SARTRE Self-Driving Road Train Conducts First Test

[The Vegan Marxist]

Real-world vehicle platooning demo
January 26, 2011

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Vehicle platooning, where a convoy of vehicles follows a professional driver in a lead vehicle by adjusting its movements to the distance, speed, and the direction of the car in front, has advanced in great strides (see our previous post from 2005 (http://robots.net/article/1689.html)). Following much work in simulation, researchers of the European project Safe Road Trains for the Environment (http://www.sartre-project.eu/) or SARTRE (http://www.sartre-project.eu/) have now achieved a key milestone by performing a real-world demonstration of an autonomous car following a human-driven test vehicle in highway conditions. For more details, have a look at the SARTRE webpage (http://www.sartre-project.eu/en/Sidor/default.aspx) and this SARTRE press release (http://www.sartre-project.eu/en/press/Documents/Press%20release%2020110117%20First_test_platooning %20doc.pdf).

http://robots.net/article/3093.html

[Political_Chucky]

Thats a trip. I don't think I would ever get use to a car driving itself...ever haha.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Thats a trip. I don't think I would ever get use to a car driving itself...ever haha.

I think I could get used to it eventually. Especially when I get in the mood of having a nice nap. ^_^

[ckaihatsu]

autonomous car following a human-driven test vehicle in highway conditions.


The *real* Sartre would've questioned whether the car was truly autonomous.


= D

[scarletghoul]

God dammit I wanted to make the first existentialist joke

[ckaihatsu]

God dammit I wanted to make the first existentialist joke


Yeah, but could you really have thought of yourself as a "jokester" without an Other -- ?


x D

[Irish Left]

Id be crappin myself sitting in that car lol.

[Amphictyonis]

Are car that controls itself. Sartre, what a fitting name. He'd be very angry his name is being used to market a capitalist product. They may as well call the next sweatshop they build in China Marxland or Engelsville :)

[ckaihatsu]

The car should be advanced enough to let us know whether its gas tank is half-full or half-empty...!


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[Psy]

This is stupid even automated railways don't have trains inside each others breaking distance. Railways by law have to trains far enough apart that if the train ahead instantly comes a dead stop the train behind can still stop in time, this is so when a train crashes you don't get a pile up. For example what happens in this road train if the lead train hits another vehicle and suddenly is at a dead stop, wouldn't the entire road train crash?

If railways can't do it in a more controlled environment what makes these researches think they can do it on roads were much more can go wrong?

[ckaihatsu]

This is stupid even automated railways don't have trains inside each others breaking distance. Railways by law have to trains far enough apart that if the train ahead instantly comes a dead stop the train behind can still stop in time, this is so when a train crashes you don't get a pile up. For example what happens in this road train if the lead train hits another vehicle and suddenly is at a dead stop, wouldn't the entire road train crash?

If railways can't do it in a more controlled environment what makes these researches think they can do it on roads were much more can go wrong?


Actually, I'm surprised that this technology wasn't put into motion *decades* ago (as far as I know) -- it really doesn't take much to broadcast a car's operating data, in realtime, out as a radio signal, and then for other vehicles to use for adjusting their own realtime operating functions.

If standard traffic rules and safe, defensive driving can't prevent being blindsided by some freakish out-of-control vehicle then neither can computerized aligned driving, either -- either the parameters are set correctly for regular traffic conditions or they aren't.

[Psy]

Actually, I'm surprised that this technology wasn't put into motion *decades* ago (as far as I know) -- it really doesn't take much to broadcast a car's operating data, in realtime, out as a radio signal, and then for other vehicles to use for adjusting their own realtime operating functions.

If standard traffic rules and safe, defensive driving can't prevent being blindsided by some freakish out-of-control vehicle then neither can computerized aligned driving, either -- either the parameters are set correctly for regular traffic conditions or they aren't.
Right and it is easier to do in railways the problem is what happens when a train suddenly stops. Trains have very different braking distances i.e a streetcar can stop much faster then a kilometer long coal train just like a small car can stop much faster then a transport truck.

Then we get into accidents that greatly increases stopping distance for example if the lead vehicles plows into overturned truck it would lose speed very quickly too quickly for the cars following to stop in time.

The problem with this road train setup is it leaves no room to deal with accidents as the cars are following too close to stop the whole convoy from running to each other.

[ckaihatsu]

The problem with this road train setup is it leaves no room to deal with accidents as the cars are following too close to stop the whole convoy from running to each other.


I don't know if your contention is correct or not -- presumably a computer-controlled response would be *faster* than a like human response and so would not require *as much* stopping room as a human driver would, but I'm no expert on this stuff.

Regarding accidents, though, no amount of expert driving can eliminate the element of freakish chance altogether, so the very action of going on the roads means incurring a certain amount of risk no matter who or what the driver is.

[Psy]

I don't know if your contention is correct or not -- presumably a computer-controlled response would be *faster* than a like human response and so would not require *as much* stopping room as a human driver would, but I'm no expert on this stuff.

True but you'd still want to leave enough distance so the vehicle can come to a complete stop within the computers response time.



Regarding accidents, though, no amount of expert driving can eliminate the element of freakish chance altogether, so the very action of going on the roads means incurring a certain amount of risk no matter who or what the driver is.
Right but you don't want one accident to ripple back, you want it so when the lead vehicle tell the vehicle behind to do a emergency stop it can stop before hitting the lead vehicle.

[ckaihatsu]

Uh, *yeah* -- no need to be badgering, Psy. Remember *this* part: -- ?





either the parameters are set correctly for regular traffic conditions or they aren't.

[Psy]

My point is even if they had a controlled road network like railways have a controlled rail network it is dangerous to have vehicles in each others breaking distance. Basically these researches don't seem to be planning on failure.

Thus my point is since it is impossible to do safely on railways it is more impossible to do safely on roads.

[ckaihatsu]

What if the cars decide that "hell is other people" and then turn against us?


x D



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sartre

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ckhaihatsu:


The *real* Sartre would've questioned whether the car was truly autonomous.

Indeed, it would jump the rails at the first opportunity.