All transport vehicles including cars, motorcycles, boats, planes (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), trains, busses must by law have a unit installed that will take over control of the vehicle for a short while in situations of danger where the operator of the vehicle might be unable to correct the situation herself (say no more).

The unit must be able to detect objects in its path and also the direct of movement of the object to calculate if it's on a collision course. The unit will try to cummunicate with the other unit if the object is another vehicle to agree on corrective actions by both parties.

The unit will take over control and steer the vehicle out of the way of danger, or just slow it down to a halt if direction can not rectify the situation. The slowing down to a halt option would not apply to planes for obvious reasons. The unit will stay in communication with other units in the area to prevent causing another situation of danger while correct an existing one.

(*** A more expensive unit for rich people ***) If the unit can't communicate with the object in it's way the unit will try to find a lesser expensive vehicle in the nearby area and instruct it to remove the object from the path of the the vehicle in danger.
-- thinck, Sep 21 2001

Self-Driving Car http://www.halfbake.../Self-Driving_20Car
Same basic thing. [jutta, Sep 21 2001]

WIBNI 'cummunication' breakdowns didn't exist
-- thumbwax, Sep 21 2001


This is a very vague description of stuff that's actually being worked on, but hard. A vehicle that sometimes takes over is about as difficult as a vehicle that simply drives itself, so this is basically the self-driving car.

I like the option for delegating obstacle removal, though. (Except for the apostrophe. Please remove that.)

Keywords to look for: blackboard architectures, agent-based, distributed air traffic control.
-- jutta, Sep 21 2001


PeterSealy, you're not the sharpest crayon in the box are you ?
-- thinck, Sep 29 2001



random, halfbakery