General Motors lat week petition the US government to allow them to build and use automated vehicles on the road without a steering wheel or pedals with the aim of mass producing these in 2019.
Lets just sit back and think about that for a minute as the concept is staggering.
2019 could see totally autonomous mass produced vehicles on the road.
Read that line again.
2019 could see totally autonomous mass produced vehicles on the road.
This gets rid of one of the worst aspects of the current technology where level 3 automation requires a driver to take over at a moments notice when it can't handle something.
That's all well and good if the driver is wide awake and alert and watching the road but what happens when the driver relies on this because it works so well for long periods of time - then suddenly it doesn't.
Tesla is well aware of that with its famous collision with a truck at high speed with the driver reportedly using the vehicle as fully autonomous.
GM has long stated that it wants to go directly to level 4 automation where the car can take action on its own when in uncertain circumstances such as slowing down or pulling over therefore avoiding this potential lethal situation with level 3 control.
So lets see where this going because it means that driverless cars (in every aspect of the name ) could be on the road far sooner than currently expected.
Another aspect of that is the thinking that automation needs a lot more testing before releasing into the real world but drivers are so bad (and I count myself in that if I am being honest) that even non perfect automation will produce less deaths that human drivers so the sooner the better.
Seeing automated vehicles on the road is a rarity in most place but in Phoenix Arizona it is a common sight. Primarily because of the physical characteristics of the place where it is hot and dry most of the time with no snow, little rain and wide pot hole free roads which makes it ideal for testing in near perfect conditions but not so well if you want to sort out problems as they arise but you can't have everything.
Meanwhile, back in my world I am rapidly moving on with 3D printing as in my previous blog.
I build the Digital sundial which ended up a 40 hour print and I hoped that the power held up as there was a storm coming in and I was terrified of a power failure as the printer can't recover from a power loss. Fortunately it didn't happen and I had a successful run and the digital sundial works very well.
Buoyed by this success I embarked on the next big print and started on the hand for my new robot arm. This was a 15 hour print and ran very smoothly - for 14 and a 1/2 hours.
They were right, it doesn't recover from a power fail, even a 2 second flicker.
AAAAAARRRGH
My 3D printer now has a UPS connected to it.....
Who said you don't learn from experience!
This coming weekend I will reprint it and start to construct the hand and arm.
I have now received the parts I was waiting for and should get the dancing robot (Otto) working as well.
Something to look forward too and I will will post developments as they occur.
Cheers
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