Get on the Botsi, public personal transit pt II

October 19, 2009 | Posted by Paul Wolborsky

The DARPA Urban Challenge was held on November 3, 2007, at the former George AFB in Victorville, Calif. Building on the success of the 2004 and 2005 Grand Challenges, this event required teams to build an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and negotiating intersections. This event was truly groundbreaking as the first time autonomous vehicles have interacted with both manned and unmanned vehicle traffic in an urban environment.

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp

The DARPA Urban Challenge was held on November 3, 2007, at the former George AFB in Victorville, Calif. Building on the success of the 2004 and 2005 Grand Challenges, this event required teams to build an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and negotiating intersections. This event was truly groundbreaking as the first time autonomous vehicles have interacted with both manned and unmanned vehicle traffic in an urban environment.
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp

Public Personal Transit using Robot vehicles can be a reality in as little as 10 years. Public acceptance, politics, insurance issues and the threat to the industries already involved in mass transit can take decades. Why should you care? You don’t ride the bus. And I do, but I’m just a blogger.

You should care. This is not mass transit. Public Personal Transit is for anybody, your elderly parents, grandparents, you, your kids, even your family. Electric, zero-emission vehicles can cut down on Greenhouse gases. Efficient vehicles cut down on power consumption. People housebound get to go out and do things.

Picture if you will…

It’s late. You’re miles from home. You don’t have your car. From your office you pull out your keychain. On the keychain is a slender device. You press a button and the display lights up, ‘Wookie, eta 10 minutes’. You go down the elevator and wait by the curbside near the door, in a lit place beneath a prominent video camera. In 10 minutes, you see what looks like a glowing yellow Twinkie trundling towards you. On the sign in front it says ‘Wookie’. It glides to a stop 2 feet from you. You wave your keychain device in front of the door. It chimes and the door opens and it kneels towards you. Inside it’s brightly lit, and there is a comfortable padded bench. Other models have recliner seats, but you selected this one on the website, as you did the name ‘wookie’.

You step in, and without a word it proceeds on. If this were your first time, a soft recorded voice would’ve given you instructions on how to proceed. There is an LCD screen on the end, flashing ads. But via voice command you can browse the internet, or select music to listen to as you move. In one corner, you see a map with a little triangle in it, it’s your vehicle showing its progress towards your home. It’s not fast. Acceleration is perky but not dramatic, braking more gradual. Since it’s point to point, speed doesn’t matter as much. Even in evasive maneuvers, acceleration is soft, the robot vehicles are smart, and quick to respond. But for the most part, it avoids trouble, even to the extent of pulling off to the side of the road.

If needed, you can say ‘help’, and an operator appears offering assistance. The operator is at the control center, and your communication is live and real-time. Occasionally, an operator might recognize you and pop on the screen just to say hi. Some people like to chat on their way home, you’re one of them. You chat.

The control center is not guiding your vehicle. There is no special line in the roadway. Your vehicle does the driving and the navigation, checking road-side cameras, traffic reports, even other botsis to determine the best route ahead. If a stoplight turns red, it stops. When it is green, it goes. If a 5 year old child runs out in front of it chasing a ball, it already saw the child coming and it slows down to a stop. If it crosses an intersection at night and sees a car coming from the right at 70 mph on a collision course, it accelerates out of the way. The drunken speeder drives by harmlessly through a red light, and will get a visit from Police the next day, because his transgression was video’d in high-definition by one of the many cameras on your vehicle, which also catches his license plate and emails a report to the local police and Highway Patrol.

If there were an accident, airbags would inflate all around. But it’s tough carbon-fiber shell can absorb a lot of damage, and the vehicle is light enough that it will bounce from a collision. It is designed to sacrifice itself for the safety of the passenger. If you are a criminal, you do not want to commit a crime near a Botsi, because it’s wired up for sound, visible light, infrared, even radar, all the sensors it needs just to navigate roads safely.

But there are no crimes or accidents tonight. Your vehicle safely navigates potholes and detours. Plays nicely with other vehicles, even the 1980 Camaro that still has an 8-track player. And delivers you as close to your door as possible. It stops, chimes, kneels. The door opens and it wishes you a safe evening. No payment this time, you’re on the monthly ride all you want plan.

When you’re home, the vehicle checks its batteries. It has adequate power, so instead of the recharging site, it goes to a nearby shopping mall, finds a parking spot the Mall rents to the Transit Authority, and next to its siblings, turns itself off and waits for the next call. Criminals beware here too, because they’re still watching, and listening.

Meanwhile, it’s a slow night at the Control Center. Since the Botsis do most of the work themselves, a handful of operators just monitor the incoming video, audio, text messages, transported via wifi using internet standards of the day. The Operator’s cellphone goes off, it’s another Botsi transporting his teenage daughter and friends from a concert – he’s tempted, but doesn’t listen in. He knows they’re safe and having a good time, and the manifest shows there are no boys in the vehicle, just as he requested when he set up an account for her. A monitor comes alive, and he sees his elderly mother’s face on the screen. He draws it up on the screen, ‘Hi Mom, how did the test go?’. She’s coming home from night classes. She’s in a wheelchair, but wouldn’t even think of staying home.

And all across the community, Botsi’s trundle on.

Part I - http://ajaxofalltrades.com/sustain/uncategorized/get-on-the-bot…l-transit-pt-i/

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