[LINK] itN: 'Third fatal Tesla Autopilot crash ...'

[Tom Worthington]

On 21/5/19 10:21 am, David wrote:

> ... the monitor monitors the driver to make sure they're still
> monitoring the vehicle. ...

No, the car is checking the driver is *looking at the road ahead*, so 
they are ready to take manual control, if needed.

Similar systems are bing developed for aircraft. These will do check the
pilot is looking at the instruments periodically, as well as outside.

> Simply driving would be less stressful. ...

Auto-pilots have proven very effective in aircraft. These reduce the
workload on the pilot, and also make for a smoother trip. I expect it
will be the case for cars as well.

Perhaps the more significant effect of self driving cars will be to
eliminate the need to "own" a car. If you can call a vehicle to collect
you as required, do you need to have exclusive use of a specific
vehicle? Cars, taxis and buses would then blend into one transport
system. The self driving cars would not need to operate without a driver
at high speed for this to work. Walking speed would be good enough for a
car to drive itself from a parking spot to be collected.

But I have only had one brief, slow trip in an autonomous road vehicle
(a bus), with a safety driver monitoring from outside, using a remote 
control. 
https://blog.tomw.net.au/2017/11/autonomous-electric-bus-in-canberra.html


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Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
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