Saturday, September 29, 2012

How Close is Google's 'Autonomous Driver-less Car' From Reality


Perhaps Google is one of many high-status companies investing large lumps of money on the idea of ‘autonomous driverless cars’ which can drive themselves. If you look up Google, several other major automakers and U.S. government agencies like DARPA and the U.S. Army have been effectively running related research projects. But it is Google who has brought some reality to the idea and is now putting  all-hands-on-deck on its project.

This Tuesday, September 25, 2012, California became the third state of the U.S., following Nevada and Florida, to sign a legislation which legally gives permission to Google for testing it driverless cars on the state's roads. Nevada has already granted an official permission in June 2011, whereas Florida did so in April, 2012. Similar legislations are soon expected to be drawn up in Hawaii and Oklahoma as well.

Before all this in March 2011, the Google engineer who led the research which brought this advancement to light today, Sebastian Thrun, gave an aspiring highlight of his project in a TED presentation which is worth watching. He mentioned his primary purpose was to save the lives of those millions of people from all over the world who have faded due to numerous traffic accidents, also the case of his friends when he was 18.

This Tuesday after signing the paperwork in Google Headquarters, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, made a statement wearing Project Glass augmented reality glasses saying “It really has the power to change people’s lives, that’s why I’m really excited about it.” Brin explained that “there are many, many people who are under-served by our transportation system today.” Brin listed a wide range of groups, including the blind, people too young or too old to drive, drunk drivers and people with other disabilities, who will be able to take benefit of the autonomous driverless car.

Brin declared that “I expect self-driving cars are going to be far safer than human-driven cars.” He said “It’s at a substantial cost that we embrace our transportation systems. And I believe self-driving cars can eradicate much of that cost.” Brin shard his experience saying “I got used to it pretty d--- quickly.”


The signing took place in Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters as the Governor of California Jerry Brown himself had a firsthand experience of the autonomous driverless car.

To end the curiosity of many, Brin was inquired about how soon he thought the driverless cars are from making an impact on the public, Brin said, “you can count on one hand the number of years before people can experience this.” Later Google co-founder explained that “It’s basically a very long list of edge cases.” He clarified that “We’re getting through a long list of eventualities.”

Brin boasted that Google's cars have already driven a total of 300,000 miles on public roads so far and that, while human intervention for safety reasons has been necessary during testing, the last 50,000 miles of driving have passed without requiring any test engineer to take the wheel.
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