Autonomous driving on the dirt
Posted by Mansoor A. Bukhari on May 29, 2016
The new phrase in automotive industry these is autonomous driving. Many manufacturers are trying their level best to keep the drivers away from the steering wheel and let the car take them wherever they want with comfort and ease. But, the purist drivers will always dislike the whole fact because the entire element of driving the car is taken out of the equation. Now the driver has become the passenger and the feeling and thrill of testing that piece of machine is no more.
And, to some extent they are not wrong. The whole idea behind autonomous driving is to become a replacement for the driver. It is basically a system made up of millions of sensors that are created with safety as the top most factor and help the driver in case of emergency – for example when they suddenly move out of lane or fail to stop the car in time. Well, some researchers in Georgia Tech have taken a different route altogether and have added the element of fun in autonomous driving.
The people have released a video showing off their autonomous project going crazy in the dirt. The video shows the dirt mobile doing cool jumps and sliding sideways – all to portray the performance element of the machine – in safety so that the car can handle itself carefully in bad driving conditions. "In spite of that sliding maneuver, which gives us a lot of speed in the turns, the car is actually stable and safe," Georgia Tech professor Jim Rehg says. The vehicle predicts 2000 maneuvers in 50 milliseconds and the system selects the best possible alternative. The system learns about the obstacles on the go and then works out a way to go around the track as quickly as possible.
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