Antonio W. -- China Daily recently announced that a car with no driver and no GPS has managed to travel 286 km (app. 177 m). It did so over the course of three hours and twenty minutes, traveling on a busy highway between Changsha and Wuhan, capitals of Chinese provinces Hunan and Hubei. The car is called the Hongqui HQ3, and is currently under development by the National University of Defense Technology.
It uses video cameras, laser range detectors, and radar to keep the vehicle from crashing or turning into the wrong lane. Unfortunately, due to the fact that most of it is visual information, night tests and fog tests did not turn out as well. Its average reaction time is 40ms, compared to 500ms of that of the average human. They are now continuing the project with China's First Auto Works to make a better, perhaps commercial version.
I also read in the article that Google had mad a GPS self driving car, and now that technology has finally gotten to this level, I see much laziness in our future. Of course, it is a bit frightening to see life being taken over this much, but its been done successfully before, it will probably work again (introducing new tech). Eventually, I assume that the GPS and the sensory methods will combine at some point to a larger scale. Almost everything is becoming automated, and even China has managed to catch up. Glitches will still happen, and whatnot, but I still feel comfortable with going human for just a bit longer. If it escalates too far, than we will all have to go around with EMPs in our hands when walking the streets just to not get run over. But that is at least 200 years from now (I think), so I'll support it til then. Soon, we will all have the fully automated car, and it will be slightly less dangerous. It shall become the medium of transportation.
Link: China and the rise of the driverless car
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