Intelligent car takes the wheel to dodge trouble

Will Ferguson, contributor

A new intelligent navigation system could keep your car on the road and away from obstacles even when you're not paying attention.

Sterling Anderson and Karl Iagnemma of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Robotic Mobility Group have developed an "intelligent co-pilot" that uses an onboard camera and laser rangefinder to identify hazards in a vehicle's environment.

The system identifies obstacles in the path of the vehicle and charts the best course around them. It returns control to the human operator once it decides that car and driver are safely out of harm's way.

The system can drive a car completely on its own, but Anderson says the genius of his robotic co-pilot is its ability to seamlessly share control with its flesh-and-blood counterpart behind the wheel.

"Full autonomy is simpler than enabling a car to collaborate with a human," Anderson says. "In this system, we have to accommodate for the human's input as well, making sure that the automated system kicks in only in dangerous situations."

Anderson says if a driver didn't know their car was equipped with the system, they would probably think they had pulled off a spectacular feat behind the wheel.

Researchers have tested the system with a variety of vehicles, ranging from a remote-controlled utility buggy to a Type S Jaguar at Ford's track in Dearborn, Michigan. So far, it works up to speeds of 48 kilometres per hour.

The next step in the research is tailoring the system to a driver's ability. "We want this to be useful for the beginning driver and the guys who like the smell of octane and burning rubber," Anderson says.

Anderson says he would put the system between $5000 and $10,000 when it hits the market. This won't be for some time, though, he added - five years at the least. The group presented details of the safety system at the 2012 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Madrid, Spain.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/21643e0f/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Conepercent0C20A120C0A70Cintelligent0Ecar0Eco0Epilot0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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