Battle hardened, robot-driven cars by 2030
A scientist speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Francisco has predicted robot-driven cars that could drive humans around by the year 2030. Intelligent robot vehicles are likely to be used on battlefields even sooner though predicts Sebastian Thrun, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University. Thrun is leading the Standford team again in this year's 60 mile DARPA Urban Challenge (see related post).
Physorg.com reports Thrun as saying, "I think they'll be on the battlefield by around 2015. It is going to make sense to use them in situations such as convoys, or in hostile environments where there is danger to personnel."
Computer aided driving systems are already filtering into luxury cars and fully robotic systems are sure to follow. Autonomous Cruise Control is a good example that is already available on a wide range of both luxury and mainstream car brands. The system utilises radar or lasers to monitor the distance between the car and the vehicle in front and will automatically slow the car down or speed up when required.
Another example of computer aided driving is Adaptive Braking, a technology found in the new 2008 Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Adaptive braking includes hill assist and panic brake assist. The hill assist detects when you are starting on a slope and maintains some brake pressure in the calipers when you move your foot to the accelerator until you actually apply the gas, to keep you from rolling back down the hill. The panic brake assist detects when you do a quick brake apply and helps to apply full pressure.
Analysis: Sounds to me like cars in 2030 are going to be a cross between the Terminator and the Maglevs of Minority Report. They'll get you where you want to go quickly, safely and with the highest degree of comfort but wont let other robotic cars cut in front of them in traffic. Hopefully the robotic cars wont rise up against their human masters post-2015 and we'll all get the chance to enjoy being safely chauffeured around circa-2030.
Related:
[Source: Physorg.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Murc 9:50PM (2/20/2007)
by 2030...I'd prefer a flying car.
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cheezedog 1:45AM (2/21/2007)
I like driving more then most,so this effort to push self driven cars disgusts me... If you find driving so horrible, take a bus, or a cab. Or at the vary least, move closer to work, and bike it.
And this idea disgusts me as it is ripe with social abbuse.
Someone may emagine that famialy vacations could become fun for the whole famialy since mom and dad can actualy talk & play with there kids while the famialy van takes them to disney land... I emagin that after about a few hours of everyone cramped in the cramp into a space half the size of a dormroom, someone would begin to crack.
Someone would eventualy try to send the car to pick up the kids from school like a well trained dog. Just emagin how a social preditor, child rapest, or even a car thief could take advantage of this situation where a car without a driver arrives to pick up the children from school....
Drunk driven could become a none exsistant crime since the car could safely take its ellibrated owner home, but what does this do for alcohal, and drug abuse? It probably only makes it worse since there is no way now to catch a drug abuser, or alcohalic when they are most likly to be abusing the law when a police officer has the chance to arrest them.
And morning commuting that was once time to prepair for work, might be turned into more work time in the name of produtivity.
Of course, along this line of thinking... Parking issues could arrise as you could simple get out of the car, and let it go park itself a mile or 20 away from the front door of your office. Once your done with work, you simple call you car, and wait for it to arrive like a personal limo, or have it start circling your building once your done with work. One would emagin that if enough people purchase these self driven cars, the cars would start circling areas looking for a parking space all day while there owners work... (thats really energy efficant... )
On top of all this.. you still have to deal with the issue of what to do about all the human driven cars. Anyone that drives there own car will of course abbuse how some of the safty system the self driven cars work for there own selfish needs... If the car is programed to speed up if a car behind it gets too close, it will be a human driver at the end pushing a whole train of self driven cars to past legal and/or safe speeds, (endangering not only there life, but the whole train of cars they push with there human driving habbits.)
If the car is programed to drive at a legal speed in the left lane as long as possible, it will be passed from the right by impatient speeders.
If the car is programed to wait at a intersection till a clear break is given so it can turn left, it will be human drivers that will speed up forcing it to wait to turn left for even longer then expected.
And if a car is programed to slow down and pull the shoulder should a car behind it starts driving erraticaly, a person that drives there own car will drive there car vary erraticaly whenever a self driven car is infront of them to be able to pass them with ease.
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MikeW 2:39PM (2/21/2007)
No AI, only naturnal intelligence, or unintelligence on the road.
No robots, no steer by wire. Brake by wire was a failure, ask Mercedes-Benz.
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Chris M 1:09AM (2/24/2007)
It's going to take a lot longer than they think. Some parts of the automation problem are easy and have already been solved - guidance, steering, speed control.
The big unsolved problem is getting the automated system to deal with the unexpected, including human driven cars, pedestrians, objects in the road, etc. The fact is that computers are not very good at visual pattern recognition, and it isn't just a matter of faster processing, either.
However, we could have an automated transit system with todays technology, if the vehicles were on a special guideway isolated from pedestrians and non-automated vehicles.
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Richard A. Strong 4:13PM (3/05/2007)
You can envision a robotic car and a robotic airplane, so why not a robotic aircar? You can see a practical aircar at strongware.com/dragon that could use robotic control. Autopilots have been around for a long time, so the only 'trick' would be to add the 'autodriver' control, right?
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