Air crash investigations.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Alex

so presumably lessening human involvement and control over potentially dangerous machines would result in fewer fatalities.

Only snag is ( for the first part of that journey ), humans will be programming the system that stops the cars hitting each other, ( and not forgetting those pesky cyclists / pedestrians / dogs / etc who will refuse to wear the mandated transponders ) :-)
It may work on a highway situation now, but making it work in a city would prove "interesting". Not impossible, but not neartime either.
Hell, we cant even get signalling for a single fixed trainline sorted down here :-)

Andrew

PS It might save the Montague St bridge???

[The_bluester (Paul)]

The Tesla is an interesting case in point in the development of self driving cars. I read a write up recently of a couple of guys in the US who did their best to have a Tesla self drive itself over a long distance at speed (Ahem, serious speed too)

They are not quite there yet, apparently the auto pilot function works eerily well, with exceptions. One of those being when it made to bomb into a 50MPH corner at 90MPH. To that time the software did not recognise an achievable speed for any particular corner and the car would steam on in at whatever speed you had it set to, then either make the corner or plough off the outside as dictated by the speed.

[Stonius (Markus)]

Driverless cars are already happening in californiaAnd doing very well. Only minor accidents all caused by other drivers. I look forward to driverless cars and I think it's imminent; as in, within 15 years, possibly 10.

Think about it, you can use your time more effectively on way to work. The more driverless cars, the less accidents. Lower road toll. No road rage. Better traffic flow management. It's inevitable, IMO

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Originally Posted by Stonius

Driverless cars are already happening in californiaAnd doing very well. Only minor accidents all caused by other drivers. I look forward to driverless cars and I think it's imminent; as in, within 15 years, possibly 10.

Think about it, you can use your time more effectively on way to work. The more driverless cars, the less accidents. Lower road toll. No road rage. Better traffic flow management. It's inevitable, IMO

Actually, Google (I think) had a bit of a setback recently, funny enough, the car sort of acted like a human would and assumed that a bus in the next lane would slow down for it, which it did not and the Google car promptly crashed into the bus.

[AndrewJ]

Tragic coincidence, but if the midday news is correct
it looks like a new search for a black box is on.

Andrew

[gary]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

It may work on a highway situation now, but making it work in a city would prove "interesting". Not impossible, but not neartime either.

Hi Andrew,

It is already being trialled today.

The Google self-driving cars have been plying the city streets of
Mountain View in California for the past few years and have more
recently begun trials in the cities of Austin, Texas, Kirkland,
Washington & Phoenix, Arizona.

Those trials are scheduled to expand to 30 U.S. cities in 2017.

The Google cars are fully autonomous and being purposely designed
not to require human intervention. Google has been in discussions
with the regulators to drop the requirement that cars be fitted with steering
wheels and human operated controls. What is referred to in the industry
as "level 4 or L4" autonomy.

They use sophisticated computer vision systems and don't rely on
transponders to avoid other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, fallen
trees and so on.

It is remarkable how far they have advanced in such a short period of time.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/26/ho...-driving-cars/

[AndrewJ]

Gday Gary

I have been watching the development with interest, but i just see lots more problems coming along as more and more cars get on the road.
( After writing software for many years, i know its only 10% of the job to make it work. The other 90% goes into preventing it doing what you dont want it to :-) )

Whilst i understand they use visual technology, i had read that to get the whole lot to work ( when say over 90% of traffic is automated ), that transponders( or similar ) would probably be required ( both in cars and at strategic points ) so that local flow patterns could be modelled in a local peer to peer mode, esp if the camera cant see round the next corner.

That said, my biggest concern is once they get a critical mass of cars going, it is going to be such an enticing target for bored hackers, that they wont be able to resist "having fun".
How safe will the system be in that scenario ???
Ctrl+Alt+Del :-)

Andrew

[xelasnave]

Last night the show was about a passenger plane being shot down by a US war ship....
So we need to make the escape pods with armour as well.
Alex