edatoakrun
Well-known member
The leaders in autonomous driving seem to be converging on what has been Nissan's opinion (and mine) for the last few years, that the human driver will be required in edge cases for some years to come, but that this requirement can best be met by removing that human back-up driver from the vehicle:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/phantom-auto-self-driving-cars/A helping hand for "confused" self-driving cars
Before long we won't need someone behind the wheel, but as we've seen, the computers that will be driving us around are not always going to know what do to – like in a construction zone. When that happens, the car is going to need a little help, and one small California startup says it has the answer when the car needs to "phone a friend."
As correspondent Kris Van Cleave was taken for a ride in a self-driving car, Ben Shuckman, a remote driver a few miles away in a Silicon Valley office, announced his presence: "Welcome everybody, my name is Ben and I will be your Phantom remote operator for this drive: I'll be monitoring your vehicle remotely."..
If you're wondering why an autonomous vehicle might need somebody like Ben: as self-driving technology advances -- we know that General Motors, for example, is going to build one without a steering wheel, gas pedals or brakes -- if there was a situation where the autonomous car had to stop and didn't know what to do, a passenger couldn't do anything to help. They would need somebody to intervene remotely.
Phantom Auto doesn't build self-driving cars, but they're hoping their technology can come to the rescue of a "confused" autonomous vehicle. It uses cell phone signals and cameras already mounted to the vehicle, so a remote driver can take over in a situation where the car doesn't know what to do – the ultimate backup...
Waymo, the self-driving company owned by Google's parent alphabet, is developing its own assist technology. Nissan is working on a system where the autonomous vehicle would stop and wait for a remote user to draw it a map around an obstacle...