The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

Post by e40 » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #77

josephlord wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a cyclist as well as a driver and I give a lot of space to cyclists when overtaking them but I don't see that working too well. When cyclists/pedestrians get used to the system they will start to abuse it and rely on the systems to force the vehicles to avoid them/stop. Also what defines too close? If you stray 1mm inside that zone do the brakes come on hard regardless of other traffic? What happens when the cycl…

Autonomous braking exists for those kinds of events: When a person steps out in front of a car, for example. Yet I don't see people deliberately jumping out in front of cars just to mess with them.

Post by venus » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 2:08 PM UTC

bertil wrote: post #44

nabla9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but Google cars still can't drive in the rain or in the snow. Not even on a wet street. They have driven all those thousand miles in Mountain View, Calif. in good weather. Generally lidar's don't work well with rain or reflective surfaces.

Indeed — I remember a projet in high-school, explaining how lidar were being used to measuring rain drops direction… The thing is: there apparently now is a technology (at Mercedes or BMW) that uses beamers instead of front lights; a secondary camera detects droplets’ movement, predicts their fall and the beamer doesn’t shine light precisely on them. It helps light in front of you at night without shining mainly the…

Post by tim333 » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 2:09 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #39

gamegoblin wrote: post #21

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Harder yet, Southeast Asia. Hundreds of pedestrians, tons of vehicle variety (some entirely makeshift), uncontrolled intersections, very little regard to any regulations.

> very little regard to any regulations. That's an important point, I never expected lanes count and lane direction to be interpreted as suggestions until I saw people going through a roundabout on both sides at the same time.

Post by seren » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 2:10 PM UTC

furyg3 wrote: post #89

seren wrote: post #52

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I think the real markets are long haul trucking and small delivery van for the last miles. All in all it is probably a significant portions of job.

I don't understand why subways and trains aren't implementing. The universe of possibilities is so incredibly limited in these situations that it seems like a piece of cake, compared to city driving. "Can you see that the track is clear of obstacles? If not, stop!"

Post by danielweber » Mon, Apr 28, 2014, 2:10 PM UTC

alextgordon wrote: post #57

rwmj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is .. what happens if a cyclist falls in front of a car with a human driver? Probably the car drives over him and the cyclist dies. The challenge is to do better than that, which is a rather low bar.

People won't see it like that. If a human driver makes a mistake, it's "human error". If a robot driver makes a mistake it's criminal negligence -- because robots are capable of not making mistakes. In other words, robots are held to a higher standard than humans.