Category: News and Views
Science & technology
Who needs a driver? Meet the car that can do it all by itself
By RAY MASSEY -
Last updated at 12:10pm on 13th April 2007
The Daily Mail
It's been the stuff of science fiction for decades - but the self-driving car of the future is here today.
A real-life driverless family car - which will steer itself around pedestrians and other cars and brake to avoid an accident yet looks completely normal
- has been unveiled at the Science Museum in London.
The car has laser sensors that act as "eyes" linked to an intelligent computer brain controlling its movements and has designed to cope with frenetic inner-city
driving.
These eyes are placed at the front and at the back, giving the car all-round vision.
The laser-scanner eyes feed the electronic data of what they "see" around them into an on-board "black-box" computer.
This is linked to satellite navigation software and maps out a picture of the car's surroundings in a 200 yard radius - including road conditions, buildings,
other vehicles and pedestrians.
Scanning the road ahead - and behind - it can brake, accelerate, change gear and steer itself around rush hour traffic and obstacles - even reversing to
get out of a tight spot.
The car obeys the rules of the road and can detect stop junctions from the road markings. Some sophisticated satellite-navigation systems already flag up
the speed limit road by road.
The laser-technology and software has been developed by German laser technology company Ibeo Automobile Sensor, based in Hamburg.
The hi-tech equipment has been put so unobtrusively into a standard 125mph VW Passat 2.0 TDI estate that onlookers will notice little or no difference from
the standard model.
The development means that self-driving cars which have been the stuff of film fantasy for decades - from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the loveable Volkswagen
Beetle "Herbie" to the hi-tech KITT in TV's Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff - are now set to become a family reality.
Ibeo spokeswoman Karen Tippkotter said:"This is no longer science fiction, it's science fact.
"Our car is fitted with special laser scanners that can read the road ahead and take the appropriate action.
"Much of the technology in this car will be available in standard cars within a couple of years. it will be up to Governments to decide whether the cars
will be legally allowed to be driverless. But the technology exists now to do it."
The scanners also detect road markings and tell whether a car is leaving the lane, apply the brakes if a car suddenly moves in front, and hits the accelerator
if the road ahead is clear.
It can do an emergency stop if a pedestrian steps into the road and will drive around parked cars.
It is a short step to linking the technology to sat-nav systems that highlight speed-cameras, but Miss Tippkotter said: "At the moment they won't hit the
brakes to avoid a speed camera or warn you that a parking warden is approaching. But maybe that's something we should work on."
She said her company Ibeo was already in advanced talks with major international car makers such as Volkswagen, BMW, DaimlerChrysler Honda and Mitsubishi.
Production prototypes are expected later this year.
Ibeo have named their laser-guided car "Lux" - after the Latin for light. The company said its Lux differed from previous self-drive cars because it looks
exactly like a standard road model - without any "funny bits" of antenna sticking out of the top or side.
To prove its worth, a "Team-Lux" Passat has been entered into a competition to trial self-driving car technology - with a £1.5million funding prize - organised
this November by the US government which is interested in the military spin-offs it may bring.
Participant driverless cars have to complete a 60 mile trip around an urban environment in under six hours at speds limited to 30mph in the event organised
by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) arm of the US Department of Defence.
The goal of the DARPA Urban Challenge is "developing technology that will keep war-fighters off the battlefield and out of harm's way", says its website.
It notes that vehicles taking part will be "manoeuvring in a mock city environment, executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving
traffic, navigating traffic circles (roundabouts), negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles".
So before such cars are whizzing around your local high street, they may first be proving their worth in urban theatres of war.
DARPA director Dr Tony Teather said: "The next big leap will be an autonomous vehicle that can navigate and operate in traffic, a far more complex challenge
for a 'robotic' driver."
Volkswagen is also entering its own official rival car - called Junior - based on a Passat.
A spokesman for Volkswagen said: "It wasn't so long ago that many of today's common technologies - such satellite navigation,airbags and bluetooth mobile
phones - would themselves have been considered science fiction."
Ibeo chief executive Ulrich Lages said: "Our innovative laser technology gives us a lead of several years over our prospective rivals."
I seriously hope not. This is a great thing, but please let sense provail and make it law that these cars have a sited person on board at all times.
lol, I seriously hope so. It'd be awesome to be able to drive independently.
I'm not scared of a car. Just proove to me that I won't die behind the wheel, and I'm all for it. sighties be damned. haha.
Number 1, I'm sure most blind people would never be able to afford such a thing. Number 2, I would never feel safe behind the wheel of a car driven by a computer. I mean think about how often things go wrong with computers. I would want a sighted person available to grab the wheel if something goes wrong.
I'd heard about junior and a few other cars that were entering in this race, but this car sounds like it's more likely to succeed in becoming available. I'd certainly love to try one out when they're available to the public.
that wood be fun but so expensive
I'm surprised this hasn't happened long before now, an for the record, I want one! We have the docklands light railway in london, which is essentially a trainline run by a computer.... Many countries don't even have drivers for their trains. I don't really see the difference to be honest. You could still die on the train, or plain, etc, and nothing is ever going to be foolprove.... If you're waiting for that, you'll be waiting a long time....
too expensive, not for me
Who cares about the money it's the people walking on the side walks like me I'm worried about. It's already bad enough people that see can't drive now you want to add blind people that can't see and can't drive. Lol!
A new hazard for the two and three wheelers aren't we in enough danger as it is. I notice it doesn't recognise bikes.
Man I wouldn't enjoy meeting a machine that
ignores my existence on the road.
It's strange...I'm a programmer and that shit worries me.
Hell, it scares the shit out of me!
Hey! I agree with Sugar, Clair is it, and Kala! I'd love to drive, and if the thing's been proven safe? Why not?
That's the problem it hasn't.
i'm a few years from being able to get a drivers llycense, but legally i could be in driver's ed this summer, because you can take it in montana when youare 14... anyway, i really hope it comes out so i can be more independant, and like someone else said there's nothing full proof, i mean hell you could die getting a glass of water you could just fall down the stairs or something... anyway, to make a a long story shorter i really really really want a blind car, oh yeah one more thing we would be able to drive, because would still have to take driver's ed, and do what everyone else has to do...
but what if the computer system crashes? ever think of that? if it crashes, you're screwed! no thanks, I'll pass for now.
Sugar, trains are infinitely easier to control by a computer than cars. They go on fixed rails, always the same way, don't have to randomly stop anywhere, always stop at the same places or, if not, skip or do not skip fixed stations, don't have to interact with other drivers, deal with roundabouts, don't have to speed up and slow down randomly, basically it's a totally totally different scenario, one that computers and technology can handle fairly managably.
Cars are totally different, there is so much interaction with other drivers, satellites, road conditions, directions, speeds, parking spots (there is no mention on whether the car can find an empty parking spot for instance), once you stop in the car how are you gong to get from the car to wherever you want to go, you don't really know where it's parked yet. That has to be addressed although technologies like the Galileo satellite network might hel with suchprecission navigation.
I, honestly, am extremely skeptical and think a completely slf driving car is decades away at the very least. I think such cars function much better when the majority of cars on the road are also self driving, that way they really observe the rules and are governed by the same principles, drivers are often ass holes, switch into your lane without warning, you have to be constantly alert, make split decissions in unpredictable circumstances, like Radiohead put it "they all drive killer cars". And that is not mentioning chances of computer breakdowns, loss of satellite navigation or damaged sensors.
I think it's a great concept experiment they are doing and could open up a whole new set of applications but there will be tons of obsticles, funding, patents (keeping prices sky high), the military licensing technology for themseles (they wouldn't want it to go totally public last the enemy licensed the same technology), a patent lasts for 17 years. I think we are really seeing the beginnings of a long road. That being said, it's kind of cool but I would remain skeptical and not drive myself for quite a while, in any case we, as a global population, must learn to use public transport more and abandon cars if we are to survive in this rapidly heating atmosphere, so I think/hope the development would be, in short term, towards more accessible public transportation and innovations in navigation on foot through satellite technology. For instance, use blue tooth,or other technology that could transfer information about what train or bus is coming to a handheld device, technology to tell us where we want to get off the bus or train, a device that accepts our start and end location and can create a step by step instructions on how to get there, including what mode of public transportation you can take, when it stops and where exactly, where to get off etc, I know forms of such technology are already in use and I think we're likely to see this in the near future built into handheld sized applications.
So, whilst I applaud this technology and think it's great I would not be optimistic about taking a drive from NYC to Detroit in the next 30 years at least, plus it's a bitch of a drive.
Cheers
-B
well said to the last poster. well said.
this would be friggen sweet
I'm growing fed up with having to wait on others. As soon as something like this goes public, I'm getting one! I'm willing to take reasonable, acceptable risks to have this type of technology, which would finally grant me the real independence enjoyed by sighted people for over a hundred years now!
First comparing the computers in this car to the ones you use is a flawed analagy. The methodoligy used to program high reliability mission crytical systems such as this is much different then that used to program desktop computers. I'd trust a computer more then most drivers on the road but I can't see this in the near future.r