MIT Invented a Tool That Allows Driverless Cars To Navigate Rural Roads Without a Map (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A student at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) is developing new technology, called MapLite, that eliminates the need for maps in self-driving car technology altogether. This could more easily enable a fleet-sharing model that connects carless rural residents and would facilitate intercity trips that run through rural areas. In a paper posted online on May 7 by CSAIL and project partner Toyota, 30-year-old PhD candidate Teddy Ort -- along with co-authors Liam Paull and Daniela Rus -- detail how using LIDAR (a radar-like sensor that uses lasers instead of radio waves to measure distances) and GPS together can enable self-driving cars to navigate on rural roads without having a detailed map to guide them. The team was able to drive down a number of unpaved roads in rural Massachusetts and reliably scan the road for curves and obstacles up to 100 feet ahead, according to the paper.

Comments

Re:lasers instead of radio waves

[Immerman]

> it's not 3D printed rocket science...(but that may come up soon)

Actually it's been going up for just under a decade, longer if you don't insist on reaching orbit. The Falcon 1 Flight 4 reached orbit September 28, 2008 using its 3D printed engine components.

This is not new

[neoRUR]

None of this work is new, CMU and others were doing this 20 years ago. And we were using it on the Unmanned Ground Vehicles Project. We were not using GPS, but Neural Network Road following outdoors without roads with LIDAR and with cooperative robotic HUMVEE vehicles.