New cars with spooky autopilot abilities could put an end to traffic jams, accidents, and arguing with fellow passengers about your “aggressive” driving style.
That’s if researchers at California’s Riverside College of Engineering are to be believed. They’ve created a car that’ll not only drive itself, but avoid crashing, communicate wirelessly with cars around it, and improve traffic flow by around 300%.
Made in conjunction with Dotmobil, the Ce-Cert car was originally designed to enter the Darpa grand challenge – an event which invites autonomous vehicles to compete with each other. It didn’t qualify, but its researchers still thing the technology inside could help ease congestion in cities.
“It can see what’s coming up ahead: a car that’s in front of it, a pedestrian that’s stepping out in front,” Dr Matt Barth, creator of the car explained to BBC news.
“That comes back, more or less, as an image. The car can say, ‘hey look, we’d better start braking because there’s a car or a pedestrian that’s coming in the middle of the lane’.”
By reacting faster than humans, and by sharing information with other cars around it, Barth reckons the vehicle can smooth out traffic snags and increase movement on the roads by as much as three times current standards.
Plus, we’d get to read the paper on the way to work, instead of bothering with all that troublesome steering nonsense.
TBC | £TBC
University of California (via BBC News)
