I don't have a car with self-parking, though I think it could be useful. As I understand it - possibly I'm wrong - ABS doesn't kick in in everyday situations. You always decide how much to brake and the computer only overrules you in situations where you could otherwise lose control of the car.
With most modern cars, you "ask" the car to do something and it analyses your request and acts on it accordingly. When you press the accelerator, you are only controlling a potentiometer with an ADC that tells the engine management unit that you would like to accelerate. When you press the brakes, you are only telling a computer how much pressure to apply to the brake servo. The only thing that most modern cars use a direct link for is the steering pinion (it's just the assist that is calculated). Though for many higher end cars, there is the computer controlled steering for self-park. Even the handbrake is automatically decided upon nowadays (how many of us have gone to pull up a big handle in the middle of a new car only to realise it isn't there!?)
The abs kicks in if you press the brake too hard and it detects that one of the wheels has stopped turning. It has a valve on each brake caliper which it uses to reduce the pressure on the brake when the wheel locks. If something went wrong with the computer it could switch off the valves on all of the wheels disabling the brakes completely.
My cousin found this out the hard way when he hit a patch of black ice on a steep hill in his car, the abs detected that all of the wheels were sliding so it turned off the brakes completely and he rolled down the hill and straight across the junction at the bottom.
Can we count that as a vote against computer control as it sure as hell wouldn't have happened in my 1972 Lotus!
I don't think the current autodrive implementations remove the possibility for override. The minute you grab the wheel or tap a pedal, the driver takes over the controls.
Manual over-ride?
I thought the idea was that the "driver" could be having a nap or doing some work? What's the driver's reaction time going to be in that situation?
I thought the idea was that the "driver" could be having a nap or doing some work? What's the driver's reaction time going to be in that situation?
*EDIT* I see Si_Crewe beat me to it!
Significantly slower than the car's reaction time. Which is the point. By the time you've realised what is going on, the car has mostly already dealt with the situation for you.
Can we count that as a vote against computer control as it sure as hell wouldn't have happened in my 1972 Lotus!
Computers do make mistakes, just not as often as people and 99 times out of 100 if the computer does something wrong it was due to a programming error by the person who designed the computer in the first place.
Self driving cars will not be 100% safe but then again neither are cars driven by humans. If it turns out that self driving cars make less mistakes than people then it will be safer for everyone to let the computer do the driving. The biggest hurdle to making self driving cars commonplace is not a technological one but rather a psychological one.
Self driving cars will not be 100% safe but then again neither are cars driven by humans. If it turns out that self driving cars make less mistakes than people then it will be safer for everyone to let the computer do the driving. The biggest hurdle to making self driving cars commonplace is not a technological one but rather a psychological one.
And is there some tradition of accepting human failings rather than blaming objects and banning them?
If so, I haven't seen much sign of it thus far in my life.
Significantly slower than the car's reaction time. Which is the point. By the time you've realised what is going on, the car has mostly already dealt with the situation for you.
I thought you were talking about manual over-ride if the driver has to take control?
The point is that there's no manual over-ride option if the "driver" is having a snooze.
I thought you were talking about manual over-ride if the driver has to take control?
The point is that there's no manual over-ride option if the "driver" is having a snooze.
From what I have read online about the new Audi system if the driver doesn't take back control when the computer asks it cuts the accelerator and comes to a safe stop.
From what I have read online about the new Audi system if the driver doesn't take back control when the computer asks it cuts the accelerator and comes to a safe stop.
So a computer that screws up realises that it's screwed up and then brings a vehicle to a controlled stop in a safe place?
I see at least three separate layers of faulty logic in that sentence.
So a computer that screws up realises that it's screwed up and then brings a vehicle to a controlled stop in a safe place?
I see at least three separate layers of faulty logic in that sentence.
Their new system is basically an advanced cruise control designed for motorway use. Once you reach the end of the motorway it asks the driver to resume control and if they don't it stops the car. It is probably safer that normal cruise control which would just carry on at the preset speed regardless of what is ahead.
Their new system is basically an advanced cruise control designed for motorway use. Once you reach the end of the motorway it asks the driver to resume control and if they don't it stops the car. It is probably safer that normal cruise control which would just carry on at the preset speed regardless of what is ahead.
Wait...
So you're not talking about a self-driving car that is capable of detecting faults in it's own systems and then stopping a vehicle safely when there's a fault?
You're talking about a far less sophisticated system that will stop a vehicle under certain conditions as part of it's normal operating procedure.
Okay... not sure how that really applies to the discussion at hand.
Self driving cars will not be 100% safe but then again neither are cars driven by humans. If it turns out that self driving cars make less mistakes than people then it will be safer for everyone to let the computer do the driving. The biggest hurdle to making self driving cars commonplace is not a technological one but rather a psychological one.
It might not be the biggest, but it's still a hurdle ... and it has to work consistently ... in all weathers and all conditions (such as the car getting plastered in mud as happened to mine today! >:() ... with long maintenance periods ... and with a reasonable equipment life-expectancy.
It also has to be affordable before it becomes commonplace. Laser mapping systems and all the assosciated paraphenalia will add significantly to the cost of a car and people will calculate the value to themselves of being able to have a snooze or do something else rather than actually drive the vehicle which, I would imagine, the majority of people don't find particularly taxing, especially as the average journey in the UK is about 7 miles! Of course, that's just the initial outlay as there's the secondhand value of the car to consider. The more complex a car becomes, the more things there are to go wrong, and if those things are hideously expensive to replace, you'll get diddly squat for the car when those parts head towards the end of their useful life.
The cost of car ownesrship will increase, and there's already a liner growth in the number of households with two cars.
... and that's before we get to the psychological aspects.
I think the direct benefits to consumers won't be enough to sell it. More likely it will be safety groups and legislation that move things forward. And perhaps the promise of lower premiums?
I think the direct benefits to consumers won't be enough to sell it. More likely it will be safety groups and legislation that move things forward. And perhaps the promise of lower premiums?
Uhuh,
Ultimately, if you can create a system where something is monitoring (if not controlling) every bit of traffic on the roads then things will be MUCH better.
I suspect the biggest problem with that would be that a lot of people simply won't be able to afford to replace whatever they're currently driving with whatever the latest whizzbang vehicle is but I suppose it'd be fairly straightforward to create an after-market "transponder" package which would plug into a "normal" car and uploads telemetry about speed, direction, braking etc into the system so that even if a person is driving a manually-controlled vehicle the system would still have the information and be able to use it so that automated vehicles could account for their movements.
Course, for it to work properly, every vehicle on the road would need to be fitted with a suitable transponder. Including bicycles.
Computers do make mistakes, just not as often as people and 99 times out of 100 if the computer does something wrong it was due to a programming error by the person who designed the computer in the first place.
Self driving cars will not be 100% safe but then again neither are cars driven by humans. If it turns out that self driving cars make less mistakes than people then it will be safer for everyone to let the computer do the driving. The biggest hurdle to making self driving cars commonplace is not a technological one but rather a psychological one.
The thing is, if self driving cars were to be integrated into a society that still has driven cars (although i don't think this will happen as such) they would have to be whiter than white. The moment a self driven car killed / injured a pedestrian there would be uproar In-fact this very possibility is imo the very thing that will stop there being anywhere near full self driven cars unless all driving is exclusively self driven.. The ironic thing is that driven cars kill / injure pedestrians every day
Course, for it to work properly, every vehicle on the road would need to be fitted with a suitable transponder. Including bicycles.
Not to mention pedestrians including children and animals!
Anyone who thinks these things are going to be let loose on the roads in an uncontrolled environment (and not as part of controlled experiments) is living in cloud cuckoo land.
I've been told ill never be able to legally drive as my eyesight is too bad. So, I would love if this were to become a reality in my lifetime (and as affordable as a normal car).
If they can do this though, then what the hell is the hold up with Hover Boards???!!111!!!!
Computers do make mistakes, just not as often as people and 99 times out of 100 if the computer does something wrong it was due to a programming error by the person who designed the computer in the first place.
Self driving cars will not be 100% safe but then again neither are cars driven by humans. If it turns out that self driving cars make less mistakes than people then it will be safer for everyone to let the computer do the driving. The biggest hurdle to making self driving cars commonplace is not a technological one but rather a psychological one.
Self driving cars might not be 100% safe, but I bet they'll be a LOT safer than human drivers will ever be. Humans have a weakness called feeling tired. Tiredness causes you to be:
Bad at decision making
Irritable
Angry at the least thing
Irrational with behaviour, as in, road rage
At danger of killing someone because of not being in full control of the vehicle
A vehicle with auto driving technology won't suffer from these problems. People talk of not feeling safe in a computer controlled vehicle. Well, what about planes that have auto flying technology? Yes, the skies aren't anywhere near as crowded as the roads are, but there's still the risk of the technology in planes malfunctioning though.
I've been told ill never be able to legally drive as my eyesight is too bad. So, I would love if this were to become a reality in my lifetime (and as affordable as a normal car).
If they can do this though, then what the hell is the hold up with Hover Boards???!!111!!!!
I think there'll be quite a few out there who'll benefit from this if it takes off.
It's a pretty bold statement to suggest that no human being would be safer than, erm, a self-driving car which doesn't actually exist yet.
Seems like that's arrogance, right there.
I'd rather not abdicate responsibility for life or death decisions, especially ones regarding my own life or death, to, erm, anything.
All a bit philosophical though.
I guess the only real point is that it's impossible to know, for sure, how well a self-driving car will react in a complex situation and, given the way the whole "Toyota floor mats" thing turned out, I doubt the public are going to be terribly impressed to find they're beta-testing a self-driving car which could prove fatal in extremis.
If it's not perfect right from the word go, it's going to ruin the manufacturer that builds it and set the concept back 30 years, at least.
And that's a big ask for a piece of software.
Actually self driving cars do exist and have done for a few years. Back up your comment then. Computers are more reliable than humans and other than arrogance of thinking humans are more perfect than they are can you give a reason why you would trust a human to drive you but not a computer? Many cars are already assisted by computer technology anyway.
A vehicle with auto driving technology won't suffer from these problems. People talk of not feeling safe in a computer controlled vehicle. Well, what about planes that have auto flying technology? Yes, the skies aren't anywhere near as crowded as the roads are, but there's still the risk of the technology in planes malfunctioning though.
Drive by wire would be fine - driver is still in control as with a plane.
Autopilot is basically a souped-up cruise control, with someone ready at all times to take control.
In other words, planes still have a driver, who is always paying attention - there is very little in common with driverless cars (so they won't in the foreseeable future be let loose in a completely uncontrolled environment except in experiments).
I think this is a really good development, and actually surprising that the UK is allowing this, given they usually drag their feet in these kind of things.
I can see there being two classes of driverless car.
One with manual controls, that can be bought by people who have passed their driving test, but can put the car into autopilot when they wish.
And a second class, without manual controls, for those who currently aren't allowed to drive.
I do think it's currently rather unjust that if you get too old to drive you have to give up your car and join a bus queue. Just what an elderly person doesn't want to do.
This would allow pensioners who can afford it, to continue to own a vehicle.
Not to mention pedestrians including children and animals!
Anyone who thinks these things are going to be let loose on the roads in an uncontrolled environment (and not as part of controlled experiments) is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Why would you need transponders on pedestrians or bikes, you don't at the moment yet drivers manage to avoid hitting them most of the time.
The problem is that you are looking at a future car design and basing your assumptions on the technology available today. 30 years ago if you came onto an internet bulletin board and said that within three decades you would be able to take the computing power of a mainframe the size of a warehouse and fit it into a device that fits in your pocket and on top of that you would add in a film camera, television, video recorder and satellite navigation system you would have been laughed at and told that it could never happen.
Technology and processing power are increasing at an exponential rate, within a few years it will be possible to design a vision system for cars that surpasses our own eyes and brain, one that will be able to see and predict the actions of pedestrians, cyclists and other road users and work out the best course of action to take to avoid them. It won't need satellites or big telemetry maps because it will be able to use its own sensors to see where it is going. Vision systems similar to this are already available and are included in everyday items like game consoles.
Comments
With most modern cars, you "ask" the car to do something and it analyses your request and acts on it accordingly. When you press the accelerator, you are only controlling a potentiometer with an ADC that tells the engine management unit that you would like to accelerate. When you press the brakes, you are only telling a computer how much pressure to apply to the brake servo. The only thing that most modern cars use a direct link for is the steering pinion (it's just the assist that is calculated). Though for many higher end cars, there is the computer controlled steering for self-park. Even the handbrake is automatically decided upon nowadays (how many of us have gone to pull up a big handle in the middle of a new car only to realise it isn't there!?)
Can we count that as a vote against computer control as it sure as hell wouldn't have happened in my 1972 Lotus!
Manual over-ride?
I thought the idea was that the "driver" could be having a nap or doing some work? What's the driver's reaction time going to be in that situation?
*EDIT* I see Si_Crewe beat me to it!
Significantly slower than the car's reaction time. Which is the point. By the time you've realised what is going on, the car has mostly already dealt with the situation for you.
Computers do make mistakes, just not as often as people and 99 times out of 100 if the computer does something wrong it was due to a programming error by the person who designed the computer in the first place.
Self driving cars will not be 100% safe but then again neither are cars driven by humans. If it turns out that self driving cars make less mistakes than people then it will be safer for everyone to let the computer do the driving. The biggest hurdle to making self driving cars commonplace is not a technological one but rather a psychological one.
And is there some tradition of accepting human failings rather than blaming objects and banning them?
If so, I haven't seen much sign of it thus far in my life.
I thought you were talking about manual over-ride if the driver has to take control?
The point is that there's no manual over-ride option if the "driver" is having a snooze.
So a computer that screws up realises that it's screwed up and then brings a vehicle to a controlled stop in a safe place?
I see at least three separate layers of faulty logic in that sentence.
Their new system is basically an advanced cruise control designed for motorway use. Once you reach the end of the motorway it asks the driver to resume control and if they don't it stops the car. It is probably safer that normal cruise control which would just carry on at the preset speed regardless of what is ahead.
Wait...
So you're not talking about a self-driving car that is capable of detecting faults in it's own systems and then stopping a vehicle safely when there's a fault?
You're talking about a far less sophisticated system that will stop a vehicle under certain conditions as part of it's normal operating procedure.
Okay... not sure how that really applies to the discussion at hand.
It might not be the biggest, but it's still a hurdle ... and it has to work consistently ... in all weathers and all conditions (such as the car getting plastered in mud as happened to mine today! >:() ... with long maintenance periods ... and with a reasonable equipment life-expectancy.
It also has to be affordable before it becomes commonplace. Laser mapping systems and all the assosciated paraphenalia will add significantly to the cost of a car and people will calculate the value to themselves of being able to have a snooze or do something else rather than actually drive the vehicle which, I would imagine, the majority of people don't find particularly taxing, especially as the average journey in the UK is about 7 miles! Of course, that's just the initial outlay as there's the secondhand value of the car to consider. The more complex a car becomes, the more things there are to go wrong, and if those things are hideously expensive to replace, you'll get diddly squat for the car when those parts head towards the end of their useful life.
The cost of car ownesrship will increase, and there's already a liner growth in the number of households with two cars.
... and that's before we get to the psychological aspects.
Our country is going to pot.
Uhuh,
Ultimately, if you can create a system where something is monitoring (if not controlling) every bit of traffic on the roads then things will be MUCH better.
I suspect the biggest problem with that would be that a lot of people simply won't be able to afford to replace whatever they're currently driving with whatever the latest whizzbang vehicle is but I suppose it'd be fairly straightforward to create an after-market "transponder" package which would plug into a "normal" car and uploads telemetry about speed, direction, braking etc into the system so that even if a person is driving a manually-controlled vehicle the system would still have the information and be able to use it so that automated vehicles could account for their movements.
Course, for it to work properly, every vehicle on the road would need to be fitted with a suitable transponder. Including bicycles.
The thing is, if self driving cars were to be integrated into a society that still has driven cars (although i don't think this will happen as such) they would have to be whiter than white. The moment a self driven car killed / injured a pedestrian there would be uproar In-fact this very possibility is imo the very thing that will stop there being anywhere near full self driven cars unless all driving is exclusively self driven.. The ironic thing is that driven cars kill / injure pedestrians every day
Not to mention pedestrians including children and animals!
Anyone who thinks these things are going to be let loose on the roads in an uncontrolled environment (and not as part of controlled experiments) is living in cloud cuckoo land.
If they can do this though, then what the hell is the hold up with Hover Boards???!!111!!!!
Self driving cars might not be 100% safe, but I bet they'll be a LOT safer than human drivers will ever be. Humans have a weakness called feeling tired. Tiredness causes you to be:
Bad at decision making
Irritable
Angry at the least thing
Irrational with behaviour, as in, road rage
At danger of killing someone because of not being in full control of the vehicle
A vehicle with auto driving technology won't suffer from these problems. People talk of not feeling safe in a computer controlled vehicle. Well, what about planes that have auto flying technology? Yes, the skies aren't anywhere near as crowded as the roads are, but there's still the risk of the technology in planes malfunctioning though.
I think there'll be quite a few out there who'll benefit from this if it takes off.
Drive by wire would be fine - driver is still in control as with a plane.
Autopilot is basically a souped-up cruise control, with someone ready at all times to take control.
In other words, planes still have a driver, who is always paying attention - there is very little in common with driverless cars (so they won't in the foreseeable future be let loose in a completely uncontrolled environment except in experiments).
I can see there being two classes of driverless car.
One with manual controls, that can be bought by people who have passed their driving test, but can put the car into autopilot when they wish.
And a second class, without manual controls, for those who currently aren't allowed to drive.
I do think it's currently rather unjust that if you get too old to drive you have to give up your car and join a bus queue. Just what an elderly person doesn't want to do.
This would allow pensioners who can afford it, to continue to own a vehicle.
"You'll have to wait, the car's downloading updates..."
Why would you need transponders on pedestrians or bikes, you don't at the moment yet drivers manage to avoid hitting them most of the time.
The problem is that you are looking at a future car design and basing your assumptions on the technology available today. 30 years ago if you came onto an internet bulletin board and said that within three decades you would be able to take the computing power of a mainframe the size of a warehouse and fit it into a device that fits in your pocket and on top of that you would add in a film camera, television, video recorder and satellite navigation system you would have been laughed at and told that it could never happen.
Technology and processing power are increasing at an exponential rate, within a few years it will be possible to design a vision system for cars that surpasses our own eyes and brain, one that will be able to see and predict the actions of pedestrians, cyclists and other road users and work out the best course of action to take to avoid them. It won't need satellites or big telemetry maps because it will be able to use its own sensors to see where it is going. Vision systems similar to this are already available and are included in everyday items like game consoles.