Street Smarts (or … More on Driverless Cars)

by Eric A Morris,  New York Times Opinion “Freakonomics”.

Bad news: with all due respect to Terrafugia, unless you’re a fan of Futurama it’s probably going to be awhile before you see a flying car. But cars that drive themselves are coming, probably within most of our lifetimes and possibly sooner than you might think. They will drastically cut traffic congestion, improve safety, and be a terrific boon to those like the young and the old who are deprived of mobility. The ability to take our hands off the wheel will also undoubtedly send sales of Big Macs and mascara skyrocketing. But do we have the drive to make robot cars a reality?

Technologically, we’re closer than you might think. All of the elements needed to make driverless cars – radar, automatic pilot software, computing power, wireless communications and, of course, navigation systems that know where you’re going (okay, usually know where you’re going) — are technologically feasible, and in many cases are even available commercially. …..

First, the cars in a driverless system will ideally be able to talk to each other. This may not be totally necessary; …..

Just as importantly, cars may need to talk to the road itself. Technology which keeps you from veering out of your lane will probably (at least at first) require a string of magnets or transmitters in or next to the road (as in the PATH experiment), or at the very least very clear lane marker stripes (which may be as hard to maintain as the magnets).

It might also be more efficient and safer to coordinate the actions of cars from a central computing system, rather than simply letting the cars act as free agents or negotiate with each other (though central control would also bring problems, like the complexity involved in managing thousands and even millions of vehicles).

Thus we face a chicken-and-the-egg problem: why should the public go to the expense of building smart roads when there are few smart cars, and why should people buy smart cars when there are no smart roads? ….. Read it all!

DCL: I think there’s a little event processing, maybe even CEP, in here somewhere!

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