Have a look at how the Google Self-Driving car operates while taking the 360 degrees pictures for the ongoing and never-ending google maps update endeavour. We’re astounded at how intuitive this self-driving car is, catering for various expected and unexpected road-scenarios.
“A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area,” wrote Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project. “We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously — pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn.
A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t — and it never gets tired or distracted.
A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t — and it never gets tired or distracted.”
Although driving is a complex task to master, Urmson said it is much easier for a computer to process everything that is happening on the road at such a rapid pace than the human mind.
“As it turns out, what looks chaotic and random on a city street to the human eye is actually fairly predictable to a computer,” Urmson said. “As we’ve encountered thousands of different situations, we’ve built software models of what to expect, from the likely (a car stopping at a red light) to the unlikely (blowing through it).”
While Google is still working to overcome some challenges, such as teaching the self-driving vehicles to navigate more streets in Mountain View before they head to other towns, it’s come a long way in just a few years.
P.S – Is it just us or is Prescilla (in the video) hot!!?!
