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Remember when we wrote about how robot-controlled cars could save us lots of gas money? Turns out they could save our lives, too — and what’s more, the whole endeavor is becoming less science-fiction theoretical by the minute. A team of engineers at Stanford have developed a prototype called “Junior,” a VW Passat equipped with a trunkload of computers and GPS receivers, and a bevy of roof-, side- and front-mounted laser range-finders to image obstacles in 360 degrees. What all this means is, unlike TV’s Knight Rider, there’s nobody standing just out of the shot holding a remote control; this baby does all its own stunts.
Therefore, says project leader Sebastian Thrun, robotic cars like Junior could take a lot of the burden off of US highways. It seems that only about 8% of American highway surface is used at peak hours — the trouble isn’t the amount of surface area we’ve paved, it’s how we use it. All this stop-and-go, unpredictable, emotional driving would be a thing of the past, and cars, suddenly, would function a lot more like trains. Really convenient trains that would go anywhere you told them to go, while you read the paper, work on your laptop or take a snooze. Added bonus: if the robots work like they’re supposed to, traffic fatalities would be greatly reduced. (Even if they malfunctioned occasionally, I can’t imagine it would be worse than what we’ve already got on our freeways today — in addition to countless wrecks, there have been several road-rage-related shootings on LA’s 710 freeway recently.)
Some specs on what makes Junior tick, after the jump.
Comments (17)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
ooo, I love the idea of being able to sleep to and from work… or trips… *sigh*
posted by Tru on 6-27-2007 at 11:12 am
“It seems that only about 8% of American highway surface is used at peak hours”
That’s only because everyone is driving in the left lane. If we could convince people that the other lanes were drivable, too….
posted by Thomas Pfau on 6-27-2007 at 11:46 am
Ok, so the system contains lasers that recognize paint markings on the roadways. What happens in places where there are no markings or if the markings are hardly visible(even to the laser eye)? Of course, I understand there will be mods to improve it before it is released. This is definitely a revolutionary step in robotic progress. Nice work!
posted by T-Money on 6-27-2007 at 12:44 pm
Yay Volkswagen!
Love them
posted by Janet on 6-27-2007 at 2:39 pm
Finally I can put on my make-up without the viscious stares of other drivers….Yes, that person is me.
posted by priscilla on 6-28-2007 at 8:44 am
This is a silly boondoggle. Are you really going to trust a vehicle on autopilot to handle ALL roads, under ALL emergency situations, in ALL weather conditions for 150,000 miles or so of vehicle life? Of course not. If you did, think of the costs this would add to the vehicle. The failure modes and effects analysis people would be kept busy for decades.
I’m actually an automotive engineer who has frequently seen these “intelligent highway systems” presented on engineering conferences. Generally, work done in this area are through a bunch of government-financed welfare grants to universities. There is little real “pull” for the technology since the real world engineers not in ivory towers understand the low value of the end results do not justify the huge costs of developing it and the ENORMOUS liability risks of putting cars on autopilot. Lawyers are licking their chops hoping this makes it into at least limited production someday. Instead fo some poor schmuck causing an accident, they’ll be able to blame it on a deep-pocketed “big corporation”.
Boondoggle.
Straight talk from Sid.
posted by Sid Morrison on 6-28-2007 at 8:55 am
I certainly wouldn’t trust a vehicle on autopilot to handle ALL roads, under ALL emergency situations, in ALL weatehr conditions for 150,000 miles, but I’d trust it for the 15 minutes at a time I spend on the interstate to and from work … or the six hours or so of interstate time I spend when travelling to see family.
posted by Eric on 6-28-2007 at 9:19 am
Sid perfectly displays the largest obstacle to this life, energy and time saving advance. It is people with control issues that will be the much harder to overcome than the technological barriers.
Every day I watch moron drivers make idiotic decisions trying to get ahead, and only succeeding in slowing everyone down. They never consider the ripple effects, which accumulate dramatically in heavy traffic.
As Ransom rightly points out, even if there are malfunctions that cause fatalities, it can’t get much worse than the system in place now.
Being afraid to let a well-tested machine drive is the equivalent to someone who is afraid to fly for fear of their life, but they drive on the freeway every day. The freeway is more deadly by far.
IMO it is all about control. People think they are in control when they are driving, but the driver next to them takes a great deal of that control away. Nearly everyone I speak to thinks that they are an excellent driver, but by definition half of everybody on the road is below average. That scares me every day.
I would be far more at ease if all the cars were driven by a computer. They could coordinate, plan and conserve, and do it rationally. We would all get home faster and could do something useful while traveling. What an improvement.
posted by n2y2 on 6-28-2007 at 10:36 am
Update, y’all: “Junior” features an on-off switch for its autopilot mechanisms, so you can take over whenever you like. The car seems most useful to me in highway situations, when one idiot driver can screw up the commutes of tens of thousands. I figure if the internet can more or less reliably deliver tons of terabytes of info to us each day on its superhighway and not crash, we can figure out how to coordinate a couple thousand cars to do the same thing!
posted by Ransom on 6-28-2007 at 10:45 am
Ransom,
Good point about comparing data traffic to car traffic. I imagine a system where cars are routed to their destination using the same algorithms that data routers use to direct data packets.
However, it comes with a warning. Now-a-days, packets are rarely lost, but in the early days of networking, it happened frequently. Two data packets would try to occupy the same line at the same time; this is called a collision (yikes!) It is the equivalent of two cars merging into the same lane simultaneously or even head on. In the computer world, you just resend the data. With cars, it is not so easy.
Let’s hope that cars begin with the mature network model.
posted by n2y2 on 6-28-2007 at 11:06 am
in fact, lawyers will end up hating this if it comes to fruition; accident rates will plummet because the idiot drivers who cause all the problems will be giving the controls over to a much safer driver. ambulance chasers will have to find thier ez money elsewhere!
posted by erik on 6-28-2007 at 1:11 pm
It would a trivial expense to paint a wire down the center of the fast lanes of highways and energize the wire with a series of low-power battery-backed-up radio transmitters. Fly-by-wire cars would only have to have front and rear sensors integrated with cruise control to keep a safe distance from other cars, and a receiver on the underside would steer each car along the wire. Drivers would enter the lane and switch to wire control. Weather would not affect the system. It would only apply to suitable roads. And you wouldn’t need a specially equipped car to use the wire lane; it would simply be the fast lane. This plan was suggested in the 1940s. We were to have it by 1960, of course.
posted by Marco McClean on 6-28-2007 at 1:15 pm
You guys completely underestimate the complexity of the Intellent Highway System (IHS) problems, the number of external stimuli that can %#$* it up, and the low value they offer in the first place.
What happens when some relatively small, but dangerous crap falls off Fred Sanford’s beat up old pickup that’s in front of you? Or kids on an overpass drop cinder blocks onto the highway in front of oncoming cars? Does the system see that going on up ahead?Can it “see” kids that doing something that looks suspicious 500 ft away?
Can it see the brakelights of old non-IHS vehicles way up ahead alerting that there may be something serious road hazard going on?
What happens when a car jumps the guardrail and heads at you head-on? How much steering authority will these things be given? Actuators to do quickly will be large, heavy, and expensive.
Or a drunken pedestrian that suddenly stumbles out into the road? Can the system see him or the herd of deer 50′ off the road’s edge that is thinking about dashing onto the road? No, I didn’t think so…
Or how about when something fails on the system? What happens when a fuse blows? Or there is an intermittent connection? How many of us have ever had a bogus Check Engine / Service Engine Soon light on our “modern cars”? The level of onboard diagnostics complexity is currently high, but it will need to increase by many orders of magnitudes. Think of all the false failures that will annoy the hell out of vehicle owners, who have to forever bring their cars back to the dealer for checks.
How about when users inevitably start tampering (hacking) their cars’ systems to “improve performance”? What happens to reliability then and who becomes responsible for the problems?
How robust are the road-installed bits to tampering with from vandals or terorrists? How hard would it be to spoof the system into creating a giant pileup of cars? By the time “drivers” knew something was wrong there’d be a huge pile of smoking wrecks.
What happens when the weather gets crappy or sensors get dirty? Some of you toss the word “sensors” around pretty loosely. Tell us EXACTLY WHAT TECHNOLOGY sensors are extremely robust, durable, cheap, completely insensitive to dirt, moisture, vibration, aging, thermal cycling, and still meet the design parameters.
Can it detect other vehicles that aren’t themselves equipped with IHS systems? The systems being discussed must coexist with legacy vehicles. Zillions of old cars are out there! Will the IHS systems detect somebody on a small moped or motorcycle or in a tiny car (think Lotus 7) as well the “the average” car? If IHS vehicle owners are “turning their minds off” while on the road, these things have to be able to detect EVERYTHING under EVERY circumstance. Always.
Granted, humans don’t always respond properly to said anomalies (I agree there are many morons out there), but they *aren’t expected to*. These things WILL be expected to — that is a fact of life in a world infested with plaintiff’s lawyers. The whole point of the devices is that the morons behind the wheel will be enable to be further detached from the world around them. Any company that actually puts these onto the road cannot realease a system that it 99.999% realiable — it will have to be MUCH better than that or they will be sued silly the first time anything ever happens (even if it’s not their fault). Suddenly, ALL the burden for ANY “intelligent highway system” accident will be dumped on the laps of the vehicle OEMs. If anyone ever crashes for whatever reason, it will get blamed on the IHS system.
This isn’t going anywhere fast — these academics will be picking the taxpayers pockets for decades working on it I assure you. IHS exists only as a cash-grab for researchers getting $ from the government. Where is the private equity behind it? Ahh, there is none? That should tell you something! BOONDOGGLE! Where’s Senator Proxmire?
Straight talk from Sid.
posted by Sid Morrison on 6-28-2007 at 2:04 pm
Sid: Line-by-line rebuttal
First, technological advances are only made by attempting what seems beyond our grasp. I learned long ago to stop listing why something wasn’t possible. When mobile phone were first being sold in the early 80’s, I had a long list of valid technological reason why they would never go main-stream. The demand for the technology was so great that the obstacles were overcome.
Dangerous stuff falling: These cars will have systems that can identify any hazard (radar, laser, camera, IR) and will react much faster than humans. They may even be able to capture images of the perpetrators to help in their apprehension.
Brake lights? These things will be networked. Every car will know that the car 50 places ahead is about to apply the brakes and how hard the braking will be before the brake lights can even power up. Safer by far.
Automated cars not reacting fast enough? Bah! There are several cars being developed now that are controlled ‘by wire’ – i.e. there is no physical connection from the steering wheel to the wheels. The F-16 is controlled entirely ‘by wire’. They react to input just as quickly as the mechanical model. Computer driven cars will have reactions that are thousands of times faster than humans.
Sensors not working? Hacking? Easily overcome with a quick self-diagnostic triggered as you approach the IHS(as you call it) The gambling industry addresses these issues now. Trust me, nobody cheats these guys for long.
Non-intelligent cars? My own university, University of Nevada-Reno, is currently working with Ford on a system that sees potential accidents coming and alerts the driver. In extreme danger it can apply the brakes before the human can react. The obstacles have no intelligence at all. The program is coming along nicely and it is privately funded.
In the beginning, there will most likely be dedicated lanes for the intelligent cars. The system will ease into interaction with regular cars.
Terrorism? Is it easier to attack a train full of commuters or this highway system? This is no more or less vulnerable than any other transportation we have.
Morons behind the wheel are not occasional; they are at least 1-in-20. People who change lanes get 4 or 5 car lengths ahead cost us all an immense amount of time in congested traffic. Those who wait until the last minute to cut over three lanes for their exit are even worse. The analogy is laminar vs. turbulent flow of fluid through a pipe. It has a much larger effect than almost any driver realizes. Intelligent cars can eliminate this.
This system is coming; it must. We need our highways to transport us more efficiently because we cannot keep making them bigger. Self-driven cars will answer that call.
As I said before, the developing the technology will be simple compared to overcoming people who are afraid to let go of their illusion of control.
posted by n2y2 on 6-29-2007 at 9:40 am
Sid says:
Uhuh. The difference between these things and cell phone development are many.
1. There was tremendous “pull” for cell phones from the public. There is none for IHS (this is a recognized industry term, not something I dreamt up, bythe way. ITS, Intelligent Transportation Systems is an alternate), especially when you tell people how expensive their cars will have to be and how much their taxes will need to be increased to pay for the massive infrastructure. With Cell phones, the costs were borne by the users — it order for this to work, it has to be foisted onto ever motor vehicle owner and taxpayers in general.
2. The system isn’t a “must” as you say. Traffic is only a problem for a very limited part of the population. If you don’t like paying attention whilst you drive, move somewhere where you can be half-awake and not hit anything.
3. You think “drive-by-wire” cars are just now coming? You must be pretty young as drive-by-wire electronic throttle controls have been in vehicles for years. These do provide value though and enable advanced engine technologies that provide real-world useful results like better fuel economy and/or emissions. IHS/ITS does not. If it did, consumers would be clamoring for it (hmmm… they don’t want a $40K Geo Metro that drives itself? Why not?) and autmoakers would be making it a high priority item (like fuel economy is). IHS is instead tinkered with by academics and their starry-eyed perpetual grad students who foolishly believe it is going somewhere. Since they are all on government welfare, no one cares that it’s all a folly… BOONDOGGLE! TAX GRAB!
posted by Sid Morrison on 6-29-2007 at 12:01 pm
I wont take the time to address all your points, but here a few:
By drive-by-wire, I mean steering and brakes. It has existed in concept cars for years, but is now nearing main-stream production.
Very little public infrastructure will be required. Most of the intelligence will be built into the vehicles.
When it is first introduced, it will be incredibly expensive and only available on high-end luxury cars. With time and economies of scale, the technology will trickle down to inexpensive cars.
Here is an example: Electronic Stability Control. The technology could save and estimated 10,000 lives per year if all cars had it. A decade ago this was a pricey option for luxury cars. Now it is standard equipment in many vehicles. The NHTSA has mandated that all new cars have it by 2012. The industry did not even oppose the move because is it so inexpensive to include the technology now.
More examples that followed the same pattern: ABS, Self defrosting rear windows, Radios, CD players, Disk brakes, Air bags, EFI, Cruise Control, A/C, etc. The list is very long.
Adaptive Cruise control is of particular interest. It is the beginnings of an autonomous car. First introduced nearly 10 years ago, it was available on high-end Mercedes only. Today, you can get it on a loaded mini-van. Tomorrow it will be a throw in option added to economy sedans. It incorporates cheap reliable sensors that operate in all environmental conditions. The manufactures have not yet had their pants sued off over it.
posted by n2y2 on 6-29-2007 at 12:43 pm
One thing I noticed is the frequent mention of how many lives will be saaved annually…What about the Darwin effect? Certainly some deaths are the victims of moronic drivers, but a high number are people that end up killing themselves with their own moronic descisions…… can we handle these increases in population that some safety technology promises? Honestly, do we want some of these people around, so the can live to f%#@ something else up? Maybe something even more important?
posted by SAINT JAMES on 6-7-2009 at 8:04 pm