Truck And Car Platoons Could Allow For Autonomous Driving
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 12 of November , 2009 at 1:35 am
So yeah, robot cars are getting smarter, but they’re not quite yet ready to take over the driving duties from us human. The European Union is about to start funding a research project to investigate the feasibility of vehicles traveling on highways in “platoons,” where the lead vehicle is driven by a professional and the rest of the cars just play follow the leader while their drivers “take their hands off the wheel, read a book or watch TV.” It’s better than just being able to relax, though: if the lead vehicle is a truck, the cars following along in its wake are about 20% more efficient (although the Mythbusters showed that close drafting can improve that to 40%).
If you think about what type of hardware and software is necessary to do this type of thing, it’s all pretty much already available. The car doesn’t really have to be intelligent… It needs adaptive cruise control, which you can find everywhere, plus some way of following the car in front of it during gradual highway turns, which is as easy as cake. The only tricky part is entering and exiting the platoons. Cars entering just have to pull up behind the platoon, but for exiting, the platoon will space out to let a car in the middle leave and the driver will need to resume control, which potentially gets into liability issues.
Even if there are some things to work out, this is a seriously brilliant idea. I mean, how much would you pay (say, per hour) to not have to drive? Or looking at it another way, what if the money you saved in fuel went to the professional driver at the front of the train? It’s a win for them, a win for you, and a win for the environment. Yay!
The research project will run for three years, including on-road trials in Spain.
[ BBC ]
Comments (6)
Category: Artificial Intelligence, Research
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Comment by Dan
Made Thursday, 12 of November , 2009 at 3:43 am
I can see how this could be useful in some cases, but isn’t there a technology that’s been around a lot longer — called the train…? If you’re going to have “dumb” vehicles that don’t do waypoint navigation and simply follow the leader, then separate locomotion systems for each car in the platoon seems wasteful.
The other great thing about trains is the separation is automatically maintained… you just have to be careful when crossing an intersection – slow down for yellow and all that.
Comment by Anastasios-Antonios Toulkeridis
Made Thursday, 12 of November , 2009 at 12:11 pm
Dan, r u referring to traditional..um..trains?.
As i recall no traditional train drives one straight home
Comment by Dan
Made Thursday, 12 of November , 2009 at 3:17 pm
@Anastasios
Correct, which is why I agree the study has some merit. It’s actually been done before by the CMU NavLab — back in the 80s. The live demo they did in CA went flawlessly — it was never implemented because you need either a fully autonomous system or a fully human one. Hybrid solutions still require too much responsibility from the human drive while implying a lower attentiveness requirement.
That puts the hybrid (human+robot) vehicle at high risk, thus jeopardizing the safety for all drivers…
Comment by Evan Ackerman
Made Friday, 13 of November , 2009 at 12:39 am
@ Dan
You mean, just because of the transitions in and out of the platoon?
Comment by Spikey DaPikey
Made Friday, 13 of November , 2009 at 4:42 am
If i don’t have enough to worry about when on my motorbike !
Comment by Dan
Made Saturday, 14 of November , 2009 at 10:19 pm
@ Evan
Yes — the transitions would be my main concern. We see on the highways how simple things like cell phones and radios can distract a driver. Unless you have a system that can fully take over (or at least safely disable the vehicle) in the event that the driver is unresponsive when then “need” to be in charge, it’s a failure in my opinion.
We need to provide people with safer technologies, not more liabilities. If they, as a result of this study, come up with a very safe manner to handle all conceivable contingencies, then I’ll reconsider my stance.