Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) probably be ruling the streets with the new Google Car — A car that doesn’t require a driver. Google car will be on sale for public by the end of 2017. However, the company is having trouble putting the car into an urban environment, but in the near future it will be equipped with lasers and radar systems to cover any blind spots.
The car would be able to sense a pedestrian or cyclist passing by. The driver can take over the steering when in need and until now the car had traveled for more than 700,000 miles in the Mountain View, Calif.
“Jaywalking pedestrians. Cars lurching out of hidden driveways. Double-parked delivery trucks blocking your lane and your view. At a busy time of day, a typical city street can leave even experienced drivers sweaty-palmed and irritable. We all dream of a world in which city centers are freed of congestion from cars circling for parking (PDF) and have fewer intersections made dangerous by distracted drivers. That’s why over the last year we’ve shifted the focus of the Google self-driving car project onto mastering city street driving,” said Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving car project.
“We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously—pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t—and it never gets tired or distracted.” He added, ” We still have lots of problems to solve, including teaching the car to drive more streets in Mountain View before we tackle another town, but thousands of situations on city streets that would have stumped us two years ago can now be navigated autonomously.”
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