Driverless cars – Page 6

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

MIT tech lets self-driving cars “see” under surface of road

March 5, 2020

In poor visibility, your car could look for landmarks — under the surface of the road.

MIT is working on self-driving technology that allows cars to “see” through the ground up to a depth of ten feet below the surface of the road. The idea is to allow self-driving cars to figure out exactly where they are — especially when snow, heavy fog, or other bad weather obscures road markings.

Current-generation self-driving cars typically rely on cameras and light detection sensors (LIDAR) to position themselves on roadways. But once the snow starts falling and covers up lane markers, it can get tricky for the car to tell where it is — and that could spell disaster, especially at highway speeds.

A team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab have come up with a new system they call “Localizing Ground Penetrating Radar” (LGPR) that can create a real-time map of the ground below the road’s surface.

Continue reading… “MIT tech lets self-driving cars “see” under surface of road”

Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News, Tesla

Hackers stuck a 2-inch strip of tape on a 35-mph speed sign and successfully tricked 2 Teslas into accelerating to 85 mph

February 25, 2020

McAfee researchers were able to trick a Tesla’s autonomous systems.

Researchers at McAfee were able to trick two Teslas into autonomously speeding up by 50 mph.

The researchers stuck a 2-inch strip of tape on a 35-mph speed sign, and the car’s system misread it as 85 mph and adjusted its speed accordingly.

The safety of Tesla’s autopilot features has come under close scrutiny, but CEO Elon Musk has predicted the company will have “feature-complete full self-driving” this year.

It turns out all it takes to fool a Tesla’s camera system is a little tape.

Continue reading… “Hackers stuck a 2-inch strip of tape on a 35-mph speed sign and successfully tricked 2 Teslas into accelerating to 85 mph”

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

General Motors wants to do away with the steering wheel

January 10, 2020

Almost all major automakers are gearing up to enter the new era of self-driven cars. Taking this concept further is General Motors, which wants to do away with the steering wheel altogether in its latest self-driven model.

The automaker has put in a request to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow it to test self-driving cars sans a steering wheel or other human controls on American roads.

The NHTSA revealed that GM and Softbank-backed startup Nuro petitioned the agency in 2018 seeking exemption from U.S. road safety rules that were written a long time ago and are meant to control cars with human drivers.

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Automation, communication, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

Smart intersections could cut autonomous car congestion

December 26, 2019

Researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind model to control traffic and intersections in order to increase autonomous car capacity on urban streets of the future, reduce congestion and minimize accidents.

In the not-so-distant future, city streets could be flooded with autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars can move faster and travel closer together, allowing more of them to fit on the road — potentially leading to congestion and gridlock on city streets.

A new study by Cornell researchers developed a first-of-its-kind model to control traffic and intersections in order to increase car capacity on urban streets, reduce congestion and minimize accidents.

“For the future of mobility, so much attention has been paid to autonomous cars,” said Oliver Gao, professor of civil and environmental engineering and senior author of the study, which published in Transportation Research Part B.

Continue reading… “Smart intersections could cut autonomous car congestion”

Automation, Computer Security, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

Here’s how quantum computer supremacy will impact self-driving cars

November 23, 2019

Quantum supremacy, achieved?

The news recently was agog with the claim that the so-called and highly sought “quantum supremacy” had been achieved via an effort undertaken by Google researchers.

Not everyone agreed though that the Google effort warranted waving the superlative supremacy flag.

That’s not to say that the use of their 54-qubit Sycamore processor wasn’t notable, and in fact, does provide another handy stride toward achieving viable quantum computing, but whether it was the vaunted moment of true supreme magnificence is something that many would argue is premature and supremely debatable.

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Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News, Transportation

The problem with all self-driving cars looking alike

November 7, 2019

Self-driving cars within fleets will look alike, creating problems.

Have you ever seen a sea of yellow cabs, all of which seem indistinguishable from each other?

It used to be that if you booked a yellow cab for picking you up at a busy airport or similar venue, the odds were that a slew of other yellow cabs were also vying for picking up passengers there too. As such, you would have a tough time trying to figure out which among the multitudes of yellow cabs was the one designated just for you.

The cabs sometimes had a number displayed on the outside of the vehicle, and in theory, you could then spot your particular yellow cab, but possessing the number was one tricky aspect and the other was the arduous difficulty of trying to clearly see the number among the blur of so many cabs.

There was pretty much little point in reserving a cab beforehand and instead, it seemed wiser to take a chance at randomly hailing a cab.

Today’s world is a sea change, as it were.

Continue reading… “The problem with all self-driving cars looking alike”

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Autonomous taxis have made their driverless debut in London

October 22, 2019

Are London cabbies’ days numbered?

SELF-DRIVING taxis have hit the streets of London for the first time during a week-long trial in the capital.

The culmination of a 30-month development process lead by the government and industry-supported the DRIVEN autonomous vehicle technology consortium, the tests saw a collection of Ford Mondeo-based test cars complete short runs on a pre-programmed course on public roads through Stratford, in the east of the city, a short distance away from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, venue for the 2012 Games.

While this isn’t the first time autonomous vehicles have been tested in an urban environment (the same self-driving research vehicles were put through their preliminary paces in Oxford earlier in the year), DRIVEN said these tests have been “the most ambitious” yet, due to the demands that come with driving in a megacity.

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Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

Hyundai to start mass production of driverless cars in 2024

October 22, 2019

South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Group will start mass production of self-driving cars within the next five years, said Chung Euisun, the heir to the auto giant, as he made a hefty investment in a joint venture the company established with Aptiv on Sept. 23.

At a luncheon session held in New York with Korean correspondents on the same day he signed the $4 billion deal with the US software developer, Chung said the company would apply the autonomous driving technology to be developed jointly with Aptiv to Hyundai cars starting in 2024. The executive vice chairman, who holds the second-highest position in the carmaker — his father, Chairman Chung Mong-koo, is No. 1 — said the company had decided to hold the same number of shares as Aptiv, rather than be a minority shareholder in the venture, in an effort to transform itself from a mere car manufacturer into a future mobility solutions provider.

“We expect the era of autonomous vehicles to come early, but it will be possible for customers to go anywhere they want in a driverless car after 2030,” said Chung, who has taken the lead in the absence of his ill father.

Continue reading… “Hyundai to start mass production of driverless cars in 2024”

Analysis, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

Special report: Driverless cars are the new dot-com bubble

September 20, 2019

We simply don’t know what sort of jobs will be available in the future. After all, imagine yourself in the year 1900 peering into the future. How could you know then that the proportion of people employed in agriculture in the USA would fall to a twentieth of what it was then?

Or that there would now be more people employed as mental health nurses in the NHS than there are sailors serving in the Royal Navy? Or that large numbers of people would pay good money to personal trainers to put them through their paces and ensure that they suffered the requisite amount of agony?

History is full of people who have made long-term predictions and who have been proved utterly wrong. Among economists one of my favourites is the great William Stanley Jevons, one of the most distinguished economists of the nineteenth century. In 1865 he predicted that industrial expansion would soon come to a halt due to a shortage of coal. Poor old Jevons.

So we must tread warily. Having said that, and having dosed ourselves with lashings of humility, and drunk deep from the well of scepticism, there is a lot that we can say about the future of employment in the new robot- and AI-dominated future.

One of the most widely talked about categories of jobs supposedly at risk is drivers: bus drivers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, chauffeurs, delivery drivers, and many more. A 2017 trucking industry report predicted that by 2030, out of 6.4m trucking jobs in America and Europe, about 4.4m of them could have disappeared as “robots” do the driving.

Continue reading… “Special report: Driverless cars are the new dot-com bubble”

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

Waymo cars refuse to drive in unsafe conditions

September 7, 2019

Heavy rain and blizzards aren’t the only forms of severe weather Waymo’s self-driving vehicles encounter on the regular. In a blog post published this morning, the Alphabet subsidiary laid out the ways its cars in over 25 cities tackle fog, dust, smoke, and other dangerous conditions that trip up even human drivers.

“Challenging [environmental] conditions, which affect human driver and vehicle performance, are one of the leading contributors to crashes on our roads … Poor perception creates significant risk for other road users including pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicle occupants,” wrote Waymo chief safety officer Debbie Hersman. “Waymo is working hard to master a variety of weather scenarios as part of our mission to improve road safety.”

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Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

73 mind-blowing implications of driverless cars and trucks

August 25, 2019

I originally wrote and published a version of this article in September 2016. Since then, quite a bit has happened, further cementing my view that these changes are coming and that the implications will be even more substantial. I decided it was time to update this article with some additional ideas and a few changes.

As I write this, Uber just announced that it just ordered 24,000 self-driving Volvos. Tesla just released an electric, long-haul tractor trailer with extraordinary technical specs (range, performance) and self-driving capabilities (UPS just preordered 125!). And, Tesla just announced what will probably be the quickest production car ever made — perhaps the fastest. It will go zero to sixty in about the time it takes you to read zero to sixty. And, of course, it will be able to drive itself. The future is quickly becoming now. Google just ordered thousands of Chryslers for its self-driving fleet (that are already on the roads in AZ).

In September of 2016, Uber had just rolled out its first self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh, Tesla and Mercedes were rolling out limited self-driving capabilities and cities around the world were negotiating with companies who want to bring self-driving cars and trucks to their cities. Since then, all of the major car companies have announced significant steps towards mostly or entirely electric vehicles, more investments have been made in autonomous vehicles, driverless trucks now seem to be leading rather than following in terms of the first large scale implementations and there’ve been a few more incidents (i.e. accidents).

I believe that the timeframe for significant adoption of this technology has shrunk in the past year as technology has gotten better faster and as the trucking industry has increased its level of interest and investment.

Continue reading… “73 mind-blowing implications of driverless cars and trucks”

Automobiles, City Planning, Driverless cars, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

City planners eye self-driving vehicles to correct mistakes of the 20th-century auto

August 16, 2019

Autonomous cars could cut traffic and pollution — or make them worse, planners say

The Los Angeles City Council last year approved a $4.9-billion contract to design, build and operate an automated people mover at Los Angeles International Airport. The elevated system will have driverless electric trains that carry passengers between terminals, a transportation center and the Metro light-rail system. It is expected to be operational in 2023. (Los Angeles World Airports/AP)

As self-driving vehicles begin to transform the way people get around, urban planners around the country are beginning to think about how they will remake cities and change the way we live.

Not since the Model T replaced the horse and buggy have transportation and cities faced such an extensive transformation. Many planners say they see an opportunity to prevent — and correct — the 20th-century mistakes of the auto’s reign: congestion, pollution, sprawl and roads designed to move vehicles rather than people.

Continue reading… “City planners eye self-driving vehicles to correct mistakes of the 20th-century auto”