Driverless Vehicles Make Inroads in Military - Velodyne Lidar
Driverless Vehicles Make Inroads in Military - Velodyne Lidar
Driverless Vehicles Make Inroads in Military - Velodyne Lidar
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Mercedes-Benz vehicle-to-vehicle LED collision warn<strong>in</strong>g system. Many<br />
commercial car companies have been debut<strong>in</strong>g driver-assist technology <strong>in</strong><br />
a ramp up to eventual driverless cars. Photo courtesy Mercedes-Benz.<br />
the level of autonomy shown by the entrants to the<br />
DARPA Urban Challenge of 2007. All successful entrants<br />
to the DARPA challenges used lidar-based systems,<br />
and many of those eng<strong>in</strong>eers have moved onto<br />
work<strong>in</strong>g with Google and the automakers. It could be<br />
that the automakers are significantly more advanced<br />
than they have publicly declared, but if that is the case<br />
then why let Google undercut the date at which they<br />
can provide full autonomy<br />
Google has been talk<strong>in</strong>g about retrofitt<strong>in</strong>g driverless car<br />
technology onto exist<strong>in</strong>g vehicles. A draft of the proposed<br />
autonomous vehicle bill for the District of Columbia<br />
refers to retrofitt<strong>in</strong>g vehicles manufactured <strong>in</strong><br />
2009 or later.<br />
Motivat<strong>in</strong>g the Consumer<br />
The driverless car community has heard the discussions<br />
about major, show-stopp<strong>in</strong>g obstacles, such as liability,<br />
legal, union resistance, unwill<strong>in</strong>gness to hand over control<br />
to a robot, cybersecurity, etc. But perhaps the tipp<strong>in</strong>g<br />
po<strong>in</strong>t will be when an average person can save a<br />
significant portion of their salary by not own<strong>in</strong>g a car.<br />
Furthermore, the ma<strong>in</strong> motivator for self-driv<strong>in</strong>g cars<br />
will be the millions of lives saved by this technology.<br />
Human error is a factor <strong>in</strong> 93 percent of the approximate<br />
1.2 million road fatalities that occur worldwide<br />
every year.<br />
There are massive downsides too — taxi drivers and<br />
freight truckers may soon be out of a job. However,<br />
with every great <strong>in</strong>dustrial and technological revolution,<br />
there is turmoil and employment displacement. <strong>Driverless</strong><br />
Car HQ anticipates, however, that many of the people<br />
who are displaced will move <strong>in</strong>to the new <strong>in</strong>dustries<br />
created by this technology. For example, someone will<br />
need to build, ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> and manage all those driverless<br />
delivery bots. And although this may be a disruptive<br />
technology, millions of lives will be saved and countless<br />
more <strong>in</strong>juries and accidents avoided. For us at <strong>Driverless</strong><br />
Car HQ, it can’t come soon enough.<br />
Paul Godsmark is a highway safety expert who now consults<br />
on self-driv<strong>in</strong>g car issues for regional governments. He<br />
and Gabriel Sniman are both part of the writ<strong>in</strong>g team at<br />
<strong>Driverless</strong>CarHQ. To visit the website, go to www.driverlesscarhq.com<br />
or contact Editor Matt Newton at contact@<br />
driverlesscarhq.com.<br />
20 MISSION CRITICAL • May 2013
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