With no driver to lean out of the windows and yell “get out of the way”, Google’s autonomous cars will have to be creative when it comes to dealing with pedestrians.
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“Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to notifying a pedestrian of the intent of a self-driving vehicle”. The artwork is a sign of a very important function by the Google cars. Despite the good intentions of Google about the mechanical hands, the company is unsure whether pedestrians and drivers would really respond to the robotic hands of a self-driving vehicle.
Using a range of sensors, including a roof-mounted laser, the vehicle could map the nearby environment and react to it accordingly.
Self-driving cars are again under review by US Federal Transportation officials and it is possible that this new type of auto will be approved for general public use, although the date has not yet been specified.
While the automated Google auto drove at only 24 miles per hour while at a 35mph road, the company has noted that the speed has been set at 25 miles per hour to provide other drivers and pedestrians with security.
The more humanistic options that the patent could present include speakers to call out alerts to others around the vehicle, and the idea of robotic arms and eyes. Only two years ago, the tone from US Department of Transportation was quite different and anti-public usage of these cars. It began testing them in 2011 in Nevada and the cars are already legal in various states. The vision proposed would be of self-driving cars roaming our city streets as Yellow cars are. And a robotic hand could give the kind of signals to fellow motorists they often look for from other humans.
In September, Google hired TrueCar president John Krafcik as CEO of its self-driving auto project, as part of the company’s restructuring as Alphabet. Would Tesla, Uber or Apple license technology such as this?
It is Apple, though, that might get there first.
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Driverless cars risk lulling those behind the wheel into a false sense of security – and even to sleep, scientists warn.
