68fastback
10-21-2010, 03:27 AM
Well, when I read this headline I thought "what the $%^# is Ford thinking?!
But as I read through the media release I started thinking it might actually be sensible evolution (think driving in Miami -lol).
Anyhow, worth a read even tho I sort of hope it never *fully* happens. I like Ford's thining that *if* it is to happen, it needs to be more in the vein of the driver becomes more of an 'operator' to the extent they want to -- leaving selected more tedious tasks to the car as the operator sees fit.
Anyhow, if you can get past the gut feeling OH NO, NOT ME (me neither!!), Ford is taking a very interesting philosophical approach: as an aide, consumer-driven, and gradually added as proven, etc ...probably why this paper (above all others for the past two years) won the prestigious SAE Trevor O. Jones award.
Still, part of me says OH NO NOT ME and part says ...I can see it saving lots of lives (esp in Miami -lol).
Here's the media release...
FORD RECOGNIZED AT AUTO ELECTRONICS CONFERENCE FOR CONSUMER-DRIVEN APPROACH TO AUTONOMOUS CAR
Ford outlines future research scope for autonomous driving technologies; expresses need for open collaboration to develop viable safe solutions for the masses
Ford engineers Jeffrey Rupp and Anthony King receive distinguished Trevor O. Jones Outstanding Paper Award at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2010 Convergence conference, for penning technical paper Autonomous Driving – A Practical Roadmap
Ford co-hosted this year’s SAE Convergence in Detroit this week; sharing host honors with technology partner Microsoft Corporation
These paragraphs also caught my attention as appropriately 'temporing' the subject. Still, part of me is struggling with even the term "autonomous car" ever being other than plain scary -lol.
By 2001, Ford created a separate Active Safety engineering team to focus specifically on the rapid development and long-term potential of driver support, accident avoidance and autonomous driver systems. As a result, other available semiautonomous technologies soon followed for Ford products, including Lane Departure Warning, Blind Spot Information System with Cross-Traffic Alert, Collision Warning with Brake Support, and Active Park Assist. All of these act as a springboard to a more autonomous vehicle experience.
“Knowing our customer base, Ford’s position is that what consumers really want is not a driverless car, but rather a car that can drive itself with manual assistance when needed,” said Rupp. “You, the driver, are still managing the overall process, akin to the captain of a ship or autopilot, but you are not necessarily locked into the moment-to-moment tasks of driving.”
An active participant in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-controlled autonomous vehicle challenges in 2004, 2005 and 2007, Ford continues to carefully test out related driver-assist and vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies with research vehicles today. In addition, Ford has collected thousands of miles of road data through its Mother of All Road Trips (MOART), a 25-state, 60,000-mile data collection project designed to help engineers fine-tune driver-assist system algorithms to prevent false alerts.
Although lessons learned from DARPA, MOART and other on-site experiments are being translated for yet-to-be-announced near-term vehicle features, the Ford engineering team still agrees that driverless-car technology is not yet ready for real-world applications and that, more importantly, consumers are not yet ready to totally give up control of their mobility.
Building on this premise, Ford is painstakingly examining the more consumer-driven aspects of creating an autonomous vehicle environment, including outlining those tasks automotive consumers wish were more efficient; what can be done to improve the human-machine user interface for more accurate situational awareness support; and how to make the transition from being the “driver” of the car to becoming the “operator” of the car seamless, safe and comfortable for the customer.
More... (http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=33442)
But as I read through the media release I started thinking it might actually be sensible evolution (think driving in Miami -lol).
Anyhow, worth a read even tho I sort of hope it never *fully* happens. I like Ford's thining that *if* it is to happen, it needs to be more in the vein of the driver becomes more of an 'operator' to the extent they want to -- leaving selected more tedious tasks to the car as the operator sees fit.
Anyhow, if you can get past the gut feeling OH NO, NOT ME (me neither!!), Ford is taking a very interesting philosophical approach: as an aide, consumer-driven, and gradually added as proven, etc ...probably why this paper (above all others for the past two years) won the prestigious SAE Trevor O. Jones award.
Still, part of me says OH NO NOT ME and part says ...I can see it saving lots of lives (esp in Miami -lol).
Here's the media release...
FORD RECOGNIZED AT AUTO ELECTRONICS CONFERENCE FOR CONSUMER-DRIVEN APPROACH TO AUTONOMOUS CAR
Ford outlines future research scope for autonomous driving technologies; expresses need for open collaboration to develop viable safe solutions for the masses
Ford engineers Jeffrey Rupp and Anthony King receive distinguished Trevor O. Jones Outstanding Paper Award at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2010 Convergence conference, for penning technical paper Autonomous Driving – A Practical Roadmap
Ford co-hosted this year’s SAE Convergence in Detroit this week; sharing host honors with technology partner Microsoft Corporation
These paragraphs also caught my attention as appropriately 'temporing' the subject. Still, part of me is struggling with even the term "autonomous car" ever being other than plain scary -lol.
By 2001, Ford created a separate Active Safety engineering team to focus specifically on the rapid development and long-term potential of driver support, accident avoidance and autonomous driver systems. As a result, other available semiautonomous technologies soon followed for Ford products, including Lane Departure Warning, Blind Spot Information System with Cross-Traffic Alert, Collision Warning with Brake Support, and Active Park Assist. All of these act as a springboard to a more autonomous vehicle experience.
“Knowing our customer base, Ford’s position is that what consumers really want is not a driverless car, but rather a car that can drive itself with manual assistance when needed,” said Rupp. “You, the driver, are still managing the overall process, akin to the captain of a ship or autopilot, but you are not necessarily locked into the moment-to-moment tasks of driving.”
An active participant in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-controlled autonomous vehicle challenges in 2004, 2005 and 2007, Ford continues to carefully test out related driver-assist and vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies with research vehicles today. In addition, Ford has collected thousands of miles of road data through its Mother of All Road Trips (MOART), a 25-state, 60,000-mile data collection project designed to help engineers fine-tune driver-assist system algorithms to prevent false alerts.
Although lessons learned from DARPA, MOART and other on-site experiments are being translated for yet-to-be-announced near-term vehicle features, the Ford engineering team still agrees that driverless-car technology is not yet ready for real-world applications and that, more importantly, consumers are not yet ready to totally give up control of their mobility.
Building on this premise, Ford is painstakingly examining the more consumer-driven aspects of creating an autonomous vehicle environment, including outlining those tasks automotive consumers wish were more efficient; what can be done to improve the human-machine user interface for more accurate situational awareness support; and how to make the transition from being the “driver” of the car to becoming the “operator” of the car seamless, safe and comfortable for the customer.
More... (http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=33442)