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Sorry for the confusing use of the term. UAV means unmanned autonomous vehicles. UAV in reference to aerial platforms is mostly the result of marketing/media.
by dsl 15y ago
Sorry for the confusing use of the term. UAV means unmanned autonomous vehicles. UAV in reference to aerial platforms is mostly the result of marketing/media.
Even the early Daimler-Benz projects of the 90's had fully functional software stacks that had implemented all the required decision making logic of driving.
While it is true that we have cameras and microphones that work better than our own eyes and ears, I don't think anyone would dispute the fact that the sensory processing isn't to human levels yet. The advancements that have been made are in different types of sensing devices that eliminate the need for heavy post-processing of data (image pattern recognition, etc) in software.
I do give credit to Google for making it happen, both as an integrator, and in lobbying efforts. But there is a lot of standing on the shoulders of giants, in comparison to pure software fields where they have made huge industry disrupting shifts (like BigTable, GFS, etc).
- modeless 15y agoI don't think anyone would dispute the fact that the sensory processing isn't to human levels yet And that's the exact problem Google is working on, and where all previous efforts have failed miserably, no matter how good their "rules of the road" state machines were in theory. Saying Daimler-Benz solved autonomous driving years ago is like saying SHRDLU solved natural language processing. The advancements that have been made are in different types of sensing devices that eliminate the need for heavy post-processing of data There are exactly two new kinds of sensing devices used on the Google cars AFAIK: small automotive radars and the Velodyne spinning LIDAR. The latter owes its existence not to giant defense contractors or car manufacturers but to a small loudspeaker company, of all things. Furthermore, it absolutely does not eliminate the need for heavy post-processing of data.
- Retric 15y agoI think we could start putting self driving cars on the road today that would lower both the number of fatality's and accidents. We don't need more processing power, better sensors, or lower costs. What we need is slightly better software and the willingness to put it into production. After-all the 'worst case' in a car is basically solved 99.9% of the time by staying in the correct lane, obeying stop lights / signs, speed limits, and simply hitting the breaks if your going to hit something. Sure, you could improve on that, but get that to work reliably and your already doing better than human drivers, who get distracted, drunk, tired, impatient, angry, and just plain overwhelmed.