A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
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Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#227 years. The first famous "proof of concept" autonomous driving is Navlab (Thorpe, 1990). (Are there any prior projects?)
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#327 years. The first famous "proof of concept" autonomous driving is Navlab (Thorpe, 1990). (Are there any prior projects?)
A little more than that.
Navlab 1 was built in 1986 using a Chevrolet panel van.[2] The van had 5 racks of computer hardware, including 3 Sun workstations, video hardware and GPS receiver, and a Warp supercomputer.[2] The vehicle suffered from software limitations and was not fully functional until the late 80s, when it achieved its top speed of 20 mph (32 km/h).[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navlab
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#4I would argue that the 2004 DARPA challenge was a failure with the best car, Sandstorm, only going 7 miles before getting stuck on a rock. That led to a do-over in 2005 that was really the first success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Gra...
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#5It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#6It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.
This analogy can't work in 21st century. First this is linear thinking, it does not take exponential progress into account. Second, in the case of Autonomous vehicles, the problem is purely software related and does not have any limitations in terms of hardware.
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#7Proving that one (or something) can drive is a far cry from proving that one can safely drive in a wide variety of changing conditions around other drivers. I would however argue that many people don't actually possess the latter ability, and I think 'robots' will get there before we as a species do.
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#8It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.
This analogy can't work in 21st century. First this is linear thinking, it does not take exponential progress into account. Second, in the case of Autonomous vehicles, the problem is purely software related and does not have any limitations in terms of hardware.
>does not have any limitations in terms of hardware.
That seems a little strong. Lidar tech, for example, seems to still be a differentiator between competitors.
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#9It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.
This analogy can't work in 21st century. First this is linear thinking, it does not take exponential progress into account. Second, in the case of Autonomous vehicles, the problem is purely software related and does not have any limitations in terms of hardware.
The problems are more than hardware and software.
Hardware and software is designed against ethical, legal and liability standards. This is illustrated by the high number of rear end collisions that robot cars are prone to vs human drivers.
Experience in the field doesn’t happen exponentially. Development of law relating to these matters doesn’t happen exponentially.
Re: A Pentagon-funded contest spawned many of today’s self-driving startups
#10It was 13 years from the Wright Flyer to the first commercial fixed-wing aircraft. And that was still very dangerous. Jet engines (which really introduced the safety we are used to in airlines) took 50 years.
Why do you say that jet engines introduced safety? If anything, jet engines were very unsafe for a long time. I would argue better manufacturing, redundant parts, better flight training, and quality assurance that led to the safety I expect when flying today.
Every screw on a Boeing aircraft has a documented specification for the torque used to install it. That’s why I feel comfortable to fly as much as I do.