Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Google Self Driving Car Crashed – to err is Human ?
Google’s Self Driving Car Project may suffer a setback after reports came in last week of one of its self-driving car suffered its first crash near Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. Reportedly one of the self-driven Prius crashed in the back of another driverless prototype during one of its trial runs. Google claims that though the Prius which is a part of its Self-driven Car Project and equipped with auto pilot was actually flipped to manual mode and the accident occurred as a result of a human error.
In a statement sent to the Business Insider, Google spokesperson states "Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occured while a person was manually driving the car." Naturally Google would prefer to blame the crash as a result of human error rather than blaming the high tech software which would seriosly jeopardize the gadget laden car project.
The technology used in Google's Self Driving cars is a combination of video cameras, motion sensors, radar sensors and laser range finders to see other cars and traffic and use Google Maps and Google Earth to navigate. These cars have trained drivers and software engineers at the back seat during testing. Google's chief autonomous car researcher Sebastian Thrun calls this High-Tech gizmo of the future - "The Perfect Driving Mechanism".
In a statement sent to the Business Insider, Google spokesperson states "Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occured while a person was manually driving the car." Naturally Google would prefer to blame the crash as a result of human error rather than blaming the high tech software which would seriosly jeopardize the gadget laden car project.
The technology used in Google's Self Driving cars is a combination of video cameras, motion sensors, radar sensors and laser range finders to see other cars and traffic and use Google Maps and Google Earth to navigate. These cars have trained drivers and software engineers at the back seat during testing. Google's chief autonomous car researcher Sebastian Thrun calls this High-Tech gizmo of the future - "The Perfect Driving Mechanism".
See Google’s Self Driving Car In Action:
A driver less car was first envisioned by Norman Bel Gaddes. His Futurama exhibit was sponsored by General Motors at the 1939 World's Fair. Later in 1995 the Carnegie Mellon University Navlab Project achieved 98.2% autonomous driving over 5000 kms (3000 miles). It was only in mid-2010 that Google's Self Driving Car was First Reported.
Related Reading.
Hands-Off Training: Google's Self-Driving Car Holds Tantalizing Promise, but Major Roadblocks Remain
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