Today I would like to show you what are technical aspects of introducing driverless cars on mass scale
First let's look at video which describes in short how it works
Sensors
Driverless car must know its environment just like human driver have to see the road.
This problem is not yet entirely solved but following technologies are being utilized in prototypes:
- Video cameras
- Infra-red
- Radars
- Lasers
Navigation
Idea of driverless car requires that it is able to move between two points without any human intervention, so it requires a system to plan a road.
This problem is already solved as driverless car can utilize existing auto-navigation systems based on GPS technology.
Motion Planning
This describes how car should move in the environment (which is previously detected by sensors), how it should react to changes like pedestrians suddenly walking on the street etc.
So far it is the biggest problem which is not yet fully developed, research is currently made on this subject and it was the main problem of DARPA Urban Challenge.
Vehicle Control
This problem concerns physical control over the vehicle and it is already solved. Computers can already control vehicle motion.
Questions
Which problem was hardest in your opinion before reading this presentation?
How do you find current progress on this issue?
Do you think auto-navigation is reliable enough at the moment?
When driverless car would come to market should it have backup manual control?
I'm really amazed that driveless cars can do so much now. It's really unbelievable that cars in Urban Challange can drive through a small city without any crash. They're going slow, but they finish.
ReplyDeleteFor sure the biggest problem is to recognize surrounding areas as well as we do. As you said to achieve it , it’s necessary to fit a car with all the stuff you listed above, but at this stage of technical progress it is hard to make it good enough.
ReplyDeleteI’ve heard that GPS loses its precision every day because of increasing number of devices which use the system. It’s also happening due to the fact original positioning system belongs to US Army and it’s not being developed as fast as needed.
We all know electronics is often being unreliable so driveless cars should have manual control backup.
I think that DARPA Grand Challenge and DARPA Urban Challenge can significantly contribute to development of driverless cars. Year by year the level of cars starting in DARPA challenges is extremely increasing.
ReplyDeleteAnswers :
ReplyDelete1 I don't , but those videos says it's quite advanced
2. That depends what we expect from auto-navigation. Finding shortest way on a map from point A to point be is quite simple if w we have accurate maps. The problem starts when we want to consider things which aren't on maps like traffic jams or road blockades.
3. No! Users interference is dangerous for the whole system! He should sit in special comfortable cage ;)
I dont know much about these cars from the technical side so its hard to say anything about the progress or when theses cars will be able to ride our roads. Watching the youtube movies it looks like the navigations run the cars pretty smooth by now.
ReplyDeleteAnd definitely those cars sould have a manual backup system in case of gps failure or other errors but there sould be a different lane on the road for manual drivers to not collide with the computer drived ones
The biggest problem is to interact with surrounding. Fx: cyclists, pedestrians, other drivers especially from Warsaw and Poznan, taxi drivers, crazy motorcyclists, police, ambulance...
ReplyDeleteDo you think auto-navigation is reliable enough at the moment?
It's not perfect. Nobody will guarantee you that the road on the map exists, or that has not changed suddenly to a one-way
When driverless car would come to market should it have backup manual control?
Of course not, people are dangerous behind the wheel. After all, driver-less car will be so safe.
Too much of factors that must be taken into account when you want to get to the destination point safely.
ReplyDeleteIt is realiable enough to use it. But in my opinion such cars should be also operable in offline mode like humans do. Focusing on GPS / 3D terrain map hybrid certainly is a wrong turn.
3. When driverless car would come to market should it have backup manual control?
No doubt about it. In case of any automated machine there must be a manual mode.
How do you find current progress on this issue?
ReplyDeleteProgress in this issue will be very fast. This is a future in driving.
Do you think auto-navigation is reliable enough at the moment?
That it's know that car navigation help us in driving but if we have a bad one we can enter the lake ;D
When driverless car would come to market should it have backup manual control?
Of cource, the machine is just a machine