Well, the standard for private pilots is to maintain 10 degrees of heading, 10 knots of speed, and 100 feet of altitude. I've seen places where automobile drivers have trouble maintaining 10 degrees of heading and 10 knots of speed ... ... and a few can even break 100 feet of altitude. But some people thought the discrete address beacon mode was unfortunately named for mode select, because "Mode S" overlaps a trademarked product. (Yes, government agencies spew alphabet soup. )
This article misses on a lot of counts. "Autonomous cars will be used 10 times more than internal combustion vehicles were, they will last longer – maybe one million miles (1.6 million km) – and the savings will inject an additional $1US trillion into the pockets of Americans by 2030." None of these promises will hold true. First, shared fleets may seem cheap when compared to buying new cars. Depreciation is a tax on miles that is heavy on new cars. It is however not for the majority since most people drive cars that have depreciated already a good amount. I do see fleets having benefits over owned cars, the biggest one being that you can use one for a single leg of a trip and you don't need to return it somewhere. However that, again, is a minority. Trillions of savings? I checked with a few providers of such recently. For my profile,+25kmiles a year, I'd be driving a far lesser car for a multiple of what I pay today. I don't see them beat normal ownership cost soon. One million miles? Ha. There are well maintained high milers out there but the writer probably has never been near or in a well-used vehicle that has driven 1/3 of that distance! It's not just the drivetrain that wears you know...
One aspect of self driving cars that I don't often see commented on is how humans will game them. Pedestrians can just step out in front of an autonomous automobile if they know the vehicle will always stop or avoid them. Pedestrians can cross at any spot on the road and never worry about j-walking and being struck. Traffic could be a nightmare if humans disobey all traffic laws. Especially in cities. On another note-I don't know what the technical term is, although I am sure there is one, is the following scenario. A person or group of persons steps in front of your automated vehicle as you round a blind curve. Will the car hit the pedestrians or drive off the street hitting a tree and killing the cars occupants? The vehicles programming algorithms will have already decided how to react in such circumstances. In this case, I would prefer to make the choice myself. For those who think self driving cars will never be a reality, don't forget Moore's law. Computers will be faster and more intelligent than humans in a decade or so. After that, it want even be close. You didn't have a IPhone before 2007. Like a previous poster noted. I too have a car, airplane, motorcycle, boat and every assorted gas operated machine. I don't look forward to our brave new world. But I think I can see what's coming.
This must be the toughest scenario for the logic programmers. Pedestrians do play "chicken" but they can leap the 3 or 4 feet backwards or forwards to get out of the way should the driver turn out to be enraged or psycho. From the driver's side, there is always a risk that the pedestrian is actually suicidal. An algorithm that can play that "game" well seems very difficult to think through. That one is easy: for an automated car it is a legal decision, not a moral one. The car will save the passengers at all costs. I do. The technology will be mature by the time I am too old to drive: every Friday I will be able to summons a driverless car to whisk me off to the Bingo hall. It'll be awesome. Seriously, the reality is, most driving is boring destination-orientated commuting. What this conversation is missing is speculation on the future of mass transportation infrastructure. People get by fine without a daily driver in major cities with good subway systems. The USA is particularly horrible.
I see "driverless" cars every day. For those that don't think they will be a reality, they already are. Driving all around Silicon Valley are vehicles owned by Tesla, Google, Apple, Mercedes, GM, Ford, etc., etc., with scanners, lasers, cameras and widgets galore. There are people on board but they are basically passengers. I also see the other kind of driverless cars everyday - the car where the driver is paying more attention to the cat video playing on their iPhone than to the road. I know which "driver" I would pick to share the road with every time.
I'm wondering when the first blinder device will show up. One that creates white noise for the vision/laser/maser/Ultrasonic systems that shut the cars down dead in their tracks.
I'm sure law enforcement and CIA are already testing such devices. I'd also be shocked if hackers are not already deeply familiar with Tesla's control software, for example, and have it completely reverse engineered for future nefarious purposes.
Well this guy Seems to be making the leap in power storage to help the autonomus electric car https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology
