Cars Move On
On the occasion of turning fifty I wrote a two-page column that I entitled “The First Fifty years.” That was twenty-one years ago. In that piece I looked back over my fifty years, including warts and all and declared that so far was so good. I was a father and a grandfather, so I was happy. And then, in a flight of pure fancy I stuck my neck out and tried to envisage what life might grow to be like in the next fifty years.
A couple of my political suggestions have come to be fact, and while I tried to be broad based some of my thoughts might turn out to have been a little wild. However, one of my wildest thoughts to do with driving is now actually a fact: the motorcar that drives without a human, along a normal road.
In a spectacular experiment over a three-month period, (but fifteen years in preparation) a group formed between an Italian company called Vislab and the University of Parma, set four driverless Piaggio Porter minivans on a successful path between Italy, through Belgrade, in Eastern Europe, and through Russia and China, to the city of Shanghai on the Eastern shore of China, a journey of some 15,000 kilometres. I am frankly surprised that this feat of engineering has not been met with the same enthusiasm from the media as the Moon Landing, as it signifies a breakthrough of that importance.
What I saw in my vision was a solution to the mayhem that is caused by entrusting the driving to humans. I reasoned the only solution is to have cars drive themselves along pre-planned paths to the supermarket of your choice; or the bank, or to work, etc. I did not envisage that it would be possible to do this over a distance of 15,000 kilometres. I especially did not see that this could be achieved without using one drop of gasoline or diesel. Yes, this was done by using electric cars!
Each minivan was equipped with six laser scanners, seven cameras; GPS, and on-board computers. On their roofs there were installed solar panels for the recharging of batteries, although the panels were not adequate, so a companion generator truck kept batteries topped up.
The first hurdle the team encountered was that almost all countries have written within their laws that it is unlawful to operate a vehicle along the highways without a driver. Now, what do you suppose made lawmakers include that one on the books? Provided that an actual person was sat behind the wheel, permissions were given for the experiment to proceed.
The trip was deliberately designed to test the cars with the extremes of heat and cold, dry and wet, wind and snow, and pedestrians. As with normal driving, there are some conditions that will defeat all moving things, and the robotics didn’t very much like heavy rain and blinding snow. Neither do I, so I can emphasize. However, the director of the project, Alberto Broggi, seems to be very satisfied that the software ran exceptionally well, and the hardware was spot-on. They have identified the weak points and will rollout new versions when they mount the second test in 2012.
This is such an exciting project, the future technological developments arising from it are hard to anticipate. To have had four vehicles drive 15,000kilometres each, that’s 60,000 kilometres without major incident, and without a human controlling the car is mind blowing. The only accident came when a journalist accidentally disabled a function that made the car drive gently into a wall.
The only fine came when a policeman would not believe that the experiment had the official blessing of his government. This was because the cars were in a pedestrian only zone being tested among pedestrian traffic. When he discovered that the vehicles were driving themselves he wanted to write a sanction that was double that of what it might otherwise have been.
See what I mean about how man can pretty much screw up just about everything?
Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael
On the occasion of turning fifty I wrote a two-page column that I entitled “The First Fifty years.” That was twenty-one years ago. In that piece I looked back over my fifty years, including warts and all and declared that so far was so good. I was a father and a grandfather, so I was happy. And then, in a flight of pure fancy I stuck my neck out and tried to envisage what life might grow to be like in the next fifty years.
A couple of my political suggestions have come to be fact, and while I tried to be broad based some of my thoughts might turn out to have been a little wild. However, one of my wildest thoughts to do with driving is now actually a fact: the motorcar that drives without a human, along a normal road.
In a spectacular experiment over a three-month period, (but fifteen years in preparation) a group formed between an Italian company called Vislab and the University of Parma, set four driverless Piaggio Porter minivans on a successful path between Italy, through Belgrade, in Eastern Europe, and through Russia and China, to the city of Shanghai on the Eastern shore of China, a journey of some 15,000 kilometres. I am frankly surprised that this feat of engineering has not been met with the same enthusiasm from the media as the Moon Landing, as it signifies a breakthrough of that importance.
What I saw in my vision was a solution to the mayhem that is caused by entrusting the driving to humans. I reasoned the only solution is to have cars drive themselves along pre-planned paths to the supermarket of your choice; or the bank, or to work, etc. I did not envisage that it would be possible to do this over a distance of 15,000 kilometres. I especially did not see that this could be achieved without using one drop of gasoline or diesel. Yes, this was done by using electric cars!
Each minivan was equipped with six laser scanners, seven cameras; GPS, and on-board computers. On their roofs there were installed solar panels for the recharging of batteries, although the panels were not adequate, so a companion generator truck kept batteries topped up.
The first hurdle the team encountered was that almost all countries have written within their laws that it is unlawful to operate a vehicle along the highways without a driver. Now, what do you suppose made lawmakers include that one on the books? Provided that an actual person was sat behind the wheel, permissions were given for the experiment to proceed.
The trip was deliberately designed to test the cars with the extremes of heat and cold, dry and wet, wind and snow, and pedestrians. As with normal driving, there are some conditions that will defeat all moving things, and the robotics didn’t very much like heavy rain and blinding snow. Neither do I, so I can emphasize. However, the director of the project, Alberto Broggi, seems to be very satisfied that the software ran exceptionally well, and the hardware was spot-on. They have identified the weak points and will rollout new versions when they mount the second test in 2012.
This is such an exciting project, the future technological developments arising from it are hard to anticipate. To have had four vehicles drive 15,000kilometres each, that’s 60,000 kilometres without major incident, and without a human controlling the car is mind blowing. The only accident came when a journalist accidentally disabled a function that made the car drive gently into a wall.
The only fine came when a policeman would not believe that the experiment had the official blessing of his government. This was because the cars were in a pedestrian only zone being tested among pedestrian traffic. When he discovered that the vehicles were driving themselves he wanted to write a sanction that was double that of what it might otherwise have been.
See what I mean about how man can pretty much screw up just about everything?
Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael
