Speeding, driverless Nissan finally stopped by US bombers Conversion kits have been developed which can upgrade any normal car for autonomous driverless operation. Video is now available from such a car, driving without human input in the Nevada desert, showing fruitless attempts by US navy bombers to destroy the self-directed machine. The vid comes courtesy of Kairos Autonomi, …
Lenny says: "Hey look, Homer's got one of those robot cars."
[car crashes]
Carl: "Yeah, one of those American robot cars."
If an inert bomb landing close is enough to stall the engine, how far away will a 500lb bomb need to be to have to same effect?
Mine's the one with the Radioactive Man comic in the pocket.
Just the thing for the terrorist suicide bomber in your life. Did your last human car bomber get cold feet at the last moment or realize that life really is worth living? Well worry no more, with this new handy dandy auto autopilot will ensure your slacker sacrifice gets the job done. But wait, there's more, you won't even have to worry about premature explosion ever again. Now how much would you pay?
"The only thing the Pronto4 doesn't seem able to do is cope with traffic. Once it can do that, it would seem that the long-anticipated day when we can simply set our cars to take us wherever we want and then sit back for a snooze, a beer or a bit of TV is finally at hand."
Unfortunately, from my perspective, many of the drivers around here do at least two of the above at the same time ... I mean, seriously, a TV on the dash & a cooler built into the console? WTF are the manufacturers thinking?
With a real 500lb-er, that second strike would have been fatal. I also think with a software upgrade to the bombs so that they know how to lead a moving target, it'll be a different game. Right now, they don't care, because the usual targets (bridges, buildings, runways, etc) don't move. However I do think this is a useful upgrade. Being able put the smack on "technical vehicles" with an F-18 and relatively cheap smart bombs from umpteen thousand feet would be nice.
This thing looks like it just follows whatever path you draw on a map and doesn't do any real-time obstacle avoidance or anything else. It doesn't appear to have the tons of sensors you need for that. I guess it would be useful for looking at IEDs, but don't we already have more useful robots for that?
Plus one of the main purposes of the DARPA robocar event is to have the cars deal with traffic. No wonder I don't remember them from the event. This kit must have lasted all of 5 minutes.
PATHED?? What ever happened to understandable English usage? What's wrong with 'drove'?
Give that man 100 lashes for his uncromulent verbification of a perfectly innocent English noun.
Personally, I'd strap the author to the roof of the Nissan (or Moving Land Target as it now seems to be) and send it out on the course, but the Navy seems incapable of scoring a direct hit on something doing 35mph with its Enhance (sic) Laser Guided Training Rounds.
Fail from 2 points of view.
Mine's the one with the Professional Obfuscator's Guide to Writing Defence Quotes in the pocket.
WTF in their right mind decided to build a naval base in Nevada, a landlocked desert state a long way from the nearest stretch of sea?
Must be hell getting their ships in there, huh?
keyword naval AIR base . it makes perfect sense, naval aircraft can land on normal runways so why train them over water which is more expensive and dangerous then over nevada wasteland, which is also probably close to nellis AFB so the airforce can come play as the red team
I'm writing a patent on a "device capable of restarting a autonomous driverless vehicle by means of rotating the ignition key". Actually, how do you normally start this thing, turn the key and jump out quick?
@Aldous "water which is more expensive" - with 2/3rds of the earth's surface water, and the law of supply and demand, I'd have thought land was more expensive.
Mine's the one with the really damp property brochures in the pocket.
Well, we always called those underground projects "Swiss Navy Projects". I always wondered if the Swiss actually HAD a navy hidden out somewhere, ready to launch something from their submarine or some such.
The Navy here does lots of things inland. Then again, the US Coast guard patrols Lake Tahoe since it is in two states (California and Nevada for the map challenged).
"Still, we Brits aren't so smart anyway. Don't we have a naval base at Yeovilton? Hmmmm . . ."
The RN have a fleet air arm section based at Yeovilton, also as the crow (or Apache) flies they have Westland helicopters at Yeovil close by. The coast isn't that far away to the South or North East either.
Helicopters obviously.
Note that it can't cope with traffic. At times of high security alert, the highways will be patrolled by crack teams of octogenarian Morris 1000 drivers, travelling in the middle of the road at 22mph, caravans of... of... of caravans, slowing all major routes and elite assault BMW squads, pulling out of side roads without signalling. NOTHING WILL GET PAST!
Christoph, the IRA loved all things American, as most of their funding came from over there!! And that money went on to buy arms from the Middle East and other dodgy areas of the world, which in turn used said money to train and equip the various terrorist groups in Libya and Palestine…
As someone familiar with that turbulent period in our proud Province’s history, the ultimate hypocrisy of America’s War On Terror that they started is not lost on me!!
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