Lots of research going on for the self driving car. Some happening right here in Pittsburgh. My co-worker's nephew is the wrench for one of the projects here.
Will we see a real self driving car in our life time? I just don't see it outside of experimentation under controlled conditions. When humans drive it is amazing the number of seemingly simple decisions we make that would be extremely complex for a computer to perform.
Encounters with flagmen or police directing traffic for example. The police might direct you into a lane that might have normally been an on coming lane. Or perhaps a road that had an unscheduled closure. A sign is posted. The human reads the sign and makes a simple adjustment to his route.
I just can't see the computer being able to recognize these cues and then be able to react to them appropriately.
Perhaps it would work in a closed system like a campus but I just don't see the self driving car going out into the real world. At least not for some time to come.
A self driving flying car might actually be easier to implement.
Will we see a real self driving car in our life time? I just don't see it outside of experimentation under controlled conditions. When humans drive it is amazing the number of seemingly simple decisions we make that would be extremely complex for a computer to perform.
Encounters with flagmen or police directing traffic for example. The police might direct you into a lane that might have normally been an on coming lane. Or perhaps a road that had an unscheduled closure. A sign is posted. The human reads the sign and makes a simple adjustment to his route.
I just can't see the computer being able to recognize these cues and then be able to react to them appropriately.
Perhaps it would work in a closed system like a campus but I just don't see the self driving car going out into the real world. At least not for some time to come.
A self driving flying car might actually be easier to implement.