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Waymo Self-Driving Cars Can Now Obey Police Hand Signals
In the event that a traffic light is not working, Waymo's self-driving cars will now be able to use AI to detect and respond to the arm movements of a traffic cop as they wave traffic through an intersection. You can watch a demo of it on YouTube. Futurism reports: Waymo first claimed that its autonomous vehicles could respond to hand signals from nearby cyclists back in 2016. That particular research treated cyclists, from the vehicle's perspective, as obstacles to track and avoid. A new video published by Waymo on Wednesday is the first that shows its vehicles responding to gesture commands -- especially in the absence of the traffic lights on which it would normally rely -- and obeying police orders. The video, which runs at three times normal speed, shows a picture-in-picture display of the car's digital perspective and a video camera as it goes through an intersection.
The video shows the car approach the intersection where a virtual red wall blocks off the road, suggesting that the computer's software responds to the absence of a green light at an intersection the same way as it might to an illuminated red light. The cop in the video, represented by a small prism, teeters across the virtual representation of the intersection before finally waving the Waymo vehicle's vehicle through the intersection and along its way.
The video shows the car approach the intersection where a virtual red wall blocks off the road, suggesting that the computer's software responds to the absence of a green light at an intersection the same way as it might to an illuminated red light. The cop in the video, represented by a small prism, teeters across the virtual representation of the intersection before finally waving the Waymo vehicle's vehicle through the intersection and along its way.
and clear environment, Driver less works perfect in a sanitized controlled environments with known setup pre setup tests.
;)
We are at least 5 years away, go ahead push them out there. Going to be interesting how the failures and collateral damage are handled.
Just my 2 cents
Because we all know cars that have drivers have never once in their history ever hit someone. The result would be catastrophic and cars would be banned.
The question is one of responsibility. A person who hits and is fault loses license, is fined, goes to jail, bares responsibility. A driverless car that does so what happens? Go after the person who did nothing wrong? Go after the company? Disallow the use of the entire system? In the end its a litigation issue
That means that I can control other people’s cars via simple hand signals.
I can’t wait for that to become mainstream.
Or will it follow the directions of anyone in a safety vest making arm gestures?
CAPTCHA: lawsuit
I want an criminal case with an hard ass judge that will jail people on contempt of court when they to pull an NDA says we can't talk about code or try to hide under a big list of subcontractors
But please stop acting like the introduction and saturation of autonomous vehicles is imminent. I swear if I hear another grad student or middle-aged planner with a subscription to Wired exclaim how we need to be ready to change our entire road system because driverless cars are going to change EVERYTHING in the next 6 months, I'm going to scream.
If they're going to succeed, they're going to have to be nearly perfect on the roads that currently exist and be sufficiently affordable to compete with the likes of Uber/Lyft and private vehicle ownership. Anyone saying anything is either looking for investors, website clicks, or book sales.
They're just not there yet. They're not all that close. The closest (Waymo, Cruze) operate in extremely limited areas and are successful thus far by rote memorization, not adaptability.
Automobiles are an operational and infrastructural component. They're not quick to develop. They're not cheap to produce. And they're fraught with massive liability and risk.