Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
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Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
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Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#2One of the next obvious steps for self-driving vehicles is “flocking” or drafting; this is an almost trivial problem once two or more vehicles are autonomously locked within a few inches of each other.
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#3This reminds me of old Popular Science magazines promising a future of unrealized technology.
I do not think this is the future. But it’s something I’d like to see in a sci-fi movie.
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#4Wouldn't it make more sense to build the charging into the road?
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#5The only good options are:
1. Make much more rapid charging possible on the cars much closer to the interstate. 2. Add a electrified metal rail to the road so that the cars can charge like a subway car.
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#6Wouldn't it make more sense to build the charging into the road?
We could make the road out of interlocking hexagonal solar panels
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#7One of the next obvious steps for self-driving vehicles is “flocking” or drafting; this is an almost trivial problem once two or more vehicles are autonomously locked within a few inches of each other.
If you have a car only a few inches behind you and you spot a problem and need to emergency brake, you can't actually start braking until the car behind has started braking, otherwise the car behind will crash into the back of you.
If you have 3 cars in a row, and the first car spots a problem, it can't start braking until after the 2nd car has started, but the 2nd car can't start braking until after the 3rd car has started.
It gets linearly more dangerous as more cars are added.
Not saying it can't be done, but the problem is more subtle than just working out how to stop the cars from crashing into each other at speed: they also need to be able to brake in emergencies without crashing into each other.
Possibly the way to do it would be to mechanically couple the cars like a train, so that it is safe for the one in front to start braking earlier than the one behind, albeit with reduced performance.
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#8One of the next obvious steps for self-driving vehicles is “flocking” or drafting; this is an almost trivial problem once two or more vehicles are autonomously locked within a few inches of each other.
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Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#9Asking sincerely: Why should we not simply pull over to do this? Planes obviously are a different situation, but cars can easily just stop.
While cool to imagine, it seems unnecessarily complicated and unsafe to do this in motion on the road.
[Edit: The prof and his team are quite serious about it, so I assume there must be a reason and I'm actually curious what it might be.]
Re: Can electric cars on the highway emulate plane-to-plane refueling?
#10One of the next obvious steps for self-driving vehicles is “flocking” or drafting; this is an almost trivial problem once two or more vehicles are autonomously locked within a few inches of each other.
If you have a car only a few inches behind you and you spot a problem and need to emergency brake, you can't actually start braking until the car behind has started braking, otherwise the car behind will crash into the back of you. If you have 3 cars in a row, and the first car spots a problem, it can't start braking until after the 2nd car has started, but the 2nd car can't start braking until after the 3rd car has…
The idea is predicated on autonomous control and presumably the vehicles communicate in real time...they all brake together at the delta V of the least capable member.