Cadillac's Hands-Free Driving Option Also Nags Inattentive Drivers (theverge.com)

Using LIDAR sensors, Cadillac mapped 160,000 miles of U.S. highways "within five centimeters of accuracy" to give its hands-free-on-the-highway cars the ability to better anticipate the roads ahead -- and to know when a human driver should take over. An anonymous reader writes: "The car can see farther than the sensors on the car with the map..." says the chief engineer for Cadillac's new "Super Cruise" hands-free driving option for highways, "so if we have a sharp curve, we can anticipate that." The system also gives Cadillac's vehicles a safety check not available to Tesla, which can't stop drivers from using Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot even when they're not on a highway. "We know where the car is because of the LIDAR map and the other data in the car," says a product communications manager at Cadillac. "Therefore we have the ability to geofence it."

In addition, The Verge reports that if drivers look away for more than 30 seconds, "the car will know thanks to an infrared camera attached to the top of the steering column. Eyes closed? The car will know and start a sequence of alerts to get the driver's focus back on the road. It can even see through UV-blocking sunglasses." While the camera doesn't record or store data, it will flash a strip of red LED lights embedded in the top of the steering wheel "if the driver is caught not paying attention."
Cadillac plans to create and transmit an updated map every year, and will also regularly update its map by "constantly" checking the database from the Transportation Department, and deploying own trucks to draw new maps of construction areas.

Comments

We do know

[fyngyrz]

Ultraviolet is at the opposite end of the spectrum from infrared, a low frequency as opposed to a higher frequency.

Sunglasses block UV at typically encountered energy levels because it is much more dangerous to your eyes; IR at typically encountered energies is not, and so they typically do not block IR, as there's been no need.

That is not to say that some enterprising operation could make them block IR as well. At that point, the car would probably refuse to self-drive at all, though. Of course, you could paint on "eyes" using IR-visible, non-vision blocking paint...

Anyway... a self-drive feature that won't self drive if you are doing anything but going through the exact motions of driving strikes me as almost completely useless. It is probably only a stopgap stage on the way to a more competent driving system.