[Nfbf-l] Drivers Alert

[JD TOWNSEND]

New York Times, Science Desk, May 28, 2013



At High Speed, on the Road to a Driverless Future.  By JOHN MARKOFF.  
JERUSALEM -- Last month, on a freeway from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, I 
sat in the
driver's seat of an Audi A7 while software connected to a video camera 
on the windshield drove the car at speeds up to 65 miles an hour -- 
making a singular
statement about the rapid progress in the development of self-driving cars.

While the widely publicized Google car and other autonomous vehicles are 
festooned with cameras, radar and the laser range finders called lidars, 
this
one is distinctive because of the simplicity and the relatively low cost 
of its system -- just a few hundred dollars' worth of materials.  The 
idea is
to get the best out of camera-only autonomous driving,' said Gaby Hayon, 
senior vice president for research and development at Mobileye Vision 
Technologies,
the Israeli company that created the system in the Audi..

The Mobileye car does not offer the autonomy achieved by Google's 
engineers..  The Google car, which has been tested for more than 300,000 
miles in California
traffic, will merge onto freeways, drive safely through intersections, 
make left and right turns, and pass slower vehicles.

By contrast, the Mobileye vehicle is capable only of driving in a single 
lane at freeway speeds, as well as identifying traffic lights and 
automatically
slowing, stopping and then returning to highway speeds.

But by blending advanced computer vision techniques with low-cost video 
cameras, the company is demonstrating how quickly autonomous driving can 
be commercialized.
You cannot have a car with $70,000 of equipment,' said Amnon Shashua, a 
computer scientist at Hebrew University and a founder of Mobileye, 
referring to
Google's lidar system, 'and imagine that it will go into mass production.

Elon Musk, the automobile and spaceship entrepreneur, recently made 
headlines by saying much the same thing.  Mr.  Musk said he was 
interested in designing
self-driving versions of his Tesla automobiles, possibly in partnership 
with Google, but in an interview with Bloomberg Mr.  Musk said lidars 
were too
expensive to be used in production cars.  Like Google, Mobileye is not 
an automobile company, but rather a technology firm that is intensely 
focused on
developing the next generation of artificial intelligence software.

The company was founded in the 1990s, after developers persuaded General 
Motors to buy an inexpensive camera that could detect vehicles in 
adjacent lanes.


Since then it has grown into a major supplier of automotive safety 
technology, all based on designing advanced algorithms that add 
'intelligence' to inexpensive
cameras.

Mobileye has recently begun offering the third generation of its 
technology, which companies like Volvo have promoted for its ability to 
detect pedestrians
and cyclists.  Nissan also recently gave a hint of things to come with a 
demonstration of a car that could automatically swerve to avoid a 
pedestrian who
walked out from behind a parked car.  The system was based on Mobileye 
technology.

As soon as this summer, the first limited systems offering a feature 
known as 'traffic jam assist' will begin arriving from more than five 
major automobile
makers.  Those cars will drive safely in stop-and-go traffic, but will 
require that drivers keep their hands on the steering wheel.

But more advanced systems will be introduced as early as 2016, according 
to Mobileye, and it was that advanced capability I experienced last 
month, during
my foray in freeway traffic.

With two Mobileye engineers, Dr.  Hayon and Eyal Bagon, we drove several 
miles east of Jerusalem, where Mobileye is located, and then pulled off 
at a nondescript
turnout where another Mobileye employee waited in a shiny white Audi A7.

On the way out of town, the two men were apologetic.  This was a work in 
progress, they told me.

I was already feeling a little let down.  In California in 2010, I had 
been the first reporter to drive in the Google car, a Toyota Prius 
fitted with sensors
that created a remarkably detailed map of the world around the car.  
Moreover, it was connected wirelessly to the Internet, giving it access 
to a vast
cloud-based set of data that could be matched to what the local sensors 
were seeing.

It was a tour de force.  The car merged seamlessly with traffic on 
Highway 101 and then turned off the freeway to automatically drive 
through downtown
Mountain View, Calif., where Google has its headquarters.  It was taken 
out of automatic pilot just twice -- while passing a cyclist and then 
again to
back into a parking space.  The Google engineers did not want to chance 
a mishap with a reporter on board.

There was no such caution last month with the Mobileye engineers.

Why don't you drive? Dr.  Bagon suggested as he slid into the passenger 
seat behind a large display and keyboard.  Dr.  Hayon jumped into the 
back seat,
and I had no choice but to get behind the wheel.

The Mobileye engineers proceeded to give me a rapid-fire lesson on how 
to drive their robot car: Turn on the automatic navigation by pressing 
the cruise-control
button and then pulling a stick on the steering wheel toward you to 
activate the 'lane-keeping,' or steering, feature.

In a display projected onto the windshield, you can see the speed and an 
icon that lets you know the auto driving feature has been switched on.

Following another engineer who had taken off in a car ahead of us, we 
pulled onto the highway.  After a false start, I engaged the autopilot, 
and off we
went; I put my hands in my lap and tried to relax as we snaked down a 
desolate canyon road on our way to the Dead Sea.  When the car ahead of 
us slowed
for a stoplight, it took all of my willpower to keep my foot off the 
brake and trust the car as it rolled smoothly to a stop behind it.

In the Google car, I had felt detached from the machine intelligence 
that guided it.  As the car piloted itself through its first curve, 
there had been
an eerie more-human-than-human sense.

But in the Mobileye car I was acutely aware of the autopilot's 
limitations.  The car had a tendency to weave a bit when it started to 
pull away from an
intersection -- behavior that did not inspire confidence.  Once, as we 
were passing a parked car, the Audi pulled in the direction of the other 
vehicle.
Not wanting to learn the car's intentions, I lifted my hands out of my 
lap and nudged it back to the center of the lane.  The Mobileye 
engineers sat perfectly
calm.

Later they told me that by the end of the month, the single camera would 
be supplemented with an array of five more: a wide-range camera and 
additional
side-mounted and rear-facing cameras.  The goal, they said, was to build 
a system with the same capability for autonomous driving as the Google 
car's.=