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How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

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Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#111

Post by jiggy2011 »

njs12345 wrote: post #103
Joeri wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would probably BE the public transportation. We need large buses because drivers aren't flexible enough to deploy, and you need to have enough capacity to meet peak demand. If you can have smaller driverless vehicles, and just put more of them on the road during peak hours, it's much more cost-effective (and environmentally friendly) to have smaller capacity vehicles. I doubt we'll see more than 10 people per pu…

A diesel bus gets 6mpg --- you only need 10-15 people on one to match even the most fuel-efficient of cars in terms of environmental friendliness, unless you're referring to something else..

That's assuming there is only 1 person in the car. A car that does 60mpg with 5 passengers can move people 300mpg (of course you will lose some mpg due to the extra weight)

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#112

Post by jiggy2011 »

marshallp wrote: post #76
HNatWORK wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything except for some of the Google X Labs projects, of which this is one. I'm going to take an optimistic tack and say they're doing this for the PR benefits of being seen as creating new technology that gives people tools they never thought they could have, somewhat like Microsoft has done with the Kinect.

Microsoft made bank with the kinect. Also, google is in serious danger of being killed by facebook (more data = better search results), so google needs another huge profit stream. Running the entire transportation infrastructure can be that (there will be competitors, but with google's superior tech talent, their vehicles will be safer and hence win).

Do you think that google will sell the vehicles themselves or will they just license the technology to existing automakers?

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#113

Post by blhack »

ctdonath wrote: post #9

Everything Google does feeds back, somehow, to data mining. How does self-driving cars fit in to Google's plans? ETA: Downvoted for asking a serious question? WTH?

Yeah, there is literally no chance that they're pursuing this because it will be a multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry selling hardware to people and changing the world for the better.

It must be because they have some dire plan to find out where I get my tacos!

/s

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#114

Post by marshallp »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #112
marshallp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft made bank with the kinect. Also, google is in serious danger of being killed by facebook (more data = better search results), so google needs another huge profit stream. Running the entire transportation infrastructure can be that (there will be competitors, but with google's superior tech talent, their vehicles will be safer and hence win).

Do you think that google will sell the vehicles themselves or will they just license the technology to existing automakers?

If I were them, I would just run the vehicles as a fleet. The have many billions in cash and borrow any amount, so why not. Then innovate on the maintenance of the fleet with robots as well. Maybe start with franchising. Plus, they automatically set the rates for each individual journey dynamically and extract as much as possible.

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#115

Post by jiggy2011 »

marshallp wrote: post #114
jiggy2011 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that google will sell the vehicles themselves or will they just license the technology to existing automakers?

If I were them, I would just run the vehicles as a fleet. The have many billions in cash and borrow any amount, so why not. Then innovate on the maintenance of the fleet with robots as well. Maybe start with franchising. Plus, they automatically set the rates for each individual journey dynamically and extract as much as possible.

Interesting, I can see how the taxi idea could be more efficient.

On the other hand cars are a great way of signaling things (like wealth, trendiness etc) and I think people like the idea of having their car.

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#116

Post by sophacles »

tomkarlo wrote: post #104
sophacles wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a crucial difference also between what you are responding to, and what I said. I am not necessarily proposing the user choice should be followed or is even necessary. It is just a possible variation on the theme. If you get in a cab and say "take me to $x" it is the cab driver's responsibility to take the best route. However, since metering is distance AND time based, there is a lot of wiggle room in what be…

"If you get in a cab and say "take me to $x" it is the cab driver's responsibility to take the best route. " Obviously this can vary by municipality, but in most cities drivers are required to take the "most direct" route, rather than the "best" route, if for no other reason than the latter would be so subjective as to be useless for enforcement purposes. So if you're in a New York taxi (for example), the driver in t…

Even following this restriction on a grid:

I'm at (1,1) and I want to get to (4,4). Assuming a restrictive interpretation of most direct[1] and no one-way streets factored in[2], there are still two equally direct and valid paths:

(1,1) -> (1,4) -> (4,4)

and

(1,1) -> (4,1) -> (4,4)

Which is most direct? If the cab driver chooses to go with the later because his buddy pays him to go past the billboard at (3,1), what's to stop him? What's wrong with that?

[1] If most direct means "shortest path", then there are many more equivalent routes.

[2] One way streets also offer a nice choice of where to do turns around a block under favorable circumstances. Similarly road construction offers extra choices by detour.

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#117

Post by Schwolop »

yread wrote: post #68
xxbondsxx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LIDAR works _through_ reflections. It essentially paints out the surrounding area with laser pulses and then measures the time for those pulses to come back. Since lasers travel at the speed of light, this time-to-return is quite small and hence they need quite accurate clocks (which is where a lot of the expense comes in). That being said, laser range-finding works well on diffuse surfaces; this is because when diff…

What about a fence - the wires reflect the light but they make up perhaps 5% of the crossection - the LIDAR could "see" only the holes

Radar can handle that problem. To be fair, probably not the automative radars they're already using, but something in the tens of GHz range could do it.

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#118

Post by Schwolop »

pbw wrote: post #16

The technology is impressive, but humans drive okay without LIDAR, radar, or GPS. Maybe some day self-driving cars can drive using only two small visible-light sensors located above and behind the steering wheel. It might just be an AI challenge to operate that way, and commercial systems will always employ advanced sensors for better safety. But I don't think true parity has been reached until they can drive like we…

Don't anthropomorphise design. Computers are better at processing huge quantities of data in structured form. Humans are better at pattern recognition and adaption. Trying to design an autonomous robot by emulating the way humans or animals do it is a recipe for bad design.

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#119

Post by ph0rque »

lupatus wrote: post #110
ph0rque wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe following the lead of European and South American cities, city downtowns will become pedestrian-only zones.

This doesn't make sense for many American cities where the downtown only houses the municipal government, museums, and boutique shopping, but the city itself has several other major shopping districts, not to mention residential and industrial districts. These different districts are often miles and miles apart with no easy walking routes between or often within the districts. For example, Anchorage, Alaska, is 1,704…

Perhaps this can be modified to have multiple pedestrian-only zones per city, judicially spaced and consolidated.

Re: How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

#120

Post by kamaal »

revelation wrote: post #79

You may giggle at Googles attempts to catch up with Facebook, but looking at this video.. boy, they are way ahead. Google isn't so much a search company, its an innovation company. They are already building the next trillion dollar industry while Facebook is optimizing sharing cat pictures.

>>They are already building the next trillion dollar industry while Facebook is optimizing sharing cat pictures.

What makes you think that sharing cat pictures isn't a trillion dollar industry?

Last time I check photo sharing apps and bird-in-pig games fetch and sell for more money than life saving cancer drugs.

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