Self-Drive Cars: What’s the point?

Let me state from the outset, that I have no training or knowledge about the technology behind self-drive cars. I haven’t taken an interest in them, and have never had a strong opinion about them. After all, what’s the point? It’s a dumb idea that will never work, right?

To be fair, that probably is a strong opinion; so let’s try to understand the idea before we discard it.

People at Google, and other “Brainiac Factories” are trying to build a car that will do the driving for us. Basically that must involve building into said car, a myriad of sensors that can “see” the environment it is driving in, and react in the same way that a human driver would. No, not the same way. Better.

All my life, I have been hearing about the ambitions of computer programmers to create a chess playing opponent that can beat a grand master. Have they achieved it? Don’t know. The world lost interest. I know I did, and I quite like both computers and chess.

Then there were the boffins trying to create artificial intelligence. Apparently, the test is for somebody to ask it a series of questions, and for it to give structured, “considered” replies. The questions would be structured in such a way that the answers could not be scripted, and would demonstrate actual thought. Have they achieved it? Not that I have heard.

Given the less than stellar progress in replicating specific, focused aspects of the human brain, it seems absurd that somebody would think that it’s a cool idea to ramp up the difficulty factor by about a million. They don’t want to build a car that will drive on a test track without incident. They want it to be able to drive in traffic, on unfamiliar roads, and share that road with the most unpredictable and dangerous animal on the planet. Me.
Me as a driver is unpredictable enough. What about the childish pedestrian me, the self-involved youthful pedestrian me, or the antiquated frail pedestrian me? Heaven help us.
What about mother duck leading her breed (flock?) across the road. Will our smart car be smart enough to know what is happening, or will we have pate on the pavement?
And what about a renegade page from an escaped newspaper. Will the car be able to see that there is no substance to the object skipping across the road ahead?

No, I was right. It’s a dumb idea.

But…

There is merit in a controlled environment where ALL cars are controlled, and ALL cars can communicate with each other for a common result. A “Hive” mentality.

So how about this:

·      A car that I can drive myself when I need to.

·      A car that “slots in” when in a high volume environment. Like a freeway?

Lets think about the slotcar model for a jumping off point. The driver can control many things, but when it’s in the slot, “the road” controls the steering.

Can we create freeways with slotted grooves down the centre of each lane, for cars to drop a “guide flag” into? Probably not.

But we can lay metallic strips that the car can magnetically “sync” with, to stay on track. I say magnetically, but I don't know if magnetic locking is feasible, or even possible, at speed. I am guessing that the connection will be induction in some form. If the vehicle's brain has direct control of the steering, then it can choose to move slightly to the left and right as required.

So I drive my car from home to the freeway on-ramp:

·      As I line up, I drive across a control mechanism on the ramp, and the car is guided into position. 

·      At this point, I relinquish steering control of the vehicle. Just like some of those sci-fi movies, the steering wheel might retract into the dashboard.

·      I also relinquish speed control, so the pedals could retract as well.

·      Using the “hive” analogy, the freeway then absorbs my car into its neural network. We are slotted in between other cars going the same direction. Our GPS would have told the network of our destination, so it will guide us to the correct exit. In the meantime, we travel at optimal speed, with all the other worker bees.

·      The Neural Network will know how busy the traffic is at any moment in time, so will use all available lane in the most efficient way possible. For some stretches of freeway, there may be 8 lanes moving north, with 2 moving south. Allocation of direction for each lane will be dynamically recalculated constantly, and the speed of vehicles in corresponding zones adjusted accordingly.

·      The network may decide that certain lanes will move faster than others. When a car on the faster inner lane was approaching its exit or freeway change, the network will adjust the speed of vehicles nearby, to facilitate it moving seamlessly from one lane to the next towards the outer lanes in time to make the exit.

I see this concept as very exciting. Imagine being able to stop the gridlock on freeways and motorways around the world. I also see it as far more practical and achievable than the overly ambitious and hazardous path currently being explored.

After all, while this idea does utilise self-drive, it does not need all of the human-emulating traits that these people are trying to create. It is controlling a vehicle, on a confined freeway, with no aberrations or human anomalies to contend with, and it is magnetically locking the vehicle to a “track” that follows a predefined path. 

When the vehicle needs to exit the freeway, it switches between magnetic lanes until it is following the path up the exit ramp. I imagine these magnetic strips are not just one-per-vehicle lane. I imagine that there will be a bank of strips, only centimetres apart, and the magnetic lock under each car would be reading across many strips at once. In this way, the car could be instructed to move left or right in small or large increments, while staying “in contact” with the road at all times. 

If the network was aware of the physical dimensions of each vehicle, then it could use this incremental left/right adjustment to stack vehicles tightly across the width of the freeway. What may be 4 lanes when the big trucks are moving, could be 6 lanes when the soccer mums are out in force.

Because the network also controls the speed of all vehicles, they can travel both faster and closer than would be “humanly” possible. Lateral and longitudinal separation can be reduced to millimetres at quite high speeds, when a lane change is required.

If a vehicle detects a fault requiring immediate attention, the same method is used to “herd” the vehicle to the side of the road, where it can stop safely.

Uptake

Laying network strips on the surface of freeways is probably not as prohibitively expensive as some alternatives. The important thing is that only compatible cars be allowed onto the freeway. I would imagine that if non-compatible cars were forced onto second-tier roads for the same journey, then there would be considerable incentive to buy a compatible model, or some kind of after-market retro-fit kit, if such a beast exists.


Bonus Features

Assuming we can develop the connection method between the car and the freeway, there are many advantages.

• Obviously two-way communication between both the car and the network and possibly the cars around it.
• Toll charging if required
• Recharging the (electric) vehicle