I have been thinking about this for years, and current technology is available to make this work, quite effectively. However, it would require driver knowledge of the systems full range of capabilites, which is why its not ready for mass market, but, TODAY this COULD work.

heres the idea... the car, drives itself... this would only work on the thruway tho, and would only work if your somewhat partially paying attention. heres how I see it as it would work..

not that all this technology exists in other sectors, its just a matter of putting ti all together.

current cruise control works fine, and they already have cars equiped with radar to slow it down if it gets too close to another car... but how do u keep it on the road with out sensors in the road? this is easy..

they already have computers that can recognize color. so u program it to recognize white solid lines on the right hand side, and then for off ramps, u can program it too look for those little which blocks... so that the car doesnt 'get off'.

the other way, is using two lasers mounted on the front of the car, aimed at those inroad reflectors... by taking the speed, and then timing how long to the next reflector, u could 'prime' the system. using this method may be better, or, use it in conjunction with the other method.

as long as ur not napping this system should work pretty well...

 

haha tis genius..sept they've already accomplished this and cars that park themselves! good idea though

 

This is already being worked on by many different institutions.

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp

 

kinda stupid.. i'd rather drive it myself then leave my life in the hands of a machine.. reaction would be the biggest issue

 

It'll will never work. There aren't lines everywhere. Not all lines are the same. Lines come and go. Most roads don't have reflectors. They aren't evenly spaced where they do exist. Nobody is going to implement a system that relies on something unreliable.

The CalTrans has a system used in the rocky mountains for the snow plow trucks. There are magnets embedded down the center of each lane. The truck has sensors underneath it that detect the magnets. There is a monitor in the cab of the truck that looks just like a VOR receiver on an airplane for the driver to look at and keep the truck centered.

Nothing will ever work unless the road has equipment installed on it for that purpose.

 

I saw a thing on tv about how the military has a hummer that can drive itself, recognize signs, all with no person inside. They showed some videos of it driving around in residential neighborhoods.

 

in our lifetime yes... but eventually it will....

i agree with matt though, itll take soo much money to install all of the units into EVERY road, because you cant just be going down the road, loose a line and expect not to crash.... and what about objects in the road, theyre not going to avoid them as a human would.. theyd just slam on the brakes thinking its a car or something which could injure the occupants...

 

unmanned automobiles already exist.

The pentagon has been pushing for it for a while.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=107529

 

I think a better way to go about it would be to have a car equipped with precision GPS, to a matter of feet, and you inpute where you want to go, and the car detects where it is, loads a roadmap from a database, and finds the quickest route there, than using sensors that detect cars in front/behind and a camera that recognizes signs, drives itself based on input/output loops (ex: if red, then stop. if green, then go. if green and mass detected entering intersection on collision course, apply full brake.)


How lazy are we? We don't even want to drive anymore... The other day I caught myself in front of the microwave, about to cook a frozen burrito, and the direction said nuke for 2 minutes, then turn over, and I though, gawd damm, now they want me to turn over the burrito? I kind of wanted to shoot myself for being THAT lazy that I can't even turn over the pre-made, frozen, 3 minute to cook burrito.

 

i was thinking more along the lines of, like the do it urselfer inventer... thats why i said 'driver would need to know the limits of the system'

 

GPS is not accurate enough for that even with a clear view of the sky. Add in the trees, buildings, bridges, overpasses, and weather. You'll be in a ditch before you can say crash.

 

GPS location and 'Auto-steer' is a common feature on tractors and sprayers (agricultural equipment) today, and is guaranteed accurate to within a couple of feet, and is in practice much more accurate, much less than a foot; which is better than most humans are capable of in the same situation. Of course this is slow speed applications (2-20mph); I know I wouldn't trust it in on the freeway even if everybody else had the same stuff. Central computers running our freeways? Inside of 30 years I'll bet.

 

A foot or two makes a big difference on the road. Even if it could be accurate to within a foot most of the time, that is still unacceptable. Because when it happens to have a moment of of +/- 10 feet, you plow into a bridge abutment.

 

Someone actually did this already. The institute/whatever had a car autopilot on the freeway somewhere in california for 100 miles or so (w/ a driver on board of course). This was talked about on the news quite a bit around a year ago.