Robotic Road Trains Speed Towards Reality
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 7 of December , 2010 at 10:47 am
We wrote about robotic road trains last year, and somewhat remarkably, the research project that’s trying to make them happen is progressing nicely with help fro companies like Volvo. Cars drafting closely behind trucks in road trains save up to 40% in fuel consumption, thereby saving money and the environment at the same time. But the biggest advantage of being in a road train is that you can just stop paying attention to the road and do something else while your car drives itself.
It’s true that your life is in the hands of the system, and not in your hands, but while the current perception is that that makes things more dangerous, it really should be the exact opposite. With your car doing all the hard work for you, accidents are less likely.
Of course, the system is only as safe as the lead driver, so many different technologies are being employed to make sure that the person driving the truck is sober, qualified, and paying attention. This includes a breathalyzer and a fancy infrared camera system for vision tracking to make sure that the driver is paying attention to the road.
Other especially exciting bits from the video include mentions of ‘several years from now’ for road trains themselves, and the suggestion that technology to allow cars to drive themselves in stop and go traffic jams might be just around the corner. As we’ve discussed before, the technology (adaptive full stop cruise control and lane keeping) is already here and in some cars, we just have to catch up in terms of people (and lawyers) being comfortable with it.
VIA [ Wired ]
Comments (6)
Category: Artificial Intelligence,Consumer,Research
- Add this post to
- Del.icio.us -
- Digg
Comment by GLJ Pingen
Made Tuesday, 7 of December , 2010 at 3:32 pm
It always strikes me that the public view of an acceptable ‘failure rate’ for an automatic system lies much higher than the expected human failure rate. It seems people would rather crash their cars 10 out of 1000 times themselves, than put an automated driver at the wheel with a 1/1000 failure rate.
Comment by Jeb
Made Tuesday, 7 of December , 2010 at 10:36 pm
People that drive a lot do that all the time. Haven’t you ever seen a bunch of trucks doing it?
Comment by ew
Made Wednesday, 8 of December , 2010 at 1:22 pm
I would never ride a car with any Microsoft program.
What would happen if you get a blue screen of death on the road???
Comment by Joe Dunfee
Made Wednesday, 8 of December , 2010 at 2:12 pm
Even the high end robotic systems can’t handle real world tasks like clearing the dishes from the table or vacuuming in a cluttered environment. The real world is just too complex.
I think it will be a VERY long time before we will give the robots the steering wheel, and trust them handle such complexities with our lives hanging in the balance. It is not the lawyers fault, it is our own desire for self preservation.
Comment by Tomas
Made Friday, 10 of December , 2010 at 6:12 pm
I’d have no problem joining a road train. My only concern is the “doing something else”. If I were in a road train I would rather have my hands on the wheel and my mind on the surroundings, so that when the idiot human isn’t paying attention and side swipes me, I don’t have to throw a laptop off my knee and grab the steering wheel (by which time it would likely be too late).
I suppose along with this we could develop and impact detection and slow the car down safely, keeping in the lane with the already existing lane keeping tech, but I haven’t seen this in a car yet or even mentioned as a future possibility.
Comment by jhay
Made Saturday, 19 of February , 2011 at 1:59 am
