[ACM]

Driver less cars will be the future, but then that will like many things that come with modern lifestyle and technological advancement take away from some of the simpler joys of life. Man used to ride the horse earlier for purpose of transport and (yes cars are more comfortable and it is better for the animal) today we have moved to riding horses just for sport or pleasure but definately not for transport.

Yep in the long run driver less cars will proved to actually be safer but we are still a few decades away from full fledged adoption of that. (To ensure guaranteed safety of all on the roads)

Wonder what happens to our classic and Antique cars then - since they would finally not be road legal if all cars have to be computer driven.

[apachelongbow]

[quote=speedmiester;2921955]So in order to save a human life on the road, is it okay to go off the road and cause an accident and risk the life of the people inside the car?

Who goes to jail here? Is it the owner of the car or the company who designed it or the company that incorporated it in their cars.


All said and done, there is no point in continuing the debate here until these cars starts selling in the market.
/QUOTE]

Answers below

1) I am sure the safety of itself (the car that is) and its occupants would be primary, along with it safety of other road users, other objects so and so forth in that order. I am sure a fail safe logic will develop. Imagine robots performing surgery now, if they can perform surgery, cars can surely drive themselves.

2) The human, driver, owner will be responsible. No questions asked. If a plane crashes due to auto pilot failure, or performs a wrong maneuver who is responsible? the pilot in command. He/she cant wish away saying auto pilot failure.

Having said all this, I still don't support robot cars. Humans are still better in making decisions period. A robot can't thing unless it develops artificial intelligence and if it does, it will become a living being.

[DigitalOne]

NY Times has an article on the latest on the driverless car. The part which I found most interesting was this:
Quote

Still, the key to a car being able to truly drive itself lies in the software. “The piece that’s missing is not better radars or cameras or lasers or whatever we’re using,” he said. “It’s really the intelligence behind them.”

Google’s engineers tweak that intelligence based on the driving experience of the test cars. Safely coping with four-way-stop intersections was really difficult, Mr. Levandowski said, because a certain amount of assertiveness — moving into the intersection slightly to see how other cars react — is required.

“We realized there’s subtle communication that goes on,” he said. “Once we’ve come to a stop, we inch forward a bit to signal, hey, we’re ready to go.” A self-driving car that did not assert itself might wind up sitting at the intersection for a long time as other cars passed on through.

Unquote

Link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/au...&smid=tw-share

[mayuresh]

There are a few recent articles on this topic:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...rticle6630552/

- Goolge approaches 6 states in US to move towards deployment of autonomous cars
- Road testing also happening in China, Japan
- The Japanese government aims to have driverless cars on public roads during the early 2020s.
- Google has hinted that car-sharing will be the primary business model for its driverless technology

State of California gives go ahead to Google to test driverless cars on public roads
http://technology.topnewstoday.org/t...ticle/3429751/

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/cisco-nx...startup-cohda/
- Cisco and other companies venture into "connected-car" space
- This will allow cars to form an ad-hoc mesh network helping exchange safety critical information
- This also aims at cruise control to develop partial autonomy

Also one more good article
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/01...ternet-of-cars

[NinadJoshi]

Lincoln introduces an element of self steering in it's 2013 MKZ models.

The Lane Keeper along with the adaptive cruise control enables what could be called hands-free driving. Of course this is nowhere close to autonomous driving system like the google cars, but it does drive home a point that hands-free enhancers are evolving.

Ref: http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoram...163320831.html

[mayuresh]

Originally Posted by mayuresh

There are a few recent articles on this topic:

Over last week I see a flurry of articles on this topic - as if everyone was waiting for the start of a new year. I am not trying to follow this topic deliberately. Instead whatever I read, in various different forums, invariably has posts on this for last one week.

Wonder whether there is a deliberate attempt by various players to increase cyber-presence on this topic.

If they indeed start delivering what they are portraying, this thread will perhaps evolve into a full fledged "Autonmous Cars Forum" at team-bhp in coming years!

Today I came across these:

Lexus unveiling their research autonomous car, which has a goal of "eliminating fatalities and injuries"
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2...y-research-car

Toyota and Audi to roll out autonomous cars: Toyota's Lexus will have ability to communicate with other cars (mesh network described in a few articles in my last post), while Audi will automatically find a free parking slot!
http://thedroidguy.com/2013/01/ces-2...tonomous-cars/

[mayuresh]

Originally Posted by mayuresh

Toyota and Audi to roll out autonomous cars: Toyota's Lexus will have ability to communicate with other cars (mesh network described in a few articles in my last post), while Audi will automatically find a free parking slot!
http://thedroidguy.com/2013/01/ces-2...tonomous-cars/

Well, it not only identifies a parking slot, it actually parks! Here is an article with video.

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2...lf-driving-car

It also picks you up when you are ready to leave...

They are candid enough to say that it's a decade away from production.

(As I observed in last post, news on this topic still continue to flood various forums.)

[venks]

Audi gets license for self driving car and is piloting the same. Car looks really good without any of those ugly devices (camera/sensors/wireless devices/scanners). They have a much better form factor for the scanner. Looks like self driving car is well on its way to become available for personal use. Recently read about Cisco investing in Cohda Wireless which enables car to car and car to infrastructure communication. How much you think technology is going to change the way we use automobiles?

Cisco link -> http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-rele...icleId=1119826

Audi's vision for the future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zXS0Lbv4Y8

Mods, please move this thread to appropriate section if this is not the right category.

[MotoNanu]

There is a huge difference between the operation principle of the self driving car from Audi and say from Google. Audi does not need any mounted device as the guiding infrastructure is provided by the environment (in this case the garage). The garage from where this demo was shown was equipped with series of laser scanners positioned strategically. This is difficult to be reproduced on normal roads/ highways.
Google self driving cars have all the sensors mounted on the roof which scan the surrounding and perform real time decision to guide the vehicle and that is the reason they have covered thousands of miles. This tech by Audi shall be of help to get the car out of parking and similar needs (as of now).
More info: http://www.techspot.com/news/51287-a...ge-at-ces.html

[mayuresh]

Please also see following post and its previous 2/3 posts for a full video of this car parking itself as well as developments with Audi and other makers.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ml#post3012580

[sharninder]

Here is a link for all you guys:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...n-hour/273140/

This guy was not in a driverless car but he still couldn't control it. I'm hundred percent sure that this would've been fatal if it had happened in India but this guy wasn't even in a driverless car. Looking at this, there is a case to be made for a car with driverless control so it could be killed or controlled remotely.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by sharninder

This guy was not in a driverless car but he still couldn't control it.

His Renault Laguna was adapted for disabled drivers. That is probably the reason of failure.

[Waggy]

I don't prefer them for I'm a "Born motorhead". If these cars are led by GPS technologies, there are chances of more disaster. Read this:
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/t...-gps-disasters
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headline...o-the-pacific/
and quite recently
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/w...-1226554829850

Personally, in my experience on our recent trip to Coorg, we noticed both Google & Nokia sucks. Google showed us off the road but showing we were travelling parallel to the "actual" road. Both Google and Nokia put together were about to take us through dense jungles both in the middle of the night as well as in the broad day light where only jeeps can go. Fortunately, my Waggy handled them quite easily on that soft loose soil 75 deg slope with four passengers!

[sa_kiran]

This one is not from Google. Researchers develop a more accurate car navigation system - http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57...gation-system/

Future applications that will benefit from the technology that we are currently working on will include cooperative driving, automatic maneuvers for the safety of pedestrians, autonomous vehicles or cooperative collision warning systems

[Samir Taheer]

Scientists at Oxford University have come up with some really advanced self drive technology!!

Unlike the Google car, this can be added onto any vehicle!

Slight misrepresentation in the title!! - The system costs £5000 at the moment but the scientists believe they can bring it down to £100, in the future!!

Source and more information at -

http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadge...-cost-just-100