Talk:Driverless car

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Contents 1 Tone of article 2 Unattended fueling 3 No personal cars 4 History 5 Slashdot posting had some good ideas 6 The Major Revamp underway 7 Error or Purpose? 8 What is a "Driverless Car" ? 9 Traffic synchronization? 10 Fiction 11 One more optional technology for micro navigation 12 Lexus Advanced Parking Guidance System 13 This article or section is incomplete

[edit] Tone of article

This reads like a report someone did for school. There's a lot of 'miracle' and 'marvel' type words, as well as odd first-person references to Italy.

In the actual article, "Miracle" = 0 times. "Marvel" = one mention, "seeming marvel" - sarcastic if anything. "First person" - Where? "Italy" - Twice, "Italian" - 3 times, it so happens that a lot is going on there. For comparison, "USA" is mentioned in that exact spelling 6 times, as "US" 7 times. Can you substantiate what you said? or were you discussing this talk page? In any case, the fully driverless car is in the future, if it will ever happen at all, and for that reason alone could be justly termed "a marvel". Anyhow, feel free to improve the article itself, or discuss specifics here - I just can't quite relate to what you said, I suppose. Please enlighten me, especialy on the "first person" stuff. Samfreed 22:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Sam, I'm with you on this. I couldn't find any use of Italy in the first-person either. However, I have just edited out "some brave souls", which was rather POV, and removed the paragraph explaining the order of discussion (which would be useful in a magazine article, but not here). --Habap 11:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Habap - what about the quote: "Either a desert (free of any human or human-made obstacle), or a clearly-marked, well-painted (in our case Italian) motorway". In who's case? There are a few instances of this in this article where you need to read to get context rather than do a search and count the number of times a word occurs.

So much discussion about a 3-line paragraph! If anyone doesn't like the tone of the article, why not edit it for tone, POV, etc? It isn't locked, this is the wikipedia, just go ahead! I promise to review for accuracy, it is on my watchlist. If I have time later today I might even do it myself, now that I understand what the complaining is about - but Please just use the wiki! Samfreed 09:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unattended fueling

"Before or after the attendant refuels it, the car would print out the owner's credit card or checking account number in order to pay for the fuel."

LOL! Do you really think that by the time driverless cars have arrived it will still be necessary to print a credit card number? And why would the petrol station bother employing an attendant? Surely if a car can drive itself it can refuel itself too.

Back in the 1990s, Mobil Oil tested an unattended refueling system for gas stations. That is, the car would pull up to the pump and the pump would insert the nozzle in the gas tank of the vehicle. They had also already deployed Speedpass, making for hands-free electronic payment. Not sure what happened with the unattended refueling, the technology does exist, though it may not be profitable. --Habap 19:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Just put an RFID tag inside where the nozzel goes in and it can automatically identify the car and deduct from a debit account.

"will people still be allowed to drive, when an automated system will be able to do it more safely?" Not a valid question in my opinion. You are applying present-day concerns to a future scenario. If the automated system is advanced enough to offer great advantages over driving manually, most people won't want to drive by hand, and they won't care whether it is allowed. The question sounds like someone in 1900 asking "Will people still be allowed to ride their horses on motorways?". Of course, some people will still want drive purely for leisure, just like people still ride horses today. They will do this on special tracks however and not on the main transport corridors that take people from A to B. 137.222.40.132 17:13, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Many people will insist on driving by hand, probably for decades after it becomes common. Ask anyone over 60 how often they use cell phones, the internet or a PDA. --Habap 19:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I have just read the page about the driverless car. The issue of the driverless car is whether it should be a private car, or a public vehicle. As a private car it solves very few car problems. As a public vehicle, used as a taxi, it solves many car problems. It leads the way to better road space utilisation by allowing people to conveniently use buses for the corridor part of the journey, and the driverless car for the local networked part of the journey.

So what are you saying? What can the article do to better represent this issue? - Fennec 15:19, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Public or private ownership is a mere technicality and not an important issue in my opinion. Driverless cars will allow for a much more competitive rental and pay-on-demand market than is the case with manually driven vehicles. If a city council fails to provide a public driverless car system, private companies similar to today's taxis companies will. More people will choose to use a public-type system because of the clear advantages it will offer (much lower cost due to higher rate of utilisation, more flexible, no parking problems, one way journeys possible). Some people will still prefer to own a private vehicle, or choose combination of both. Whatever the scenario however, I can't see why fully private and "taxi" vehicles can't happily coexist on the road (or any other guidance system).

From what I've heard, it's unfeasible for a computer to drive among human drivers at present, but if human driving were eliminated, it'd be easy for a computer network to control all cars, and at higher safe speeds. this is because of the unpredictability aspect of human drivers even at the lower speeds necessary for their safety.

[edit] No personal cars

I chuckled when reading the "no personal cars" at all. I doubt that Americans would be willing to give up the feeling of freedom that comes with car ownership. While people who live on Manhattan or in Tokyo may find owning a car a hindrance, someone out on Long Island or in Akron, Ohio or Detroit, Michigan would probably tell you that "you can have my car when you pry the keys from my cold, dead fingers." Similarly, I doubt Germans would give them up. Heck, Finns, Norwegians and Swedes would probably hate to lose one of the ways of getting around their countries too. The "no personal cars at all" is so pie-in-the-sky silly that I am tempted to remove it or slap a POV tag on this article. It simply won't happen in any of our lifetimes. --Habap 13:54, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

--Keep Chuckling--

You are now 9 years old and live in Kitty Hawk. Orville and Wilbur have just landed. In twenty-five years, you will be an airline pilot flying the DC-3. Is that "'nuff said" for you ?? If not, it is now 40 years later and your son has just landed on the moon. "One giant step ...

Well, someone who was 9 years old in 1903 couldn't have been piloting a DC-3 in 1928, since they hadn't been built yet. It would have been at best 1935, when the Douglas DC-3 first flew. Now, 1969 was 66 years after the Wright's flight, so our 75-year-old man might have a son born in 1930 (like the entire Apollo 11 crew), when he was 36. Of course, 75 years was longer than the average male lifespan in the US at the time (though my own grandfather was 4 in 1903 and died in 1983).

While I am certain there will be technology that enables it (as there has been for airplanes for some time), I cannot imagine everyone giving up control of their cars in the next 30 or 40 years. If you expand it to 65 years, well, that's beyond the expected lifetime of most people reading this.... So, I stand by my statement. "It simply won't happen in any of our lifetimes." --Habap 12:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

--Keep Chuckling--

I beg your pardon for the date error. I should have recognized you as a hard-core doubter, sorry.

I cannot find the quotation I wanted to use from IBM's Tom Watson, Sr, but maybe this one will do (From IBM/Wikipedia) --

""IBM neglected, however, to gain an even more dominant role in the nascent industry by allowing the RAND Corporation to take over the job of programming the new computers, because, according to one project participant (Robert P. Crago), "we couldn't imagine where we could absorb two thousand programmers at IBM when this job would be over some day, which shows how well we were understanding the future at that time"[13] IBM would use its experience designing massive, integrated real-time networks with SAGE to design its SABRE airline reservation system, which met with much success"".

Back in 1968, we were astonished to find that a group in Minneapolis/Honeywell in St Pete, FL, had developled a silicon intergrated circuit containing (now get this) ONE-THOUSAND BITs << BITS, that is !!! Honeywell declined to support them any further, "It was obviously impractical and of little commercial value". Let's see, where are we now on semiconductor memories ? Many, many megabytes, I have lost track.

Ah, but we are not talking about the technology being capable, but rather about humans being willing to accept it. I think that Americans, at least, are so enamored with their cars that they won't have all turned in their keys in the net 40 years. Heck, it looks like telephones were invented sometime between 1849 and 1876, but didn't end up in nearly every home until the 1950s. While the bleeding edge of technology moves very fast, full integration takes a very long time, especially something so ingrained in American culture. (The first cell phones were available in 1971, but 35 years later there are still people who don't have one.) --Habap 19:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

--Keep Chuckling --

I saved the best for last : ECONOMIC Flexibility, as in Consumer Credit. The automated auto will NOT be owned by consumers, just as few of us own now own airplanes, but we still fly when necessary. Even now, electric vehicles would be much more popular if one did not have to purchase the storage batteries up front and then maintain them and then replace them : The gasoline and electric vehicles thus do NOT now operate on a level playing field.

The auto autos will be owned by a transportation utility (public or private), like the streets and highways they run on -- after all, few of us generate our own electricity, but granted that a good number of us in rural settings still provide our own water, waste disposal and gas.

Of course, one MAY own his private auto/auto if he has that kind of bucks and no place better to put them. For the rest of us : No more car payments, no more car washing & maintenance, no more car insurance, no more tires, no more batteries, no more transmissions, no more speeding or other traffic violations, including DUI, no more road rage, no more fender benders, no more crashes while using the cell-phone or not -- go ahead and take a nap, work, read, compute or whatever you please while on your way.

Do THESE "no mores" constitute the "benefits" of car-ownership and car-driving that FEW Americans will give up ? Well, you believe that and I have some prime ocean-front property for you here in AZ (Chuckle, chuckle). Think of it as "democratized personal transportation", equally available to all : young, old (like me), fit or disabled -- How otherwise does one who can no longer drive get around ?

Now you've gotten even less realistic. You're positing the development of an entirely new business model for transportation. Will the Zipcar is out there now, and people can lease normal autos, I think the idea that car ownership will cease in addition to human operation of the vehicles ignores how inherently conservative the normal person actually is.

First, the technology needs to become cheap, simple and reliable. Then, the car makers need to produce several million of these cars. Meanwhile everyone needs to agree that it's a good idea. Oh, and keep in mind that cars can easily stay on the road for 10 years after they roll off the assembly line (I've had each of mine for 9 years), so add a minimum of 10 years to the year the last non-automatic car rolls off the assembly line.

Examine, for example, the seat belt. They first went into production vehicles in 1956, but it wasn't mandatory anywhere in the US until 1984 and still isn't mandatory in every state - fifty years later. Thus, I don't think it unreasonable to assume that despite the obvious benefits listed in your "no mores", it just won't happen in our lifetimes. --Habap 18:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. since you're obviously interested in Wikipedia, why don't you create yourself a username? Check outWikipedia:Contributing FAQ.

[edit] History

Where is the history about this?

Does anyone have any information regarding the begining of the AGV Concept.

[edit] Slashdot posting had some good ideas

I recall reading a posting on Slashdot that had some terrific ideas about driverless cars (I think in reference to the Darpa Grand Challenge), easily as good as the list in this article. That would be a good source for more driverless car advantages. I also wonder if on-the-road-refuelling might even be a viable concept for situations where it'd be economical. (The cost of stopping to refill would exceed the money spent doing it on the road.) Imagine if there were someday fuel trucks endlessly wandering the interstates refuelling semis and delivery trucks all day and night.

Oops! It turns out that the article wasn't in reference to the DGC afterall. The posting also wasn't as extensive as I first remembered:

[1]

But still, there are some good ideas there. The idea of kids not of driving age using the car as a taxi should be included. And what about long commutes being more practical since someone could read, watch TV, or sleep on the road? I can easily imagine this article being several times it's length with all the advantages and innovations driverless cars will present. It may be one of the greatest innovations of the 21st century.

[edit] The Major Revamp underway

Hi All,

I am revamping this page to sound less like a SciFi fantasy page, and more of a serious summary of the state-of-the-art of all the efforts in the field. This will take several weeks, and most probably you will not recognize the page once I am done, but that is just what the Wikipedia is about, the evolution of "stubs" into a collection of comments, and eventually into a serious encyclopedic article.

Samfreed 10:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The benefits of autonomous vehicles has been greatly understated. The following is from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00020814.htm "Motor-vehicle crashes during 1990 accounted for 44,531 fatalities, 5.4 million nonfatal injuries, and 28 million damaged vehicles, and an estimated total cost of $137.5 billion (Table 1). Major sources for cost were property damage ($45.7 billion {33%}), productivity losses in the workplace ($39.8 billion {29%}), medical-care expenses (13.9 billion {10%}), and losses related to household productivity ($10.8 billion {8%})." $137.5 billion dollars is wasted on vehicle collisions in a single year. The benefits of an autonomous system range far beyond fewer traffic accidents. The whole reason Eisenhower built the Interstates in the first place is to allow quick evacuation of people and quick mobilization of the military and emergency response crews. Cars communicating to each other can notify the entire system to downed roadways and traffic free routes. With all that's been said in the recent years about national security and increasing national debt, it's a mystery to me why the government doesn't feel the need to exponentially increase it's funding for its antedated transportation system.

[edit] Error or Purpose?

Umm find click the 'average drivers' link on the page... it directs to joe bloggs. How come? | Spelling error or just purpose? --> find denemark --Zer_T --Zer_T 00:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

On purpose. It was simply "joe bloggs" and them someone "improved" it.

[edit] What is a "Driverless Car" ?

To begin with, it is an error in nomenclature : Every vehicle has some kind of driver, human or machine. Until a better term is found, we should term such a unit an "autonomous vehicle for public roadways", AVPR, perhaps ?. With that settled for the moment, what are the attributes required of any device proposed to implement an AVPR ?

It seems fairly straightforward to me : Vision, Hearing and Seat-of-Pants. We could perhaps throw in a generous dollop of "common sense" for good measure. The sensory and other attributes could be easily improved over that available from human drivers, like 360-deg vision and hearing and really good inertial sensors, not to mention that the device would likely never be intoxicated or talking on a cell phone like some idiots do (though perhaps it could be turn up broken). Then given the data gathered from the sensors, said data must be processed appropriately to secure guidance. No sweat there, what with today's cheap computing power -- of course, it is a software nighmare.

One might want to look up a recent article in the IEEE Spectrum about the guidance system found in the common housefly: VERY marvelous and VERY simple.

Given the present state-of-the-art together with a rock-hard G*O*A*L to do so (translation : MegaKiloBucks), we ought to be able to demonstrate one in a year or two. Why not ?

A few things:

• I preffer not to invent further nomenclature, the space is crowded enough. This name is in the wonderful tradition of the "horseless carrige".
• The problem is in the "Seat of pants" part, as you call it, or the "micro-navigation" as I call it in the article. I have yet to really write that part, watch this space.
• Please give more accurae references than "recent" for any article you want anyone to read and consider. A URL would be nice.
• Why not create a username for yourself? That way we can recognize you.

Samfreed 06:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Re : Nomenclature - This is NOT 1905 : We need nomenclature which cuts thru the cute and distinguishes what appear to some as minor differences. Beware of "Gresham's Law of Information", simlar to Gresham's Law of Money. Thus, the case is already lost -- but no surprise there.

"Seat-of-Pants" refers to information from inertial sensors. All taken together -- The steering machine requires equivalents to eyes, ears, ear-canals & some of bodily touch. From these, the machine calculates first-order steering commands : Hold the road, do no harm. The next steering level deals with traffic flow : read the street and traffic signs, follow the rules, optimize flow for all, including pedestrians, while the next level deals with trips, with destinations. The maximum optimization of the two highest levels requires increasing degrees of local and central communications.

All any of this does is to remove our abundant human frailties of all sorts, thru and including road rage, from the surface transport equation. Some will miss the anonymity of the manual system.

[edit] Traffic synchronization?

Surely there should be mention of constant synchronization and communication between driverless cars and traffic protocols, signals, and workers which would obviously be required for a fully driverless car traffic system. I think this would be the next step up from simple driverless cars, where the entire system is united and in constant communication and can dynamically adapt to situations (ex. Traffic "overseer" computers will redirect cars away from a problem automatically and instantaneously). This would certainly require a complete overhaul of not only cars, but also all traffic systems (highways, rules, signals, workers, intersections).

Whatever, next comes the Matrix. Just doing my part to push mankind to singularity. --Exander 00:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment to above -

The best way to impede the transition from manual to autonomous automobiles is to insist that all of those features -- which ultimately may prove wise or even necessary -- must be fulfilled at some arbitrary deadline date. Initially, the only features necessary are these :

1) Auto/autos shall be compatible with manual autos;

2) They shall move their passengers swiftly AND safely.

Observed side-by-side, the only way that a manual auto should able to be distinguished from an auto/auto (except for the absence of the steering wheel) is that the latter drives more precisely, more politely, more safely and always operates within the law (when the speed-limit signs are not hidden behind trees or other visual obstructions). When an externally generated surprise occurs, the auto/auto will generally react in a manner similar to that of a highly experienced and talented professional driver (while staying within the law and not endangering others), since those driving rules and manners are exactly those contained within its control system.

During the transition period, auto/autos may be able to snitch on manual autos being operated outside the law.

Autonomous means autonomous : That is, the bells and whistles, the important advantages of LIMITED local and central external control will only gradually emerge as fewer and fewer manual vehicles are present in the mix of traffic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 162.42.86.41 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Fiction

Should there be a fiction section? With examples such as the cars in I, Robot (film). Alot of other future mechanics-in-development articles have sections on fiction thats why.--Exander 01:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I've added a "In film" section as a starting point. If anyone knows of more examples of driverless cars in fiction, please add 'em in and edit the section title accordingly... --Samf-nz 06:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One more optional technology for micro navigation

For navigation through congested traffic in addition to laser and radar technologies in my opinion infra-red vision or thermal vision can be very useful.Since on road the atmospheric temperature will be constant for a particular instant of time while the temperature of vehicles moving near to driverless car will be having different temperature,therefore utilizing this phenomena our vehicle can recognize its surroundings for the presence vehicles and humans.

posted by Amreesh Singh

Generally, no special technology beyond that which enables the machine to perceive its surroundings with the same acuity as a human would is needed -- ordinary light is plenty -- except to cope with the presence of fog, smoke, etc.

However, until the technology drives away all manually controlled vehicles, vision based on other methods will be of positive, but limited value. It would only help to prevent those nasty fog-pileups -- absolute prevention requires the absence of manual vehicles.

Of course, the machine will continually see and analyze a 360-o picture with recent history and will never be distracted by, say, operating a cell phone -- so the overall result will far exceed human capability.

Nice thought, but it is for the Sensors, not the Micro-Navigation. More on Micro-Navigation coming soon.

--Samfreed 16:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the term "Micro-Navigation" to "Motion planning". Clearer. I am also working on an article by that name. Samfreed 23:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lexus Advanced Parking Guidance System

Yesterday, I saw their commercial on TV. With limited driver input (selecting one corner of the parking spot and tapping the brakes), the newest Lexus LS will perform parallel parking for you. I am amazed!

At the touch of a button, the available Advanced Parking Guidance System can parallel park the LS or back into a parking space (not shown) with just a little brake work by the driver. First, position the LS in front of the parking space, then use the navigation screen to select the parallel park icon. After pressing the OK button on the screen, simply remove your hands from the steering wheel and regulate the vehicle’s speed by using the brake.[2]

Thus, the first step toward this is going into production now. Might be useful to incorporate this into the article. --Habap 12:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article or section is incomplete

Why heve so many "this article or section is incomplete" signs all over this page? Nate | Talk ^Esperanza! 02:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Because I am personally aware of more material for these sections, and intend to add it soon. Samfreed 08:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)