The gestation of the fully autonomous car is turning up all manner of new hurdles. Google, which has tested its own, vaguely koala-esque self-driving car (it plans to supply systems to automakers rather than become a full automaker, however), has proposed a solution to one such problem: how autonomous cars will communicate with pedestrians. As the Washington Post discovered, the Silicon Valley giant has filed a patent to address the issue.
Car-to-pedestrian communication is far more interesting than it sounds. It’s said that, were an autonomous car to approach a four-way stop, it would theoretically never “go” through the intersection, since it’d be constantly waiting on pedestrians or other traffic to cross in front of it. For self-driving cars to become a reality, they’re going to need to bone up on their assertiveness. Being able to communicate with foot traffic is a key step in the right direction, especially since people can’t make eye contact with or receive hand signals from a robotic car. At least not yet.
Google’s patent, therefore, more or less involves a dynamic array of signage and audible warnings—which we had fun with in our own illustration at the top; that’s not part of Google’s patent—for self-driving cars. The first sentence in the patent’s abstract sums it up perfectly: “Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to notifying a pedestrian of the intent of a self-driving vehicle.” Illustrations included in the patent filing depict displays reading announcements such as “stop,” “safe to cross,” and a stick-figure with a line through it. Of course, these signs are clued in to their surroundings using the same sensors, cameras, and radar used for safe navigation rolling down the street.
Cars and pedestrians interacting is a reality of modern life, but having autonomous cars creeping through downtown areas with the timidness of a 15-year-old on their learner’s permit isn’t the way forward. It’s somewhat ironic that in trying to eradicate the human driver from the equation, one of the greatest challenges facing autonomous-car developers remains humans.
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