrel lidar on the bumper). An Auro engineer rides along at this point to keep the university happy, but soon will be replaced by a big red emergency stop button (think Staples Easy button). If you want a test drive, just look for a "shuttle stop" sign (there's one in front of the parking garage) and climb on, it doesn't ask for university ID.
We have similar shuttles (but better looking ones) here at Tampere University of Technology. Check this out http://sohjoa.fi/
...and then bump into the texting students on purpose, to teach them a lesson.
Pedestrians, skateboarders, cyclists, etc... should all be hit at 7 MPH to teach them to stop walking and to ride the shuttle... because that is the only way Auro Robotics will make a profit in the long run
Oh man! This is great, it's the homeless merry go shuttle! Climb on, fellas, and piss all over every seat so the students won't wake us!
All I know is shutttle driving, now what am Ingonna do? Looks like it's time for a life of crime!
At first I thought the title said we were going to outfit them with autonomous brakes.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
And it will stop for speed bumps too.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"We have like, an agreement with them. Don't we??"
No, George.
We have like, an agreement with them. Don't we??
No, our agreement is with the pigeons. They get out of our way, and we overlook the statue defecation.
#DeleteChrome
if you are chasing anything that moves quickly there is a issue.
Autonomous Shuttle Brakes For Squirrels, Skateboarders, and Texting Students
I read "brakes" as a noun. I imagined rodents and students alike being fitted with little rocket packs to bring them to a stop when they're in danger.
Disappoint.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I could see this thing driving down the road and the horn says "GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU HAG!", "I GOT THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND, MOVE!". Anyways some of those college students need someone yelling at them to walk faster.
Autonomous Shuttle Brakes for Skateboarders and Texting Students
Why are we thwarting nature? Why are trying to keep the stupid ones around in the herd? Let Evolution do its thing.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
A house brick, stick, bag of straw or something similar in its path would be sufficient to grief the thing. Maybe a wad of gum over a sensor or a plastic bag. All of which will be a foretaste of what will happen if autonomous vehicles ever become a thing.
I'd like to know what would happen if someone found a stuffed squirrel and put it on the road, would this contraption deduce that it should drive around the squirrel since it is not moving? We have a real long way to go with reasoning in order to reach full autonomy..
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Engineers are supposed to be improving the world and then this. So much wasted potential.
Can you guess which one?
https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/12...
I thought LIDAR was the creme de la creme of sensing technology. One sensor can't detect squirrels?? How many sensors would be required if they had to detect dogs and cats as well like in a real neighborhood? Autonomy has a long long way to go.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Don't worry about the pigeons. They will be around a lot longer than we will.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Just your ordinary, average all-chrome or aluminum bear grille, for the bookish bear, or freshman initiate
or for your university-trash dumpster diving bears.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
A giant space shuttle firing retro rockets as it screeches to a half avoiding a squirrel on the runway.
I can walk faster than that. This seems more like yet another millennial band-aid to assuage their millennial boo-boo mindset (read: laziness) than an exciting leap forward in efficiency. Whatever. Remember when tech was actually exciting and not just a show room for hyperbole or pubescent fantasy? I do. My, how far we have fallen.
Tell that to the Passenger Pigeons.
Does it know the difference between a leaf blowing across the road and a squirrel? Also, why endanger human lives for a squirrel? Most people ignore them as they should because most of the time the squirrel has the same fate no matter what you do and it doesn't affect the cars on the road at all unless you're an idiot that tries to brake or swerve around them (ie. they're usually fine but if not it makes no difference).
The -1 score shows that nobody here understands sarcasm
The problem with roadkill squirrels is that they attract other animals. Startling a group of carrion birds when you are 10 feet away and going 60mph tends to result in a smashed windshield covered in bird guts and feathers. Likewise, running over someone's dog or cat in the middle of his snack is not good either.
> a big red emergency stop button (think Staples Easy button).
Has Slashdot's audience diverged from IT workers so far that a Big Red Button needs explanation? Has no one been in a data center or used industrial equipment lately?
At the 7 MPH this shuttle goes, frankly the squirrel can run out of the way faster.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?