[fcb-l] Fw: [leadership] [Missouri-l] Fw: [Quietcars] New Scientist article oncars thatdrive themselves

[Easy Talk]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "peter altschul" <paltschul at centurytel.net>
To: "Acblead" <leadership at acb.org>
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 1:34 PM
Subject: [leadership] [Missouri-l] Fw: [Quietcars] New Scientist article 
oncars thatdrive themselves


> WITH his jeans, white trainers and stripy top, Bob is every inch the
>> well-dressed 6-year-old.  He's standing in the middle of a hotel
> car park
>> and, scarily, I'm driving straight at him.  Instead of hitting
> the brakes,
>> I
>> put my foot down on the accelerator.  With just 10 metres to go,
> a row of
>> red
>> lights flashes across my windscreen and there's an urgent,
> high-pitched
>> beeping sound.  An instant later, I am jerked forward as the
> brakes slam on
>> automatically and the car screeches to a halt just short of
> Bob's stomach.
>
>> This is what Bob is for.  The child-sized dummy has just helped
> me
>> test the first in-car system that can sense an imminent
> collision with
>> pedestrians and brake automatically if the driver doesn't.  It
> is being put
>> through final trials before being launched in May by Swedish car
> maker
>> Volvo
>> in its new S60 model.
>
>> The Volvo system is the latest in a line of developments made
>> possible by sophisticated sensors based on cameras, radar and
> lasers.
>> These
>> sensors already provide drivers with adaptive cruise control,
> which alters
>> a
>> car's speed to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in
> front, as well
>> as technology such as semi-autonomous parking systems.  Yet
> according to
>> Jonas Ekmark, a researcher at Volvo near Gothenburg, this is
> just the
>> start.
>
>> Ekmark says we are now entering an era in which vehicles will
> also
>> gather real-time information about the weather and highway
> hazards, using
>> this to improve fuel efficiency and make life less stressful for
> the
>> driver
>> and safer for all road users.  "Our long-term goal is the
> collision-free
>> traffic system," says Ekmark.
>
>> Ultimately, that means bypassing the fallible humans behind the
>> wheel - by building cars that drive themselves.  Alan Taub,
> vice-president
>> for R&D at General Motors, expects to see semi-autonomous
> vehicles on the
>> highway by 2015.  They will need a driver to handle busy city
> streets or
>> negotiate complex junctions, but once on the highway they will
> be able to
>> steer, accelerate and avoid collisions unaided.  A few years on,
> he
>> predicts,
>> drivers will be able to take their hands off the wheel
> completely: "I see
>> the potential for launching fully autonomous vehicles by 2020."
>
>> By about 2020 drivers will be able to take their hands off the
> wheel
>> completely
>> Road traffic accidents kill about 37,000 people a year in the US
> and
>> 39,000 in Europe, with driver error a contributing factor in
> over 90 per
>> cent of them.  But a glimpse of a safer future has come from a
> trial,
>> completed in Sweden in 2008, of the Slippery Road Information
> System
>> (SRIS).
>> The system used sensors and computers installed in 100 cars to
> gather
>> information on the use of brakes, fog lights, windscreen wipers
> and
>> electronic stability systems, as well as local weather
> conditions.  Unlike
>> the Volvo system, in which each car uses only information from
> its own
>> sensors, the cars in the SRIS trial beamed the data they
> gathered to a
>> central database every 5 minutes.
>
>> The study suggested that this pooled data could give drivers a
> far
>> more accurate picture of road conditions than local weather
> stations can.
>> Researchers still have to find the best way to merge this
> information and
>> broadcast it back to drivers.  Nevertheless, the study concluded
> that
>> networks such as SRIS could improve safety and save lives.
>
>> A more sophisticated system involving shared data is being
> deployed
>> in Japan this year.  The country has become a world leader in
> the field
>> thanks to the government's decision to fund a network of
> infrared,
>> microwave
>> and radio transmitters at the roadside.
>
>> Around 2 million vehicles on Japanese roads can already pick up
> news
>> on congestion, roadworks, accidents, weather, speed limits and
> parking
>> availability from these transmitters, broadcasting as part of
> the Vehicle
>> Information and Communication System (VICS).  Over the next few
> months,
>> cameras and sensors positioned around 20 major intersections in
> Tokyo and
>> Kanagawa prefecture will begin alerting drivers of cars with
> VICS
>> receivers
>> to potential hazards such as vehicles attempting to merge into
> their lane,
>> or traffic crossing an intersection ahead.  The new Driving
> Safety Support
>> System (DSSS), as the set-up is called, can also show alerts on
> satnav
>> displays warning of traffic lights, stop signs and even
> pedestrians and
>> cyclists on the road ahead.  It will be in use at major
> intersections
>> nationwide by the middle of 2011.
>
>> By that time, a similar system designed to operate on major
> Japanese
>> highways should have been running for a year.  Called Smartway,
> it issues a
>> warning when the driver gets too close to the vehicle in front,
> when
>> vehicles are converging from the side, and when there is
> congestion ahead.
>> Some new vehicles from Nissan, Toyota and other car makers are
> already
>> equipped to use DSSS or Smartway.  Older cars can access these
> systems too
>> if
>> their receivers and satnav displays are upgraded.  From here it
> is just a
>> small step - in technological terms, at least - to allowing cars
> to be
>> controlled automatically.
>
>> Calling all cars
>
>> In Europe and the US, vehicle manufacturers see direct
>> vehicle-to-vehicle communication as a simpler and cheaper
> solution than
>> building elaborate roadside infrastructure.  Their plans
> envisage using
>> Wi-Fi
>> links between vehicles to form ad hoc, reconfigurable networks
> that will
>> share information on road conditions, local weather and traffic
> accidents.
>
>> The most ambitious of these projects, a collaboration between
> seven
>> European manufacturers and universities, aims to harness
>> vehicle-to-vehicle
>> networks to make the driver redundant, at least for part of the
> journey.
>> Called SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), it
> envisages up to
>> eight cars as little as a metre apart driving in convoy,
> controlled by a
>> lead vehicle operated by a professional driver.
>
>> Ordinary drivers will book a place in convoys operating along
> major
>> roads.  As they approach the convoy, they will hand over control
> of their
>> car
>> to software on the lead vehicle.  From then on, its steering,
> acceleration
>> and braking are controlled by an on-board computer that uses
> data sent
>> wirelessly from the lead vehicle, along with information from
> cameras and
>> radar and laser detectors on the front and rear of the car
> itself.  Drivers
>> will be able work, read, watch films or even sleep while their
> cars are
>> driven for them.  "It will be like sitting on a bus or a train,"
> says
>> Ekmark.
>> But when the convoy nears an exit at which drivers wish to
> leave, they can
>> resume control and continue their journey.
>
>> As well as being protected against collisions, cars in a convoy
> use
>> less fuel than when they are travelling separately, and they
> take up less
>> road space.  At highway cruising speeds, aerodynamic drag can be
> reduced by
>> as much as 60 per cent when vehicles are separated by less than
> one car
>> length.  Overall, convoys are predicted to cut fuel use and
> carbon
>> emissions
>> by up to 40 per cent.
>
>> Unlike a previous generation of car trains developed at the
>> University of California, Berkeley, during the 1990s, SARTRE
> convoys will
>> run on public roads alongside ordinary traffic.  The Berkeley
> project
>> failed
>> to get off the ground because it required specially built roads,
> making
>> the
>> concept prohibitively expensive.  If this year's trials of
> SARTRE planned
>> for
>> test tracks in Sweden and the UK are successful, a full
> demonstration -
>> consisting of a lead truck followed by another truck and three
> cars - is
>> planned for public roads in Spain towards the end of 2011.
> Before that can
>> happen, however, the SARTRE consortium must work out how a
> convoy will
>> interact with other road users.  For instance, will it have to
> break up
>> when
>> overtaking, and then reform once all its members have passed the
> slower
>> vehicle?
>
>> The long journey towards cars that will drive themselves began
> in
>> 1971 with anti-lock brakes.  "That was the first time we
> introduced the
>> overriding of driver input," says Taub.  Another step along the
> road came
>> with electronic stability control, which governs brakes,
> steering and
>> throttle to prevent cars going off the road in an uncontrollable
> skid.
>> Top-of-the range cars are increasingly being fitted not only
> with adaptive
>> cruise control but also with lane assistance, which gently
> applies the
>> brakes to keep cars from straying out of lane.
>
>> Taub expects these systems to start appearing on cheaper models
> over
>> the next few years.  "We still have the driver in the loop with
> eyes on the
>> road, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals," he points out.
> "But
>> increasingly the vehicle will be steering and accelerating on
> its own."
>
>> What fully autonomous vehicles will be like is hinted at by an
>> experimental car called Boss.  Built by a team of engineering
> students at
>> Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
> backed by
>> General Motors, this robotic car scooped a $2 million prize by
>> outperforming
>> 10 other autonomous vehicles in a simulated urban environment
> created for
>> the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007.  To win, Boss had to execute
> complex
>> manoeuvres such as merging into flowing traffic, overtaking,
> parking and
>> negotiating intersections, while interacting with other
> autonomous
>> vehicles
>> and 30 human-driven ones.
>
>> Boss's computer builds a model of the immediate environment by
>> processing data from radar, laser sensors, cameras and GPS.  It
> then uses
>> this model, along with information such as local traffic rules,
> to plan
>> the
>> best route and provide the situational awareness the vehicle
> needs for
>> manoeuvres such as changing lanes safely, or to determine
> whether it has
>> priority at an intersection.
>
>> Boss uses sensors and other components that are already fitted
> in
>> production vehicles, but the computing power it uses to handle
> all the
>> data
>> is a different matter.  It currently requires the equivalent of
> 10 desktop
>> computers, and miniaturising the electronics so that it can be
> hidden away
>> in a normal-sized car remains a challenge.  Another task will be
> to develop
>> the interfaces between car and driver and find simple ways to
> switch
>> control
>> from manual to automatic and back again.
>
>> Taub predicts that by about 2020 vehicles like Boss will start
> to
>> appear on public roads; drivers will be able to disengage
> totally and hand
>> control over to the car.  "You'll see a progression of
> subsystems, with
>> costs
>> coming down and increased robustness," he says.
>
>> At Stanford University in California, the Volkswagen Automotive
>> Innovation Lab has shown what might be possible.  VAIL engineers
> have
>> fitted
>> a VW Passat with cameras, cruise control radar and laser
> sensors, allowing
>> it to navigate a parking lot, spot an empty space and park
> perfectly, with
>> or without a driver.
>
>> Manoeuvring at low speed is one thing, but are we ready to hand
> over
>> control on the open road? How would you feel about being at the
> mercy of a
>> machine barrelling along the highway at 100 kilometres per hour
> or more,
>> with your family in the back and you merely a passenger at the
> wheel?
>> Confidence in the reliability of electronic drive-by-wire
> controls took a
>> knock in January when Toyota had to recall millions of its
> vehicles.  A few
>> accidents involving autonomous vehicles could set the whole idea
> back
>> years.
>
>> Automated manoeuvring at low speed is one thing, but are we
> ready to
>> hand over control on the open road?
>> Though advances in communications and connectivity have
> transformed
>> our world, it is still not easy to envisage a highway network
> populated by
>> cars that drive themselves more safely than any human can.  Yet
> if Ekmark
>> and
>> Taub are right, the next generation of vehicles will be able to
> do just
>> that.  The real question may be whether we will have the nerve
> to take our
>> hands off the wheel and let the machines take over.
>
>> Early adopters
>> Who wants to pay to be first with a technology that only works
> when
>> lots of other people already have it? That is likely to be the
> big problem
>> facing car-to-car networks once the technical questions have
> been sorted
>> out.
>
>> One way to minimise this problem is to make the equipment cheap
> to
>> retrofit into existing vehicles.  General Motors has
> demonstrated a system
>> called V2V, which costs less than $200 to install.  It uses GPS
> and Wi-Fi
>> to
>> warn drivers of hazards such as vehicles in blind spots.
>
>> Others see the cellphone network as the key.  Cellphone operator
>> Orange is one of six UK organisations in a partnership called
> Sentience,
>> which is developing a low-cost system based on GPS-enabled
> smartphones.
>> The
>> system acquires and combines information from topographical maps
> and
>> traffic
>> data in order to control a vehicle's brakes and accelerator.  In
> tests, the
>> Sentience system reduced fuel consumption by up to 24 per cent
> over that
>> of
>> a car driven normally.
>
>> Another approach was highlighted at the Cooperative Mobility
>> conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in March, when the
> European
>> Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) consortium
> showed off
>> its
>> universal communications system.  This allows vehicles to swap
> information
>> with each other and with networks using 3G, GSM, infrared or
> wireless
>> protocols, and to switch seamlessly between these modes.  CVIS
> is providing
>> developers with kits to help them create services to run on its
>> open-architecture platform.
>
>> Later this year CVIS plans to unveil an in-car touchscreen
>> applications unit.  CVIS coordinator Paul Kompfner envisages a
>> smartphone-like interface that will offer drivers a range of
> apps
>> depending
>> on their location.  One app under development communicates with
>> traffic-light
>> control systems and tells drivers what speed they should travel
> at to pass
>> without hitting red.
>
>> Another app, to be tested later this year in Poland and the
>> Netherlands, allows trucks to take priority by controlling
> traffic lights
>> as
>> they get near.  "If you give priority to trucks it is not just
> the trucks
>> that gain - overall traffic efficiency and flow are improved,"
> says
>> project
>> manager Zeljko Jeftic.
>
>> Nic Fleming is a science and technology writer based in London
>
>
>
>
>
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