The first Google driverless car patent issued was for what we called the marshmallow bumper, a bumper that puffs to protect pedestrians. Now, a new patent, granted Google, shows how its self-driving cars will avoid herds of cows and situations in which the car is in a stuck position and can’t move according to the usual rules.
When the car is stuck, the car will call for help from a human and or more advanced computer wireless through the cloud.
If the car encounters something in its path and it can not figure out what it is, the car will slow down a timer will start. If the object is still there after a certain amount of time, the car will contact the assistance center to confer with a human or an expert system to figure out what do.
“Hello this is Google car #1879 I’m stuck on the road with objects in front me, what should I do?” asks the car.
The car sends the location and data from the car sensor. The service center may request video or images.
“Send me photos, Google car or video,” commands the assistance center.
The human or system will determine what it is and what the car should do.
“Holy Cow! You’ve run into a herd of cows, and their staying on the road. I hereby send you permission to go around the obstacle on the right shoulder,” the advisor responds.
Meanwhile, while the car is stuck and the passengers have not idea what is going, the passengers may “have a cow.”
The patent includes the interface for how the call for expert system network will work. The car may also be programmed to call for assistance from someone in the car who could be asleep or vomiting according to a new study or it could contact the another computer.
The system will then plot a course around the problem, even if the new path requires temporary rule breaking such going onto the shoulder, or moving into the left lane to avoid a double-parked car.
A traffic situation that could cause baffle the Google shelf driving car the massive traffic jams leaving a stadium game.
Google is not the only self-driving car player. Delphi completed a cross-country self-driving trip on highways only. Other self-driving car contenders are Tesla, Valeo’s Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan, Volvo, and the Mercedes F015 that made its stage debut as “Luxury in Motion” at CES in January.
The most wanted features of self-driving cars are “self-adjusting performance based on weather conditions,” and “self-parking to find a parking space”.