VIDEO: Google Has a Fleet of Self-Driving Cars
We've all encountered people who shouldn't even be allowed play with Tonka trucks, never mind drive. But is Google one of those?
This past weekend, Google revealed something a little bit shocking: In a blog post posted on Saturday afternoon, the search giant said its latest project is car safety and efficiency. More specifically, it is working on self-driving cars and has a fleet of Priuses that's logged about 140,000 miles.
"Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard," writes software engineer Sebastian Thrun. "They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles," he said, adding, "We think this is a first in robotics research."
The Google cars are a product of a partnership with engineers gleaned from DARPA challenges; a series of government sponsored contests that involve racing autonomous vehicles cross-country. Chris Urmson and Mike Montemerlo were both on winning teams and Anthony Levandowski built the world’s first autonomous motorcycle and also built a modified Prius that delivered pizza without a person inside. Google's technology uses video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to "see" other traffic, as well as detailed maps to navigate the road ahead. However Google is still playing it safe and these cars aren't just sent out into the big bad world all by themselves.
"Safety has been our first priority in this project," says Sebastian. "Our cars are never unmanned. We always have a trained safety driver behind the wheel who can take over as easily as one disengages cruise control. And we also have a trained software operator in the passenger seat to monitor the software."
Google believes that automated cars could cut the number of road accidents by as much as half and that the technology will make sharing cars much easier. The search company is calling the vehicles the "highway trains of tomorrow" and thinks they'll cut energy consumption while transporting more people.
Lucky for us, Robert Scoble spotted one of Google's self-drving vehicles way back in January and snagged a video believing he was seeing a new Google Maps car. Check it out below but be warned, it is short. As soon as guys in the car noticed Scoble's camera, they slowed way down.
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What's the fun in the car driving itself?
What's the fun in the car driving itself?
Look ma, no hands!
Would I still get a DUI? If so... wtf is the point.
would be awesome driving home from Vegas when I'm all hungover from the weekend.
What's the fun in the car driving itself?
Long trips, up late, you should have turned off at that last rest stop, but... eh...its only a few more miles till...zzzzzz...
Plus, theoretically fewer accidents... once any bugs get worked out.
And imagine, for your parents as they get older and lose the ability to drive themselves around, this would be a perfect thing to give them the mobility they need without constantly asking for a ride.
Would I still get a DUI? If so... wtf is the point.
I would wager that for a while till things are in the 5 nines Category for reliability, they will require a human in the driving seat in order to take over in case there is a malfunction.
Some local and state governments will likely feel the need to have laws about this, we'll see.
These cars should not be on open roads and should only be driven on closed courses. Technology and electronics fail and putting these cars mixed in with non-automated and unaware motorist is a very careless act even with a person there acting as a back up.Google needs to focus on web things and get robot cars off public roads. Imagine the lawsuit if one of these malfunctioned and caused a major accident...at least put a "robotic car" sign on the damn thing so people no that vehicle has no driver.
1. There was a driver there ready to take over if anything started going wrong
2. Do you really think that they didn't extensively test this in a closed course prior to trying it on the road?
I think these self-driving cars are for people like the YouTube uploader, driving around taking videos and not watching the road. There's some irony there I'd say. . . .
great for 90 year olds wanna be drivers!
same for 16-20's year olds
I can just imagine the complexities & dynamics involved in trying to get the A.I. software to be able to overcome the variety of winter conditions that one can encounter which can cause serious accidents.
No matter how much they are able to improve an A.I., it'll still be no substitute for human instinct & reflexes which can only be learned through experience.
These cars should not be on open roads and should only be driven on closed courses. Technology and electronics fail and putting these cars mixed in with non-automated and unaware motorist is a very careless act even with a person there acting as a back up.Google needs to focus on web things and get robot cars off public roads. Imagine the lawsuit if one of these malfunctioned and caused a major accident...at least put a "robotic car" sign on the damn thing so people no that vehicle has no driver.
You didn't read did you? These cars do have drivers in them that are trained and ready to take over in case something goes wrong. They said Self-Driving cars, not Unmanned Cars, they are not the same thing at all.
As long as it doesn't malfunction like Volvo's pedestrian testing, I'm sold xD
I have a few thoughts about how awesome this could be:
1) The car can go pick up your son or daughter from practice.
2) You could sleep the entire time in the car or do work. Think about going to work in rush hour and how stressful/boring/tiresome it can be (or at the end of the day especially). You could take a nap or do work.
3) You could have some awesome fun with criminals. If everyone has ever seen the rigged car on police shows, the criminals freak out. They would be driving, and suddenly they lose control; the car would then be commanded to take them to the police station.
Skynet hits the road.
I can just imagine the complexities & dynamics involved in trying to get the A.I. software to be able to overcome the variety of winter conditions that one can encounter which can cause serious accidents.No matter how much they are able to improve an A.I., it'll still be no substitute for human instinct & reflexes which can only be learned through experience.
If a woman can do it, you think a modern computer can't? Hmmmm, then again, we all know how women drive. I'll retract that statement.
Google's plan of world domination with robots begins! First up, driverless cars.
... skynet minions...
These cars should not be on open roads and should only be driven on closed courses. Technology and electronics fail and putting these cars mixed in with non-automated and unaware motorist is a very careless act even with a person there acting as a back up.Google needs to focus on web things and get robot cars off public roads. Imagine the lawsuit if one of these malfunctioned and caused a major accident...at least put a "robotic car" sign on the damn thing so people no that vehicle has no driver.
Google is just the latest on the band wagon. I remember awhile back, that Volvo did something like this with UNMANNED vehicles (yes on a closed track) for what I remember to be a really long time.
You are an idiot if you think that the vehicle your driving with you behind the wheel is safer than the one Google put on the road to chauffer the techs around.
FOOL!
I can just imagine the complexities & dynamics involved in trying to get the A.I. software to be able to overcome the variety of winter conditions that one can encounter which can cause serious accidents.No matter how much they are able to improve an A.I., it'll still be no substitute for human instinct & reflexes which can only be learned through experience.
You overrate the human beign, you can never match up to a perfectly tuned machine, as you ar unable to reevaluate your decissions at the nanosecond frame. You see something you turn hard left end up in a tree, while an A.I. may turn left the right amount to change remove impact vector then turn right the right ammount at a time to redress the car without losign control while simultaneously controling accelerations independently on all 4 tires and also controling the suspentions so that the car dosen't flip over. All this while you just blinked. Machines are flawless the only error is in humans. Besides it could serve as augmented driving. A sort of next level safety layer taking control when you run out of control. Imagine this whole thing syncronized. 2 Cars heading twoards eachother both can comunicate and syncronize theyre movements so that they fit both limitations and avoit impact. You think too small.
I know this doesn't apply but what if ........ Blue screen of death!
Had to be a Prius ...
While a fine advancement that could have many applications, if such technology is aggressively integrated into legislation then it could be the end of humans manually controlling cars, a sad case indeed.
Though i do believe that such applications as set it on auto-pilot for a 6 hour journey and watch some stuff on the google tv integrated into the steering wheel would be ace.
I can see a vision Caleeefornia adopting this making sure to blow billions in taxpayer dollars then complain when I virus gets in and there is million of crashes at one time.
I hope the cars qon't follow a path proposed by Google Maps. It might end up in a lake...
@ivanlucrazy
use the backup computer, better known as the human driver......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRF_KaWzxq4
I for one welcome our new self-driving overlords.
Surprising that nobody has yet mentioned the environmental impact. Imagine all cars on the road being aware of other cars and traffic lights tuned better to meet demand because they know exactly what road conditions are. This could save a ton of idle-time gas. Also, if it could reduce idle time, you'd have the double advantage of getting where you want to be faster. I'll echo the earlier comment. "You think too small."
skynet begins....
dun dun dun!
I know this doesn't apply but what if ........ Blue screen of death!
They use a robust OS designed for embedded systems. Ie: Not windows. Even Microsoft XP for embedded systems has blue screens, and they use that in Elevators, ATMS, Big giant video billboards downtown, etc.
The Answer is a Unix type variant.
1. There was a driver there ready to take over if anything started going wrong2. Do you really think that they didn't extensively test this in a closed course prior to trying it on the road?
Sorry, all, but edilee is right. Not just "In my opinion," but right. Aside from it being wrong for them to expose the public to risks, the car being driven on public roads by a non-licensed driver. Unless the computer system has a driver's license, or special permission in the motor vehicle code, this is against the law.
[puts on flame-proof suit]