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Hardware

German Robot Klaus Passes Driving Test 173

Posted by Hemos from the drivin'-de-car dept.
volk23 writes "Klaus -- pioneered by car maker Volkswagen AG -- drove in public for the first time around a German test circuit using three laser scanners, a stereo camera, video and satellite navigation systems and radar hooked up to a computer, VW said. "
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German Robot Klaus Passes Driving Test More

German Robot Klaus Passes Driving Test

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  • ...that you'll be coughing up diamonds!"

  • No, no, no (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    No, no, no. I said autobahn, not an autobot. Start over.

  • Hmm, if they were to become available, I'd head right for McDonald's, pick up a cup of coffee, and "spill" it on said robot. When everything shorts out and crashes, my family has it made for the rest of their lives. What right does McDonald's have selling coffee capable of killing me?? Woohoo!
  • As others have said, the problem is you rely entirely on the lead car's radar to see deer and the like. But the other down side is you must have only one car type. Every one in the convoy must have the same brakes et al so they can stop simultaneously. I'm sure the MPAA would love to branch into the car bidness, but it's not for me.

    Sure you can have 43,572 sensors for every little screw/nut in the car, but something will inevitably happen to that lead car (airplane or UFO falls out of the sky) and then everyone is screwed.

  • We don't need robot drivers in a human controlled world. We need to replace the entire infrastructure to allow computers to do ALL driving!

    How it would work: Computerised cars and computerised signal towers every few hundred feet or so. The signal towers would control pretty much everything the cars do.

    All the human would have to do is tell it to go to whatever address. Then take a nap!

    Computers should be able to do everything more efficiently, working together with each other. This should have side benefits like saving gas and almost eliminating traffic deaths.

    Heck, it would probably even be cheaper in the long run. Cars could have many of their controls removed, computers are cheap, and like I mentioned, it should be able to save on gas.

    I guess the biggest barrier to this is just that - replacing the infrastructure. We could use the same roads (at least for a while) but we'd need huge amounts of computer equipment, and then we'd need to force all human drivers off the roads. THAT is what would be hard. :-)
  • Jetzt koennen wir uns volltrinken und noch heile nach Haus kommen!

    Witzig, aber nicht ganz so practish.

  • Does this mean the end of their "Drivers wanted" ad campaign, now that they're obsolete? ;>
  • Not to mention that by "drafting" each other, the cars would become more fuel efficient thanks to less resistance due to air drag...
  • It's YOUR robot, YOU pay. ;>
  • Who would want a robot when you can drive this fine piece of VW engineering [eunuchs.org] yourself? I wouldn't!
  • How about "like a moron?"

  • HUH? (Score:1)

    by jonr ( 1130 )
    Like we don't have enough traffic jams? Do we really have to make robots to add to the traffic? Do the have a middle finger?

  • What's this space for? All my thoughts are succinct enough to be completely expressed in the subject line.

  • The vast majority of cars sold in Europe are manual, and automatics are seen as the exclusive preserve of little old ladies, disabled people and fat businessmen. In fact, in most (all?) countries you have to take your test on a manual, otherwise you will get a licence that limits you to driving only automatic cars. No self-respecting person under the age of 60 would be seen driving an automatic (unless they were disabled of course) and the idea of an automatic sportscar is just bizarre - props to Audi for refusing to pander to North American tastes by decining to offer an auto version of the TT (I shudder at the thought...)

    Nick

  • Mercedes have had a computer operated car for years. They tested it on the German Autobahns.

  • well the germans *do* love david hassellhoff ;)
  • so that would be following the ethernet philosophy of packet collision ;)
  • Minor problem... We don't use dots up here where it snows. The snow plows would eat them. (Or the salt.)

    Besides, I like driving. I've been known to just pick a direction, and drive that way for a while. Of course, this is much more fun when you're driving a fun car, like a 944TS. :)
  • But besides the time factor, why do people drive, rather than taking public transit? For the thrill of the open road, the feeling of power when you are behind the wheel. Robot drivers take that away!

    Well, the time factor is a big thing. And convenience. Let's see, my choices are:

    1. take my car to the store, get there in about 10 minutes

    2. walk to the bus stop, wait for the bus to show up, hope I've got exact change, find a seat that isn't too disgusting, endure the stares of drooling weirdos, transfer a couple of times all the while seeing parts of town that are way out of my way, and then finally arrive at the closest bus stop, which is a ten minute walk from my destination.

    While in University, I didn't have a car, and having a car is immensely more convenient than a bus for far more reasons than "the thrill of the open road".

    Actually, I do like driving, sometimes, so I would like the option to drive myself. But there are many times I wish my car could drive itself. Times like:

    - I'm tired and I just want to get home
    - really long trips
    - I don't know where I am (imagine an automated driver hooked up to GPS and a mapping system)
    - busy cities. I hate driving in busy cities, especially in downtown areas.
  • What did they say? :)

    -- Thrakkerzog
  • .. the much needed middle finger?
    modern day geek. [dhs.org]
  • (3) it's performance won't be degraded by emotional state

    So, you're saying an automated vehicle wouldn't suffer from "code rage"?

    AAAHHH!! A pun! Get it off! Get it off!

  • You know, you're rather bigoted. Either that, or you have no conception of the limitations of public transit. Except in major cities, public transit is limited to major routes, etc. What about getting to public transit? What about if you want to go from point A to point C, which would be a 15 minute drive, but if you have to take public transit you have to go from point A to point B, and then to point C, which would be an hour drive?

    Try public transit and see how useful it is, and also how limited it is.
  • I wish I had an arm sticking out of my head. That, and be able to drive without running into things.
  • drove in public for the first time around a German test circuit

    Was it a live test (as implied by "in public") or was a it a closed track (as implied by "test circuit")?
    --
  • Quick sell stocks in the chauffeur industry. Computers are taking over!!!
  • Of course this appears to be a higher standard than many human drivers are held to. Particularly the part about slowing down for bad weather.

  • Anybody remember the NHAA Project [cmu.edu] from CMU back in 1995? An autonomous steering vehicle took two Robotics Institute researchers all the way from Pittsburgh to San Diego, with the computer program RALPH steering more than 99% of the time. Granted, the people have to handle the throttle and brakes, and it only works out on highways, but that is still quite amazing considering that took place some fregging 5 years ago.

  • And i bet it can drive better then most people in my city.
  • But does he dream of Aibo's or Electric sheep?

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau
  • Now all we need is a utility to have this system kick in after one too many good German beers....
    #include "disclaim.h"
    "All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
  • Uh, wrong. I'm decent at HTML but pretty new to C and C++. However, this is covered in what I have learned so far. In the #include directive, when you quote around header files like "disclaim.h", this means look in the current working directory for a custom header file (i.e. you must keep your .c and .h files together). If you use angle brackets < > then it means "look in the standard directories" for standard ANSI headers like <stdio.h>. It works for me at least... Of course, if I meant "include standard disclaimers" I should indeed have put #include <stddisclaim.h> but since I'm a lawyer I get to write my own custom disclaimers ;-).

    #include "disclaim.h"
    "All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
  • Atleast they use a clone of the Porsche Tiptronic automatic transmission. Thankfully they offer most of them in Manual here in the US as well.

    Just can't wait until the Multitronic makes it's way to US. Hopefully a real CVT for once.
  • What? The article didn't mention anything about the robot applying makeup and backing into light posts while driving. And although it will dodge objects, it won't flip the car going 60 mph to avoid a little kitty. It knows that a little thump-thump is ok sometimes.
  • It'd be easier than cleaning a person off the inside of their car, don't you think? Ever hit a deer going 75 mph? Didn't think so, because you wouldn't be alive if you did.
  • Dodge a deer? Why? It should be able to frag the deer. It'd be much more exciting and safe. Also it'd need some gps gear (which I believe it has) to predict traffic jams and reroute your trip.
  • That's true. Why does every movie with Germans in it by americans portray them as evil geniuses or terrorists? My guess is that because Jewish folk write the screenplays and they have a big grudge against Germanic people, all germans regardless of german americans or what. Not every german worldwide was involved with and condoned ww2 but that's not how the media would have you think. From an engineering standpoint, we'd probably still be riding bicycles and canoeing across rivers if it weren't for the germans. So show some respect.
  • He is probably aware of that, and just knows very little about html... that would be my guess. Instead, you should tell him that he can type &lt;disclaim.h&gt; to get that.

    You can simplify that a little bit as only the &lt; needs to be escaped. To render <disclaim>, you only need to use &lt;disclaim>. (Yeah, we're not dealing with 48K Apple II+s anymore, but it's still nice to save a byte or two once in a while. :-) )

  • Talk about a misleading headline - when I first read this I thought the blasted thing had gotten a license!

  • OT (Score:1)

    by Buck2 ( 50253 )
    I remember the days when one used to just
    leisurely reply with an OT response, and maybe
    get #1.

    What the hell happened. :)
  • Hey! I've seen that car before. I think you were stopped in front of me at a light. Hmmm.

    --GnrcMan--
  • I like driving. I take long car trips just for the sheer pleasure of it. If this freedom is taken away from me I will be very very unhappy.
  • have to be the red screen of death . . .

    No, Blue.

    It would be robot blood!

  • That's right.

    But I don't understand the article:
    "German Robot Klaus Passes Driving Test"
    and below: "Although Klaus is not ready to take to the public highway,..."

    But it's strongly recommended to drive on the highway during your driving test...in Germany.
    You have to drive about 45 min. On all kinds of streets!!! I can't imagine that this roboter took the driving test...

    I asume that the article on yahoo is crap...

    Yours

    Michael
  • He is probably aware of that, and just knows very little about html... that would be my guess. Instead, you should tell him that he can type &lt;disclaim.h&gt; to get that.

    --
    linuxisgood:~$ man woman
  • I see the testers obeyed the cardinal rule of driving in Italy: stay the hell out of Rome.

    --
  • Nasa doesn't hand the landing back over to the highly-trained human: they move the landing
    But they do hand the decision about how and where to land over to humans--a meteorologist, flight control, the pilot and mission commander. I would have used an example from chemical refineries, but I know less about them than I do about space shuttles. I do know that in the late 1980s, software controlling nuclear reactors, if it didn't know what to do next, used to simply scram the reactor. When it turned out that a new reactor in Aiken, South Carolina was executing an "emergency shutdown" two or three times a week--much to the delight of the press--they adopted new procedures: if the computer knew something bad was happening, it would scram; otherwise, it would ring a bell in the control room, as if to say, "Excuse me, but would you be so kind as to put down the magazine and look at the goddamned gauges? I'm a nuclear reactor, you jackass! Pay attention!"

    As for driving by Ouija board, that would explain a whole lot. It's either that or dice, given the traffic around here.

    --

  • In fact, in most (all?) countries you have to take your test on a manual, otherwise you will get a licence that limits you to driving only automatic cars.

    That's exactly the way it should be. In fact, I'd wager to bet that a *large* portion of the licenced American drivers could not pass a German driving test even *with* an automatic transmission. This country's licensing system is an absolute joke. Five minutes of driving on a lightly-travelled road will not show the examiner much of anything about how the driver will drive in the real world. A real driving test would deal with emergency braking, emergency lane changing, and how to drive in the real world.

    An example: thanks to the NHTSA, most Americans think that slower = safer. As a result, I'm often stuck behind soccer moms in their Expeditions who try to merge into Atlanta traffic at 45 mph. Speed doesn't kill, speed differential does (ok, that's velocity, but you get the point). These are things that people are not taught in driving school and not tested on when taking the licensing test. And don't even get me started on lane discipline.

    I've always said that if I buy a automatic transmission in the future, I will promptly drive it over a cliff. In my biased view, automatic transmissions are for those who don't really care about driving (with a few exceptions, such as the disabled) and therefore people with automatic transmissions are generally poor drivers compared to manual tranny drivers. Of course this theory has to be adjusted for socioeconomic class, but the basic idea still stands.

    One question about this automatic driver: can he parallel park without scraping the corners of the other parked cars? Because God knows most people can't.
  • But how many of the test administrators want to spend more than 5 minutes with the test taker. The wages the BMV in my area pays (minimum) does not offer any incentive to go out of my way to do a job well.

    I think if a DMV tester actually took the time to make sure the testee knew how to drive, (s)he would be reprimanded. Apparently the DMV as a whole feels that their current test is satisfactory in determining if someone is skilled enough to drive. The new testing procedure needs to come from the top - it needs to be completely overhauled nationwide.

    I for one would not want to be driving a manual transmission for the simple reason that it IS 1 more thing to have to concentrate on. I don't know where you live, but around here it snows and the road gets slick. I have other thing to concentrate on, like the moron in front of me, besides switching gears.

    I live in Atlanta, which certainly has it's share of traffic and idiot drivers. However, I can't remember one time when having to shift hindered me from driving. Unlike so many of my friends, I've never been in an accident when I was behind the wheel. Driving a stick is one of those things that I don't have to think about. Of course the possibility of getting caught in the wrong gear is there, but that really just comes with predicting what is going to happen while driving.

    An aside: I happen to drive with a Valentine One [valentineone.com]. There are many people who claim that radar detectors make the roads more dangerous and that "speed kills." I think this is a fairly narrow view of the subject. I tend to be extremely alert while driving, always scanning the horizon and checking my mirrors. I've found this to be much safer than the sort of passive driving that I see most of the time.
  • I can just picture the upcomming Windows port

    BSOD will have new meaning

  • If you want to automate only the "simple" highway driving you still have the problem of handing control back.
    The simple solution is to have the robot pull over and stop before the human takes over. Anything else is hard.
  • Didn't you learn anything from the Futurama episode with the crazed robot Santa?

    I guess not everybody watches Futurama but they had an episode with a robot Santa that went out of control a long time before and ever since then, everybody ran inside before night on Christmas so they wouldn't be killed by the robot. It was a pretty funny episode if I remember correctly.

  • 6) Refuses to tailgate car in front of it

    Accully I would want him to tailgate the driver in front of him. However the car in front should also be controlled by Klaus. The car right in front will see a slight drop in gas milage, but that is more then made up for by the next car behind savings. Remember, these are all computer controlled cars. Their reaction time to the next drive slaming on the breaks due to a deer crossing the road is nil.

    Bicyclists use the drafting principal to ride 25 mph all day in a race, where the average lone biker is doing well to maintain 15 mph.

  • have to be the red screen of death . . .

  • There's something too that. We can't even teach lots of people.

    After being at a school with several thousand foreign students, I'm inclined to believe that some of them can *never* be taught to drive.

    It's not that they're foreign; it's that they've rarely been in a car before arriving in the U.S. Here (and in other developed countries) we've been in cars from birth, and flowing through traffic. That very flow is missing from these folks; it's entirely an artificial environment. There's some amount of instinct we pick up along the way. Maybe it's like language; far more easily and naturally learned while young.

    As a group, those learning to drive here aren't merely worse than more experienced drivers. As a group, they seem to be worse than new drivers (as a group).

    If we can't teach this to people, it's going to be really hard to teach it to a machine.

    hawk, pondering
  • If this is the case why do so few people drive automatics? The US is the only country where automatics outnumber manuals. Or are all non-Americans 'esoteric freaks' and all Americans 'normal people' to use your language?

    Nick

  • Yeah, that would be pretty great right up until some joker painted reflective stripes across the road leading into a bridge support. Then you'd be glad that the robot was tracking the reflective lines!

    -jwb


  • Great, now when his Aibo gets sick, he can drive it to the vet. Or is that the electrician?

    -=Bob
  • Actually, public transport is for people who realize that there's not much Fahrvergnügen to be had sitting in an overpriced metal box on a six-lane parking lot, sucking up carbon monoxide fumes.

    But hey, YKIOK.

  • I wonder if they're aiming this thing to be capable of driving around a city scene (e.g. Manhattan). A very hard problem, no doubt.

    But heck, likely the benefit of most value to the majority of drivers out there would be automatic highway driving. And that wouldn't be nearly as difficult to implement. All you'd really need are two electric eyes to watch the road lines (keeping the car centered in its lane), and a distance sensor to keep the car a safe distance from the one in front. Making it safe to, say, read a book while you're cruising along.

    Such a system has much room for refinement, of course (automatic passing?) but it would make highway driving less of a bore/chore, and would likely reduce a great number of accidents caused by falling asleep at the wheel.
  • Things like major obstacles entering the road (e.g. deer, or maybe a swerving car) and such would be tricky to handle. At least they're rare circumstances. You might have the car sound an alarm, to let the driver take the wheel and do what it necessary.

    Or possibly, a rear-facing distance sensor could detect how far back is the car behind you, and if the space is wide enough, the system could then safely slam on the brakes. (Passengers had better be using their seat belts!)

    Traffic jams, slowdowns, etc. would need no special logic to handle. As long as the car is aware of where the next one in front of it is, all it needs to do is drive at the highest speed that keeps it a safe distance away, without exceeding the limit. So if it ran into a traffic snarl, it would (in theory) slow down automatically.
  • It shouldn't be that hard. The car would probably slow down to about 60 km/h, and release its "grip" on the wheel over an interval of a few seconds. The dangerous thing to be on guard for (which I imagine is what you had in mind) is if the wheel controller is applying a torque at the time of release. A momentary snap of the wheel, at highway speeds, can indeed cause an accident. Releasing the wheel gradually should take care of that.

    In any case, if the car's on a straightway, it shouldn't be applying torque to the wheel anyway. It's only an issue if you're on a turn, or if your steering is waaaay out of alignment :-]
  • It is also extremely dangerous. What if the car in front blows a tire, throws a rod, breaks a driveshaft, has a wheel come off? They are mechanical things and mechanical things break.

    There is a show on the Discovery Channel called "Future Cars" or something like that which deals with robocars. I suggest you check it out. It is a great show.
  • Actually, back in 86 our team had a poster up with a picture of a pilot punching out of an F16, and the caption, "Fly-by-wire gives a whole new meaning to 'system crash.'"
  • On the dots - I forgot about snow country (I live in Phoenix, Arizona - maybe that's part of the problem - though I have seen it snow here). You are correct in stating the snowplow would "eat" them.

    A solution to this would be to use "magnetic" paint (I don't even know if such a thing can be created, but it seem feasible) - ie, the paint would have magnetized particles suspended in it, so that when it is put down, it would have a weak magnetic field that could be detected by the sensors on the car (in fact, the car should have both the smart dot sensors and mag dot sensors, and smart dots should have a magnet buried in them as well, in the event of failure of the dot's electronics). This is one solution. Another solution would be to bury the dots flush with the road surface, though this might be expensive.

    I don't think you would have to put down as many dots as you have on the roads today, only a smart/mag dot every 10-20 feet, with regular dots placed between them. Maybe with the mag-paint striping as well.

    I agree that it is fun driving, but my solution is more for the interstate driving/commuter driving crowds (I tend to like doing "fun" driving on back country freeways/roads/dirt roads - off the map stuff), and it doesn't remove choice from the driving, it merely acts as a safer form of cruise control.
  • I like driving. I take long car trips just for the sheer pleasure of it. If this freedom is taken away from me I will be very very unhappy.

    Oh, I'm sure that, at least for a while, there will be plenty of space for everyone who likes to drive to do so. Of course, it may not be on the public interstates, where it may be mandated to use autosteering. Of course, that would really help traffic problems, and we could end up getting there twice as fast without any congestion much more easily... but if you want to stick to your driving, I'm sure they'll allow you to at least on the side roads.
    ---
  • I can't see the purpose in robot cars.... except maybe for people who CAN NOT drive themselves. Whish is what public transport is for.

    You're saying that not once have you had to go somewhere, such as a long trip, and not wanted to drive the entire way?

    I personally would love to be able to enter my destination and not have to drive the vehicle. And if everyone else was using automated vehicles also, imagine how much safer the road would be - I wonder what percentage of accidents are due to driver error? 99%? I'd stop having to worry about all the idiots on the road.
    ---
  • That's why the future of software is massive regulation. And the Open Source movement won't be allowed to play in Real Life.
  • If the only thing a robot car had to deal with was other robot cars and the road, I would agree. But robot cars will still have to deal with tire blowouts, deer, fallen trees, ice patches, snow plows, salt on the camera lens, low-visibility conditions, flooding, legacy systems (unauthorized human drivers breaking the law), etc. After taking all these things into account, robot cars will probably be able to drive faster and closer together than good human drivers, but not quite as extreme as you indicate.
  • does he ride the clutch? does he burn out? does he squeal the tires? does he tailgate old ladies? does he race those stickered-up-chromed-out 89 civic hatchbacks?

    He's not a real driver yet :)

    Dan
  • I know numerous engineering examples, from the Space Shuttle to chemical plants, where the "dumb" computer, uttlerly lacking intuition, outperforms the human.

    With due respect, the situations you describe are very controlled environments, and while the consequences of error are obviously much higher than smacking into a lamp post, nearly all the variables of interest are within the control of the software. Please note that when--for example--there are high, gusty cross winds at a given landing site, Shuttle Control postpones or relocates the landing, because they know this is a situation outside the software's capabilities. On the road, there are an astonishing number of things outside one's control. Sooner or later the car's software will come across a situation it can't handle, but whose solution would be blindingly obvious to a human.

    --

  • There are things automated cars can do that humans can't. For example, if they are networked together, they can "convoy", each car driving down the freeway at seventy miles per hour, only a foot from the car in front of it. Because they are in constant communication, they can all stop and start safely despite being at a distance that would be wildly unsafe for humans.

    Cars closer together means that you can fit many more on the freeway, which means that you have less traffic.

  • What they didn't show is the female robot in passenger seat, critical to making it drive faster.

  • Exactly!! I have 'lost' to many a 'Vette because the owner was too dumb to know when to stop the game. Owner looks at the speedo, thinks "I've still got 20 to go" and ignores the fact he's already doing 120, and that there is a turn 1/4 mile up, and that there are cars approaching too rapidly to continue the game for any longer.

    The TT's are even more funny though. Car is unstable. They've recalled it three times for a mixture of spoiler, brake and front end tweaks to keep it on the road. I've driven the 'stock' model. At 70, they're great. At eighty they act like the road is wet, and at 100 you might as well be on ice. I wasn't willing to go any faster in it.
  • Exactly!! I have 'lost' to many a 'Vette because the owner was too dumb to know when to stop the game. Owner looks at the speedo, thinks "I've still got 20 to go" and ignores the fact he's already doing 120, and that there is a turn 1/4 mile up, and that there are cars approaching too rapidly to continue the game for any longer.

    The TT's are even more funny though. Car is unstable. They've recalled it three times for a mixture of spoiler, brake and front end tweaks to keep it on the road. I've driven the 'stock' model. At 70, they're great. At eighty they act like the road is wet, and at 100 you might as well be on ice. I wasn't willing to go any faster in it.
  • McCarthy. As in Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator. The fact he was Dick Nixon's mentor and a freind to John and Bobby Kennedy for a fair number of years may make you want to re-read 'All the Presidents men' and rethink the motive for the plumbers, and consider JFKs psychotic aversion to Cuba. He also spawned Barry Goldwater and indirectly Ronnie Raygun, with their anti-communist tendancies.
  • Actually, I usually don't move. Hurst independant brake lockers, with momentary safety toggles bolted to the shifter. There's a small bit of intentional air in the front circuit, so I can optionally grind the car forward. The only one in danger is the fellow behind me, and even then only from the smoke off the tires. Ruining a pair of cheap Thompson and intentionally smacking into some geriatric in a LeSabre are very different things!

    Oh, yeah. My last ticket was in March of 1997. The exhaust on my F-150 was a little loud.
  • Actually, knowing MS, you'd have Microsoft Brakes 2000 and Microsoft Tires 2000 but if you didn't buy Microsoft Axle 2000, Microsoft Hubcaps 2000, and Microsoft Timing Belts 2000 but rather went for Corel Hubcaps 2000, Netscape Timing Belts 2000, and Ford Hubcaps, your car wouldn't be able to start, but if you did manage to get it to start, your hazard lights would go off, the horn would start to blow inconcessantly, and the only way to turn them off would be to hold the accelerator pedal down while holding down the Microsoft Power Windows button, and at the same time holding down the cruise control button. Then it would shut down so you could replace the offending parts.

    I think I'd have to buy an Apple Macintosh car. They'd come in five flavors and have one button in the entire car, which depending on what the car thought you wanted to do, would do it. The hood of the car would be a translucent color, so you can peer through there and go WOW but never open it to touch anything. My "blueberry" car would have the "new car" smell of artificial blueberries...
  • Refinements:
    1) Be able to dodge a deer that all of a sudden jumps into the middle of the road.
    2) Know when you will want to exit the highway so that you don't pass it...
    3) See far ahead for the a$$hole who tries to pass someone in your lane, so as to avoid a head-on collision.
    4) Know when to slow down if it detects a cop...:)
    5) Know when to slow down if it's a construction zone or an otherwise lower speed limit than before.
    6) basically just be able to predict what other drivers are going to do... accidents that you can avoid by swerving/slowing down, the computer would have to be able to do too.
  • A Robot Car. A perfect digital map. A network flow optimization algorithm that gets you to where you want to go, taking into account current and historical traffic patterns.

    Yup, some people are able to do already in their heads but read on:

    No traffic lights, no stop signs, no speed limits. Your car will be able to avoid other traffic without these things designed to make driving safe for imperfect human drivers.

    Except during rush hour in the biggest most congested cities, most roads are >50% unused. Huh? you say... traffic is everywhere? No, most places, people tend to leave at least 1 car length, and cars tend to travel in "packs" because some slow clod won't let others pass.

    None of that. Cars are *right* upto one another. Nearly no space. They already have this in a special highway in San Diego. And no attitutes, no slow people to block your way... everyone is going really really fast.

    And that's not it. Stick in an entertainment center, a reclining chair... man you're set. Get a good book, maybe pop a movie into the DVD drive.
    And since speed limits are a thing of the past, you'll get there in 3 hours going at 200km/h. And it'll be safer.
  • 3 hands, 3 legs, satellite navigation systems,
    lasers, stereocameras, powerful computers, hughe
    research org/university to back it up.
    And the damn thing still cant play criss cross
    in traffic and drive in and out of NYC the way
    any teenager with a license around here can.
    It's moments like these that make me laugh at
    matrixes of all kinds and feel safe from any sort
    of "computer takeover" doomsday scenario:)
  • So when's the robot sleigh coming?
    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Hofstadter commits a comman fallacy: the new technology can't mimic the way human does it, so the machine can't do it.
    *BZZZT*
    I know numerous engineering examples, from the Space Shuttle to chemical plants, where the "dumb" computer, uttlerly lacking intuition, outperforms the human.

    All that cognition isn't always a benefit: it also makes more mistakes possible. A "dumb" driving algorithm might actually be safer because (1) it doesn't get tired, (2) it doesn't make erroneous assumption, (3) it's performance won't be degraded by emotional state.....

  • 3 legs huh... are we SURE the third on is really a leg? It IS a guy, after all... aardWolf64

  • It was all going so well until... (Score:3)

    by unitron ( 5733 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @11:21AM (#1158406) Homepage Journal
    "Observers said the test was going quite smoothly up until seconds before the fiery spectacle when the robot began the 'Talking on the cell phone and putting on make-up in the rear-view mirror' portion of the test."

  • Dont sue me, the Dummy was driving! (Score:3)

    by Bald Wookie ( 18771 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @10:47AM (#1158407)
    Imagine the look on the face of the state trooper. Klaus is driving, holding a Lowenbrau in his fourth arm. Youre curled up in the back seat taking a nap, and your AIBO is sticking his head out the window.

    I really dont see robotic chauffers as the future of automated driving. It seems like it would be better to mount all of this stuff in the car itself. Granted they do take things up a notch on the cool factor. Personally I am pushing for these auto-drive systems to be implemented like bumper cars. Get a big ass grid, metal freeways, and put bumpers all around. See Mr Gore, you can have your electric cars now...

    -BW

  • Re:Bad robot drivers (Score:3)

    by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @11:57AM (#1158408) Homepage
    I think automated highway driving will become a reality long before fully automated robotic cars can handle city driving. On car trips I often enjoy the scenery and the conversation, but I have no problem handing the driving over to a computer. Imagine taking a nap during the mindless drive between Chicago and St. Louis. Anyway, I would much rather have the computer drive than my girlfriend.

    -B
  • Does not blare horn 2 seconds after light turns green

    I usually wait to the count of one and start turning the tires after that. If seeing a huge chunk of Detroit steel launching itself at your back end, coiled in the dense fumes of burning rubber and redline screaming at the tune of 6000 RPM doesn't get you off the line, you deserve to be roadkill.

  • Re:Don't ever expect this in a real situation. (Score:3)

    by spagthorpe ( 111133 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @04:33PM (#1158410)
    Realize that it's foggy, or likely to be icy and what patches of the road are likely to be icy and adjust appropriately?

    Actually, yes. It's been done. A number of car manufacturers have been working with active suspension systems that take this into consideration.

    Notice a small child at the side of the road and slow down or and be ready to stop immediately?

    Through the use of infrared, no problem.

    Notice a basketball being shot at a hoop above a hedge that obscures a driveway and assume that children might be playing behind the hedge and slow down?

    Subtle difference than the little girl, but yes again.

    Notice a driver late at night that's weaving slightly, pick him out for a drunk and take appropriate action to avoid him?

    Yes again.

    See the reflection of the eyes of a deer in the bushes and be prepared for it to jump in the road?

    Same deal again....

    Other obsticles considered....

    Yes, I think that a computer system could do much of the above. In fact, I don't think most humans do most of the above.

    More importantly, here are some things that it can do much better than a human:

    + Not fall sleep behind the wheel

    + Not drink and drive

    + Much faster reflexes, and imagine the ability to be wired into the ABS and traction control mechanisms of the car, so that you KNEW where the limits really were.

    + See things ahead in the roadway that we can't with normal vision. Yes, I'm aware of the IR feature in one of the new cars coming out.

    + Not slam on it's brakes and hit a tree, schoolbus, or whatever if a squirrel runs across the street in front of it.

    + Connect via network to other robo-cars in the fast lane, close together, so that they may all use drafting to reduce energy costs. Because each knows what the other is doing, no pileups.

    + No road rage.

    The list really goes on, but the point is, that there are many things that a computer can do well in place of a human.

    Certainly, there is a lot of intuition and experience that it will be very hard and even impossible to duplicate. I'm not saying that it will be a technology that will eliminate the need for human intervention, but I can see the day, when I can put my car on auto-pilot on the freeway and take a nap. Sure would make those 5-hour trips to Vegas a lot nicer....

  • But where's the Fahrvergnügen in that!? (Score:3)

    by Bug-Y2K ( 126658 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @10:34AM (#1158411) Homepage
    I'd rather drive [slashdot.org] thanks!

    I can't see the purpose in robot cars.... except maybe for people who CAN NOT drive themselves. Whish is what public transport is for.
    --chuck goolsbee

  • another car driven by Linux (Score:4)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Friday March 31, 2000 @10:34AM (#1158412) Homepage Journal
    This page [unipr.it] describes a car driven by a Linux computer. It's called the ARGO project, and it's in Italy. It's driven a long distance around Italy in what they called the "MilleMiglia in Automatico Tour".

  • Drivers (Not) Wanted (Score:4)

    by Error Spelling ( 14666 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @11:14AM (#1158413) Homepage
    I guess VW will have to change their slogan.

  • Don't ever expect this in a real situation. (Score:4)

    by brad.hill ( 21936 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @12:00PM (#1158414)
    Robot drivers may be fine for controlled situations like factory floors or closed courses, but they'll never be able to approach real drivers for real world situations.

    Douglas Hofstadter (AI researcher and author of the wonderful Godel, Escher, Bach) comments on this very problem in his latest book, Le Ton Beau De Marot. He says the problem is as difficult as good machine translation, and that it's extremely unlikely a machine will ever do a good job.

    Driving a car is actually one of the most complex things we do. An incredible amount of awareness and thought goes into it. Can a computer:

    Realize that it's foggy, or likely to be icy and what patches of the road are likely to be icy and adjust appropriately?

    Notice a small child at the side of the road and slow down or and be ready to stop immediately?

    Notice a basketball being shot at a hoop above a hedge that obscures a driveway and assume that children might be playing behind the hedge and slow down?

    Notice a driver late at night that's weaving slightly, pick him out for a drunk and take appropriate action to avoid him?

    See the reflection of the eyes of a deer in the bushes and be prepared for it to jump in the road?

    See a driver with lots of dents in his car and give him a bit more space?

    Judge from the way the wind just blew that big box into the middle of the road that it's empty and safe to hit if stopping suddenly might cause an accident?

    See the canoe on the roof of the car ahead of you isn't very securely tied down and pull back or change lanes in case it falls?

    These are just a few of the thousands of situations that come up routinely in driving and which try the intuition of even the smartest human drivers every second we're on the road. As much of an accomplishment as this is, it's mostly empty PR. A computer will not be able to safely navigate a car on public streets for a LONG time, if ever.

  • Thoughts on computer guided vehicles... (Score:4)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @04:24PM (#1158415) Homepage
    The problems with creating a computer guided vehicle are enormous. Just getting the computer to recognize the lines, etc of a road without veering and such, and doing it in realtime - that is a huge problem. Doing the same on a normal road when you have four or five (or more) cars around you, with normal humans (and the woman in the Expedition putting on makeup and chatting on the cell phone - yikes!) is near impossible. Then comes avoiding the small stuff (kids, balls, cats - well, maybe not cats - just kidding)...

    I think we shouldn't be concentrating on a complete computer guided car concept, but more on an advanced cruise control for vehicles. Front and rear looking radar (maybe side radar too), combined with a simple vision system (a single B/W low-res cam should do OK here), and smart dots - these things could be done in such a way to make an easy an affordable "smart" cruise control for the freeway commute or interstate drive.

    The radar portion would be for speed and avoidance control - this portion is already in limited use in luxury vehicles, as well as some commercial vehicles. The cam system would be forward looking, and would be a system to do edge detection - to help keep the car centered going down a lane. The processing power to do the real-time edge detection and centering should be able to be accomplished with current cpu's, at max maybe a small Beowulf style cluster parallel computer (to process in sections of the image - kinda like the 8x8 processing of jpegs). The final portion would be the smart dots...

    What I am calling a smart dot here would be the only infrastructure change needed - and if such a thing hasn't already been created and patented, well, it probably should've been. If not, then what follows I am placing under the GPL - the design, and implementation of anything remotely like it (I doubt this will hold up in court, though). Anyhow...

    A smart dot would replace those dots that separate the lanes on the freeway. The new dots would be similar, except that they would have a small circuit in them that put out a very low power 900 Mhz signal, that can only be detected by being near to the dot. The lower edge of the dot would be 3M reflective white, the upper top curved portion would remain clear, to focus sunlight onto a small solar cell to recharge a small NiMH batttery that powers the thing. This "lens" would only be about the size of a quarter or so, maybe even a dime size hole would do it. At any rate, the rest of the dot would be the 3M white, so at night (the battery should be able to last through a night of use - this thing will be very low power) it will show up in the headlamps of the car as normal. This same style dot could be used for the frustum/rectangular style dots, with only a few simple mods.

    All the dots emit the low power signal, so low you must be within a foot or less to pick the signal up. Sensors on either side of the car would pick the signal up, so that the car knows it is drifting, and can compensate left or right, and update what it is seeing in the camera vision system to account for the drift. These dots would be the last line of defense (well, not the last line - since this IS a cruise control, the driver is still behind the wheel, and can take over in an emergency). The dots could also emit information, such as a certain exit coming up, or cars need to slow down for road work ahead, or merge left/right (they could be programmable as well - maybe these things use a funky iPic, like that webserver). If they really wanted to be cheap, the dots could encase small rare-earth magnets, and hall effect sensors would be placed on the cars (with appropriate compensation for the earth's magnetic field). However, these kind of dots wouldn't be as flexible, though they would cost only fractions of a penny more than the current dots in use, and probably wouldn't take much to retool for manufacturing them, vs the smart dots.

    This kind of system, while not as whiz-bang, would solve a LOT of problems (such as people not being able to merge properly, and vehicle density issues vs speed). It might make traffic move smoother during rush hour, and make it easier to get on and off freeways during these times.

    It won't allow you to read a paper or take a nap and catch those few extra minutes of sleep while you go to work - but when it comes to cars, I wouldn't trust any system to allow me to do that!

  • The real problems are legal. (Score:4)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @10:44AM (#1158416) Homepage Journal
    The real problem with getting automated drivers on the road is legal, not technical. The way the legal system works (at least in the US), any company that sells these is at a huge risk of being sued out of existence. Even if automated cars are one hundred times safer than the average human driver, the lawyers will still pounce on the company that makes these for a huge amount on the first accident involving one. And given the way juries often work, they'd likely win.

    That is the trouble with new technologies. The legal system often demands they not just be better, but that they be perfect.

  • Bad robot drivers (Score:4)

    by tjwhaynes ( 114792 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @10:35AM (#1158417)

    Will the move to automated driving systems make our journeys out on the highways any better though? Will we end up leaning out of the window and yelling "Stupid MS Driver"? Will we have robots giving us the finger (arm, apendage, tentacle if bioengineering gets going) as they overtake us on the hard shoulder? Will people hack their robot driver to go faster, park on rear-bumper doing 100mph or cut more corners in an effort to avoid traffic lights/ pedestrians/ the police? Will we be attacked with a denial of driving attack by some script kiddie? Or worse, have a UCITA-like end-of-license removal where the originator of the driving OS produces a new version and wants us to upgrade? Stay tuned ... I like the look of the bicycle personally :-)

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • 1) Does not properly extend middle finger at random times
    2) Actually comes to complete stop at stop signs
    3) Signals lane changes
    4) Cannot operate a cell phone while driving
    5) Does not blare horn 2 seconds after light turns green
    6) Refuses to tailgate car in front of it
    7) Does not drive 55 mph in school zone
    8) Does not drive 15 mph in fast lane
    9) Stops for pedestrians in crosswalk
    10) Actually passed driving test

  • Knight Rider Revisited!!!! (Score:5)

    by BRock97 ( 17460 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @10:40AM (#1158419) Homepage
    Wow, and people laughed when Kitt the talking car was driving Michael Knight around while he slept! We have arrived people!

    Michael, I have some bad news.

    What is it Klaus? Are we running behind?

    No, but I did hit two pedestrians and drove through a corn field.

    But we aren't running behind.

    No.

    Good then.


    Bryan R.

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