Quote Originally Posted by wolverine View Post
Easy answer. It has alot to do with research and funding. If we look at a wide range of technology and their development curves, you'd find them much steeper than AHS and driverless cars. This technology has been proven and ready to be marketed since the mid 90's. The reason it's garnered some attention is because a major company like Google is using it for streetview, which is a pretty smart idea IMO.

So if the military is "interested," I'm sure they took advantage of it over a decade ago, not in 2004. Why? Because google is using it in civilian vehicles to take pictures of streets everywhere.
This technology has not been proven. Google has a limited prototype system. The military couldn't figure out how to do it, thus they held the Challenges.

It's the other fields that have been holding back automated vehicles. We have not had a powerful enough computing system that could cost effectively be put in a car. We have not had reliable enough sensor technology to detect the road and obstructions. We have not had the video object recognition algorithms needed to sense obstructions until recently.We have had the algorithms needed to drive, We have lacked a powerful enough computer system. Piloting a car down a typical street is a hugely complex task. It requires millions of decisions to be performed every second.

Computer technology has only reached a point where certain functions of automated vehicles could be cost effectively put into a car. The first of those systems are anti-lock brakes, stability control, adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning. These systems appear on the high priced vehicles as these cars can absorb the increased cost needed to put these systems in. More of these systems will be integrated into more cars as these systems reach a cost effective level.

Also all automated approaches developed before now required the roads to be modified so the car could find them. They required dedicated unobstructed lanes to operate correctly. They required grade seperation from all other vehicle and pedestrian traffic. All the cars in the system would have had to be controlled from a central location. There was no way to get enough computer technology into the car to allow them to be autonomous. The road modifications were designed to remove some of the sensing and computing requirements out of the car. Obviously this would have been outrageously expensive.

There are going to be huge people issues involved in getting automation into personal vehicles. Look at the outrage over Toyotas throttle peddle. Everyone's trying to blame the sudden accelleration problems on the mere fact that the mechanical throttle cable was replaced with computer control. Imagine what happens when an completely automated vehicle has sudden accelleration syndrome. Imagine hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road with software bugs that could potentially run over children waiting for a school bus.

A friend of mine is currently working on steer by wire systems. This is the removal of the mechanical connection between the sterring wheel and the front wheels. The redundant safety control systems involved in this are huge. The steering wheel will be just like an arcade game steering wheel. It will send electrical signals to the power steering module which will then turn the direction the wheels are pointed.

What happens to drivers when these systems become reliable? Will the insurance companies price us out of being able to drive our own cars? I love to drive. Will I be once again priced out of something I truly love doing?

I have been developing vehicle control software for over 25 years. It's my day job. I am currently working on Vehicle to vehicle communication systems. One of the necessary technologies needed to simplify vehicle automated control. I can unequivocal state there has been no technology capable of driving a vehicle down a typical road before now. The military didn't have it and no vehicle manufacturer in the world had the technology capable of doing this. The sensors and computer technology have not been reliable or cheap enough to put this on a standard car.

IT definitely wasn't a lack of funding. Every atuo manufacturer and electronic module supplier has been trying to do it for at least the last 20 years. The US government has been dumping large amounts of military money at the project for a very long time. This is strictly a matter the technology not being anywhere near ready before now.

You should also see the multi dimensional sensor arrays on top of those DARPA automated vehicles. They're amazing pieces of technology I wish I could afford to get in my lab.