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by mason240 4673 days ago
"Work is already underway in Japan to build a dedicated autonomous driving proving ground, to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2014. Featuring real townscapes - masonry not mock-ups - it will be used to push vehicle testing beyond the limits possible on public roads to ensure the technology is safe."

Meanwhile Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets with their autonomous car.
2 comments
jerf 4673 days ago
Still under controlled circumstances, though. This sort of mockup is necessary for full testing.

I'm not sure how autonomous Nissan is shooting for, and I think they're rather deliberately not defining it. You can draw a fairly smooth continuum between "antilock brakes" and "full autonomous car you'd put your unaccompanied children into in the middle of a Midwest winter", and I imagine they're not leaping straight towards the latter. But still, to get there, you need to be able to test things like "what does the car do on a street covered in a patchwork of ice when a dog jumps out in front of it?" without waiting for exactly those conditions to emerge.

If you want a fun thought exercise, imagine how an antilock brake system handles the left wheels being on ice and the right wheels being on dry pavement. And remember... torque. You can't "just" brake with the right wheels....

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venus 4673 days ago
> Google has driven +200K miles on real highways and streets

I have got to say, I am pretty amazed they have managed to swing that. Permission to drive autonomous robot cars around the everyday streets of litigation and safety-obsessed California? An accomplishment of equal size to any one technical challenge in the car's making, I would say!

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hypersoar 4673 days ago
As I understand, they didn't ask permission. They simply announced one day that they'd been doing it for a year, and then lobbied California to legalize it afterwards. Given the potential benefits of being the state that makes autonomous cars a thing, I imagine it was an easy sell.
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atlbeer 4673 days ago
There is a real driver behind the wheel ready to take control at anytime.
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