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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.
When you eliminate the requirement to avoid running into things, the problem gets a LOT simpler!
#DeleteChrome
maybe...Texas MapLite Massacre
> 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.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I am not surprised. Autonomous driving is a joke. Sure you can build a system to get about 80% there as long as it has high resolution maps.
I'll never get why people are so hung up on self-driving cars. Either drive yourself or hire a taxi. We should focus on making computers do stuff that we can't do ourselves.
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.
Pretty much everything a computer does we can do. We program them to do it. There are plenty of things that computers can do faster and better though. Hopefully self driving cars becomes on of those. If you donâ(TM)t think self driving cars are worth it, you arenâ(TM)t thinking big enough. Imagine taking a cross country road trip where each morning you wake up at a different national park. Thatâ(TM)s the type of thing that is possible once we have self driving cars. Not to mention the price of a taxi drops considerably as does the cost of shipped goods. There are likely tons of spin off technologies we havenâ(TM)t even imagined yet that will become possible and cost effective once we have self driving vehicles.
I've been in downpours/hail that had everybody pulled over and hiding under overpasses. I'd be impressed if the autonomous car had the sense.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"I'm just surprised that this kind of navigational problem wasn't made a part of the baseline autonomous car requirements."
Me too. I don't see how an autonomous vehicle can handle construction zones, parking garages, or GPS "dead zones" without this sort of technology.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
So...does it stop a lot to ask for directions?
4wdloop
Me too. I don't see how an autonomous vehicle can handle construction zones, parking garages, or GPS "dead zones" without this sort of technology.
To handle construction zones, a level 5 vehicle will need advanced information about the construction zone. That means that construction workers are going to have to place beacons. That will become the law sooner or later. A level 4 or lesser vehicle will just expect you to take over.
As for the rest, a level 5 vehicle will simply refuse to go anywhere it doesn't understand, while again, a level 4 or lesser vehicle will expect you to take over. A level 4 vehicle should give you lots of notice.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"