8 ms·

Google's self driving cars can navigate drive-through restaurants.

194 points by maeon3 15y ago

We wanted to share one of our favorite moments from some special research we conducted. Watch this video of Steve, who joined us for a drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment outside of our core research efforts, but we think it’s also a promising look at what this kind of technology may one day deliver for society if rigorous technical and safety standards can be met.

joejohnson 15y ago
How did they tell the car to stop in front of the speaker (in the drive thru)? And how did they signal to the car that they were done ordering and to go to the pick-up window? The video conveniently skips those sequences.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- barrkel 15y ago
  "a drive on a carefully programmed route" - given careful enough programming, this appears to allow for an indefinite amount of smoke and mirrors specific to this demo.
  - jessriedel 15y ago
    To be fair, it would be easily worth it for a blind person to spend a few hours carefully programming important routes like this. And of course, when self-driving cars are widely adopted, Taco Bell will automatically make instructions available. (This could be as simple as a standardized sign denoting the entrance and two windows of a drive through.)
    - gridspy 15y ago
      The other option is a 2-d barcode on the road or on a sign in a position that the car can read it. That barcode leads to a URL with a machine-readable map of the drive-thru. Naturally such a sign and URL is maintained by the restaurant and the car's systems can read and understand the content. Awesome, if you ask me. This was discussed in a past patent mentioned on HN.
      - binarysolo 15y ago
        Good idea, but probably can't be relied upon given liability issues (in addition to the whole "print wrong barcode and sabotage restaurant with crashing cars thing).
        ramidarigaz 15y ago
        I doubt a malicious map would be allowed to override the car's basic collision avoidance, however it would be a serious nuisance.
        EvilTerran 15y ago
        "paste a wrong barcode over the restaurant's one in the middle of the night & redirect cars to the competitor just down the road", then? :P
    - electromagnetic 15y ago
      > This could be as simple as a standardized sign denoting the entrance and two windows of a drive through. 3/4 of McDonalds and other restaurants I go through already have signage, road markings, etc. for the drive through. Even some of the McDonalds I've been through have signs in the windows saying "Window 1" and "Window 2" (why this is necessary for humans of an age and intellect capable of driving a car, but apparently the ability to count windows does not have an impact on motor vehicular ability). It really wouldn't be much difficulty for the companies to standardize these signs as most already use their own anyway.
      - jeffool 15y ago
        I can't tell you how many times I've been told to "drive to the first window" only to sit there for a couple of minutes before realizing they meant the second window I encounter. It may seem stupid... But better safe than annoyed, I suppose. I just hate the "drive up and we'll bring it to you" bit.
- wavephorm 15y ago
  To sound like a researcher: "those are just implementation details".
fruchtose 15y ago
That should be,"Google's self driving cars can navigate drive through restaurant drive-throughs." Although I am highly impressed by Google's self-driving cars, I can't help but feel a little bit let down that the car did not navigate around tables, make way for waiters, or squeeze through tight spaces.
- davidw 15y ago
  Yeah, I had a mental image of Jackie Chan being chased around a restaurant by a Google car.
- fudged 15y ago
  The Canadian version of the system will need to replace the horn with "Excuse me!" and "Sorry!" :)
  - MaxGabriel 15y ago
    If I recall from Thrun's Udacity lecture, the Google self-driving car does not use the horn nor does it respond to others' horns to make decisions.
    - fudged 15y ago
      Interesting!
- pilom 15y ago
  I was more thinking of it crashing through the walls on one side and continuing out the other.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  Actually the video doesn't show the car navigating through the drive through space, it shows it driving up to the speakers and stopping, then it cuts to a scene from the restaurant where he's ordering, then it cuts to a scene where the car is leaving the parking lot. As a robotics junky all my red flags went off with that bit of creative editing. Even if the car spent 10 minutes working out the close quarters navigation it would be more 'real' than the editing which makes me suspicious that the 'side seat' driver actually did that tricky bit of navigating. Not hating on the Goog here, just really looking forward to the era of self driving vehicles but want to be realistic about their capabilities.
zht 15y ago
there's quite a lively discussion on the driving prowess of middle aged Asian women going on there
fudged 15y ago
Driving seems to be the only daily activity in which a large population of people need to abide by a set of logic and rules to not die and not get hit by a big financial burden in the case of an accident or ticket. Recently I've found myself wondering if society would degrade if we lost our dependance on this sort of necessary logic in our daily lives.
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  I not only drive to and from work, but because I'm in construction I also spend a portion of my day driving either to the job site or between job sites, often hauling a trailer that weighs over double what my truck does. Just this morning I had a woman swearing at me and giving me the finger, with her two small children in the vehicle, because I abided by the 4-way stop outside an elementary school and she tried to run it. Between the cell phone users, and the middle aged women in their SUV's that can't do a shoulder check or read a single lane sign, and the guy with the chronic one-upsman syndrome who guns it to 30 over the limit just to pass you on the highway and go slightly under the limit. IMO only about 20% of people on the road actually follow the rules because they know they're right and help keep them and their passengers safe. Then there's probably another 60% who generally follow the rules simply because they don't want to get a ticket. The last 20% just don't give a shit, do what they want, when they want and god forbid they don't get it. I'd also say there's an additional 10-30% who are purely seasonal drivers known the other 7-9 months as "cyclists". They only come out in the winter, and are likely responsible for as many if not more accidents than inclement weather. Living in southern ontario I actually dread the roads on that first heavy snow because, no joking around, I'm actually worried I'm going to kill someone and it won't be my fault. I don't think driving is doing society any good except at providing a way for the stupid, and the stupidly unfortunate, ways out of the genetic pool.
  - mbell 15y ago
    I think your percentages and impression of safety are off. Not sure what part of the country you live in but around here(Boston) going only the speed limit on the highways will get you about run off the road resulting in all sorts of unsafe driving. In other words going the speed limit doesn't make you safe, and going 10mph over the limit doesn't mean you don't care, the safest speed to travel is with the flow of traffic. Additionally I happily drive well over the speed limit when visiting Maine, 2 lane wide highway, nearly straight, 5 exits in 180 miles and nearly no traffic. A speed limit of 65mph isn't about whats actually safe, its about government bureaucracy (and income from tickets).
dawie 15y ago
The car does a pretty average parking job in the dude's driveway at the end of the video..
anigbrowl 15y ago
Unmentioned in the article is that 'Steve' is Daniel Steve Mahan, who's 95% blind. He's CEO of the Santa Clara Blind Center: http://www.visionbeyondsight.org/About-Staff.htm http://www.visionbeyondsight.org/About-Staff.htm
- lusr 15y ago
  "We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 to make driving safer, more enjoyable, and more efficient." OK so Google Labs is shut down and Google starts charging for various APIs but decides the world needs to be a better place so invests into this? I'm skeptical (even though I think this is AWESOME). What's the real story here? Is it the extra eyeball time they get by having self-driving cars? Whereas in the past people would spend 20-60 minutes, or more, concentrating exclusively on driving each day, they could now spend that time online? I guess growth at Google is difficult when you're already the most popular search engine in the world and there's a fixed 24 hour day, the best you can do is change the % of that time people spend online, and implicitly, using your search engine. No doubt the front-end will feature Internet connectivity with a Google portal.
  - dmnd 15y ago
    I'm confused by your comment. Do you really think self driving cars cannot be monetized?
    - lusr 15y ago
      Now I'm confused. Where did I say it can't be monetized? I quoted a statement from Google that makes it sound like they're investing in this out of the goodness of the hearts. I'm asking if anybody knows what their actual plans are for monetizing it.
      - shrikant 15y ago
        I don't know, but that doesn't stop me from speculating.. 1. Licensing fees from manufacturers for the patents, designs, etc. [once the tech is street-ready and approved] 2. Contextual/location-based ads as you drive around?
juiceandjuice 15y ago
All I could think of when I saw this were the jokes about McDonald's having braille for their drive through window.
ck2 15y ago
How does it do on rainy days and at night?
- CountHackulus 15y ago
  To say nothing of snow.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    Cars are already better at navigating snow by themselves than with people at the [direct] controls. Traction control and drive by wire are common.
    - themonk 15y ago
      True, but car can't see lane marks and can't even recognize where the road is once it is covered in snow.
      - jonknee 15y ago
        Neither can people, but computers have the ability to see through the dark, rain and snow. They have the benefit of GPS. They have the benefit of being able to work with embedded sensors in the roadway (which to be fair is in its infancy, but you know that's where it's going). I like people a lot, but I would not bet on a person driving better than a computer. Our reaction time is way too slow and sensory input very limited.
- Game_Ender 15y ago
  Last I have heard Google's system is not really focused on solving perception problems, especially in inclement weather. They are waiting for the research community to catch up. The perfect conditions they drive in allow for very precise localization against a detailed (sub-cm accuracy) map of everywhere they will drive which includs pre-marked stop signs, light, cross walks, etc.
brownbat 15y ago
Much better than my ad for Google Driverless cars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2SBX2nnUw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2SBX2nnUw (Warning: Link is to a near endless string of awful car crashes with sad music in the background. Cannot be unseen.)
- barefoot 15y ago
  > Cannot be unseen* *http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/the-forgetting-pill http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/the...
- arethuza 15y ago
  Or allowing people to text and drive safely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3x7K3EOTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3x7K3EOTk
sad_panda 15y ago
I thought that the title was a typo, and I was imagining a Prius navigating straight on through the glass windows of a strip mall restaurant. The reality is safer, but less hilarious.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jhaile 15y ago
My biggest question was how the car knew when to stop at the window and when to continue driving. Wish the video had shown that.
rdl 15y ago
I followed one of these on US101N the other day, near Mountain View. It was one of the better drivers on the road, although it was an easy driving environment. I have to admit I wanted to be a dick to it (tailgate, brake check, etc) to see what it would do. I wonder if anyone has crashed into one yet.
erikpukinskis 15y ago
When Google wants to put these into the market, they should run ads with video of the cars in extremely dangerous situations. Imagine watching a video of a robot car navigating coolly and safely, with split-second timing in the midst of a snowy 12 car pileup involving an 18-wheeler. That'd sell the things as a public good.

194 points by maeon3 15y ago

joejohnson 15y ago

How did they tell the car to stop in front of the speaker (in the drive thru)? And how did they signal to the car that they were done ordering and to go to the pick-up window? The video conveniently skips those sequences.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
barrkel 15y ago
"a drive on a carefully programmed route" - given careful enough programming, this appears to allow for an indefinite amount of smoke and mirrors specific to this demo.
- jessriedel 15y ago
  To be fair, it would be easily worth it for a blind person to spend a few hours carefully programming important routes like this. And of course, when self-driving cars are widely adopted, Taco Bell will automatically make instructions available. (This could be as simple as a standardized sign denoting the entrance and two windows of a drive through.)
  - gridspy 15y ago
    The other option is a 2-d barcode on the road or on a sign in a position that the car can read it. That barcode leads to a URL with a machine-readable map of the drive-thru. Naturally such a sign and URL is maintained by the restaurant and the car's systems can read and understand the content. Awesome, if you ask me. This was discussed in a past patent mentioned on HN.
    - binarysolo 15y ago
      Good idea, but probably can't be relied upon given liability issues (in addition to the whole "print wrong barcode and sabotage restaurant with crashing cars thing).
      - ramidarigaz 15y ago
        I doubt a malicious map would be allowed to override the car's basic collision avoidance, however it would be a serious nuisance.
        EvilTerran 15y ago
        "paste a wrong barcode over the restaurant's one in the middle of the night & redirect cars to the competitor just down the road", then? :P
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    > This could be as simple as a standardized sign denoting the entrance and two windows of a drive through. 3/4 of McDonalds and other restaurants I go through already have signage, road markings, etc. for the drive through. Even some of the McDonalds I've been through have signs in the windows saying "Window 1" and "Window 2" (why this is necessary for humans of an age and intellect capable of driving a car, but apparently the ability to count windows does not have an impact on motor vehicular ability). It really wouldn't be much difficulty for the companies to standardize these signs as most already use their own anyway.
    - jeffool 15y ago
      I can't tell you how many times I've been told to "drive to the first window" only to sit there for a couple of minutes before realizing they meant the second window I encounter. It may seem stupid... But better safe than annoyed, I suppose. I just hate the "drive up and we'll bring it to you" bit.
wavephorm 15y ago
To sound like a researcher: "those are just implementation details".

fruchtose 15y ago

That should be,"Google's self driving cars can navigate drive through restaurant drive-throughs." Although I am highly impressed by Google's self-driving cars, I can't help but feel a little bit let down that the car did not navigate around tables, make way for waiters, or squeeze through tight spaces.

davidw 15y ago
Yeah, I had a mental image of Jackie Chan being chased around a restaurant by a Google car.
fudged 15y ago
The Canadian version of the system will need to replace the horn with "Excuse me!" and "Sorry!" :)
- MaxGabriel 15y ago
  If I recall from Thrun's Udacity lecture, the Google self-driving car does not use the horn nor does it respond to others' horns to make decisions.
  - fudged 15y ago
    Interesting!
pilom 15y ago
I was more thinking of it crashing through the walls on one side and continuing out the other.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
Actually the video doesn't show the car navigating through the drive through space, it shows it driving up to the speakers and stopping, then it cuts to a scene from the restaurant where he's ordering, then it cuts to a scene where the car is leaving the parking lot. As a robotics junky all my red flags went off with that bit of creative editing. Even if the car spent 10 minutes working out the close quarters navigation it would be more 'real' than the editing which makes me suspicious that the 'side seat' driver actually did that tricky bit of navigating. Not hating on the Goog here, just really looking forward to the era of self driving vehicles but want to be realistic about their capabilities.

zht 15y ago

there's quite a lively discussion on the driving prowess of middle aged Asian women going on there

fudged 15y ago

Driving seems to be the only daily activity in which a large population of people need to abide by a set of logic and rules to not die and not get hit by a big financial burden in the case of an accident or ticket. Recently I've found myself wondering if society would degrade if we lost our dependance on this sort of necessary logic in our daily lives.

electromagnetic 15y ago
I not only drive to and from work, but because I'm in construction I also spend a portion of my day driving either to the job site or between job sites, often hauling a trailer that weighs over double what my truck does. Just this morning I had a woman swearing at me and giving me the finger, with her two small children in the vehicle, because I abided by the 4-way stop outside an elementary school and she tried to run it. Between the cell phone users, and the middle aged women in their SUV's that can't do a shoulder check or read a single lane sign, and the guy with the chronic one-upsman syndrome who guns it to 30 over the limit just to pass you on the highway and go slightly under the limit. IMO only about 20% of people on the road actually follow the rules because they know they're right and help keep them and their passengers safe. Then there's probably another 60% who generally follow the rules simply because they don't want to get a ticket. The last 20% just don't give a shit, do what they want, when they want and god forbid they don't get it. I'd also say there's an additional 10-30% who are purely seasonal drivers known the other 7-9 months as "cyclists". They only come out in the winter, and are likely responsible for as many if not more accidents than inclement weather. Living in southern ontario I actually dread the roads on that first heavy snow because, no joking around, I'm actually worried I'm going to kill someone and it won't be my fault. I don't think driving is doing society any good except at providing a way for the stupid, and the stupidly unfortunate, ways out of the genetic pool.
- mbell 15y ago
  I think your percentages and impression of safety are off. Not sure what part of the country you live in but around here(Boston) going only the speed limit on the highways will get you about run off the road resulting in all sorts of unsafe driving. In other words going the speed limit doesn't make you safe, and going 10mph over the limit doesn't mean you don't care, the safest speed to travel is with the flow of traffic. Additionally I happily drive well over the speed limit when visiting Maine, 2 lane wide highway, nearly straight, 5 exits in 180 miles and nearly no traffic. A speed limit of 65mph isn't about whats actually safe, its about government bureaucracy (and income from tickets).

dawie 15y ago

The car does a pretty average parking job in the dude's driveway at the end of the video..

anigbrowl 15y ago

Unmentioned in the article is that 'Steve' is Daniel Steve Mahan, who's 95% blind. He's CEO of the Santa Clara Blind Center: http://www.visionbeyondsight.org/About-Staff.htm http://www.visionbeyondsight.org/About-Staff.htm

lusr 15y ago
"We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 to make driving safer, more enjoyable, and more efficient." OK so Google Labs is shut down and Google starts charging for various APIs but decides the world needs to be a better place so invests into this? I'm skeptical (even though I think this is AWESOME). What's the real story here? Is it the extra eyeball time they get by having self-driving cars? Whereas in the past people would spend 20-60 minutes, or more, concentrating exclusively on driving each day, they could now spend that time online? I guess growth at Google is difficult when you're already the most popular search engine in the world and there's a fixed 24 hour day, the best you can do is change the % of that time people spend online, and implicitly, using your search engine. No doubt the front-end will feature Internet connectivity with a Google portal.
- dmnd 15y ago
  I'm confused by your comment. Do you really think self driving cars cannot be monetized?
  - lusr 15y ago
    Now I'm confused. Where did I say it can't be monetized? I quoted a statement from Google that makes it sound like they're investing in this out of the goodness of the hearts. I'm asking if anybody knows what their actual plans are for monetizing it.
    - shrikant 15y ago
      I don't know, but that doesn't stop me from speculating.. 1. Licensing fees from manufacturers for the patents, designs, etc. [once the tech is street-ready and approved] 2. Contextual/location-based ads as you drive around?

juiceandjuice 15y ago

All I could think of when I saw this were the jokes about McDonald's having braille for their drive through window.

ck2 15y ago

How does it do on rainy days and at night?

CountHackulus 15y ago
To say nothing of snow.
- jonknee 15y ago
  Cars are already better at navigating snow by themselves than with people at the [direct] controls. Traction control and drive by wire are common.
  - themonk 15y ago
    True, but car can't see lane marks and can't even recognize where the road is once it is covered in snow.
    - jonknee 15y ago
      Neither can people, but computers have the ability to see through the dark, rain and snow. They have the benefit of GPS. They have the benefit of being able to work with embedded sensors in the roadway (which to be fair is in its infancy, but you know that's where it's going). I like people a lot, but I would not bet on a person driving better than a computer. Our reaction time is way too slow and sensory input very limited.
Game_Ender 15y ago
Last I have heard Google's system is not really focused on solving perception problems, especially in inclement weather. They are waiting for the research community to catch up. The perfect conditions they drive in allow for very precise localization against a detailed (sub-cm accuracy) map of everywhere they will drive which includs pre-marked stop signs, light, cross walks, etc.

brownbat 15y ago

Much better than my ad for Google Driverless cars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2SBX2nnUw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2SBX2nnUw (Warning: Link is to a near endless string of awful car crashes with sad music in the background. Cannot be unseen.)

barefoot 15y ago
> Cannot be unseen* *http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/the-forgetting-pill http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/04/features/the...
arethuza 15y ago
Or allowing people to text and drive safely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3x7K3EOTk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3x7K3EOTk

sad_panda 15y ago

I thought that the title was a typo, and I was imagining a Prius navigating straight on through the glass windows of a strip mall restaurant. The reality is safer, but less hilarious.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jhaile 15y ago

My biggest question was how the car knew when to stop at the window and when to continue driving. Wish the video had shown that.

rdl 15y ago

I followed one of these on US101N the other day, near Mountain View. It was one of the better drivers on the road, although it was an easy driving environment. I have to admit I wanted to be a dick to it (tailgate, brake check, etc) to see what it would do. I wonder if anyone has crashed into one yet.

erikpukinskis 15y ago

When Google wants to put these into the market, they should run ads with video of the cars in extremely dangerous situations. Imagine watching a video of a robot car navigating coolly and safely, with split-second timing in the midst of a snowy 12 car pileup involving an 18-wheeler. That'd sell the things as a public good.