A group of researchers in the UK have already demonstrated a $7,750 system that turns a Nissan Leaf into a quasi-self-driving car.
The system appears to be an “aftermarket” add-on to an existing vehicle.
With the UK system, the car is not self-driving 100 percent of the time. But as you drive, say to work, it learns your route quickly and once it has collected enough data about that route, it will ask you if you want to switch to self-driving mode.
The goal is to get this system to a price of $150 (in parts, we assume) using cheap sensors rather than the 3D lasers Google is now running on top of its autonomous car.
Professor Paul Newman, leader of the RobotCarUK project at Oxford University that developed the system, says there is now a community of researchers that “are doing some really smart things with those cheap sensor feeds.”
You can watch a video here: http://youtu.be/9mqKEXFRdvI and on Engadget here.
The system includes a modified Nissan Leaf electric car with an iPad mounted on the dash. There are lasers in the front of the car and these work with stereo cameras to create a 3D image of the route. The system uses 3 computers. If there’s any discrepancy between the 3 computers, then self-driving mode is not offered.
The system does not use GPS.
A laser mounted under the front fender with an 85 degree field of view scans up to 50 meters ahead for any obstacles, including pedestrians.
Newman believes self-driving features will infiltrate cars gradually. Already there are self-parking cars on the road. Soon, there will be cars that can “take over” driving when in traffic.
In a separate announcement, Nissan just opened a research facility in California for self-driving cars and connected car technology.
Source: Phys.org and Telegraph via Engadget
