Oct 15 2010
Google has declared that its automated car project is developing robotic cars which are incorporated with an artificial intelligence software that helps to detect any object found near the car and to make effective decisions during driving.
Robotic car
So far seven robotic cars including six Priuses and one Audi have been developed. They feature a funnel-like cylinder on top of the car and can travel 1000 miles without human control. Still a driver was allowed to control the car in case of any mishap and the navigation system was monitored by a technician who sat in the passenger seat.
It was reported that so far the robotic car has traveled around 140,000 miles with minimum human interference. This project was instigated by Sebastian Thrun, Google Engineer and Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence laboratory and he was also a joint-inventor of Street View mapping service of Google. Under his leadership, the robotics car project team comprises 15 engineers and around 12 proficient drivers.
Bernard Lu, Senior Staff Counsel for the California Department of Motor Vehicles has commented that this robotic technology is superior to law in many aspects. For instance several laws governing the vehicle code are based on the vehicle's driver, considering a human to drive the vehicle.