Google’s self-driving cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles to-date on the streets of California, but the vehicles require human intervention every thousand miles or so to prevent a potential mishap.
However, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has announced that the company wants to increase the distance the autonomous cars can travel truly on their own by three full orders of magnitude to 1,000,000 miles. No timetable was given for the goal, nor was it specified where the miles would be accrued.
The company’s self-driving cars are Toyota Prius models outfitted with cameras, lasers, radar and GPS to help them understand their surroundings and navigate safely. Each car’s sensory information works in conjunction with data stored on Google’s servers, which provides advanced knowledge concerning things like lane counts and configurations, signage, and the location of traffic signals.
The result is cars that can keep up with fast-paced traffic and safely traverse a range of different roads, although a human driver remains behind the wheel at all times in the event that corrections are needed – reportedly, the cars have occasional issues with recognizing speed limits and red lights (making them remarkably similar to the average human driver).
Google’s latest goal is ambitious, to say the least, but a perfected autonomous vehicle could be quite profitable as a taxi, delivery vehicle, or in a range of other capacities.
References
1.’Google’s next goal…’ view
