You most likely remember DARPA’s Grand Challenge, which required autonomous vehicles to navigate from one point to another without human intervention. That’s essentially the mostsome of the most well-known example of this sort of research (hundreds of entries and millions of bucks went into it), but just because it’s unlikely on any further doesn’t mean that research has stopped. One project, based in Italy, is calling into the prospect not of cars that simply drive themselves, but cars that follow one another yet can react to unfamiliar “stimuli.” Consider a caravan of robots with a human at the front.
The project has been within the lab and driving around locally for it slow now, but they believe it’s time to take it to the subsequent level. The project lead, Alberto Broggi, said:
What we try to do is stress our systems and notice if they could work in a real environment, with real weather, real traffic and crazy folks that cross the road in front of you and a vehicle that cuts you off.
He puts driverless vehicles at about two decades off, which looks like ages to me. But 10 years is much too soon. I’m going with 15.
The project will likely be two pairs of vans, with the robo-vans following the driven vans – in order to be carrying technicians in case the robo-vans break down. Since they’ll be driving on populated roads and the odds of error and danger are pretty high, there shall be a driver in each robo-van in addition, waiting to take over at the frenzy of a button. They intend to drive the entire way from Parma, Italy, to China – at between 30 and 37MPH, that’s about as fast as the vans can go.
Sounds pretty cool to me (and similar to a Top Gear episode), but it surely probably will get pretty boring being the backup guy throughout the long stretches.
[via Techdirt; image: Antonio Calanni/AP]
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