Tag Archive for: SelfDriving

$60 device spoofs phantom objects and tricks self-driving cars into stopping

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A security researcher used a homemade $ 60 system to outsmart self-driving car lidar sensors that cost thousands; he was able to trick an autonomous vehicle into slowing down and even launched a denial of service attack on a self-driving car’s tracking system so that it came to a complete stop.

Lidar, a remote sensing technology, is most commonly known as the circular “eye” mounted on the roof of most self-driving cars; it acts somewhat like radar as the lasers spin around to scan the area and detect objects. Lidar devices come in various sizes and prices. The lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) market is estimated to be a one billion market by 2020; it’s not used exclusively for driverless cars as seen in recent news about autonomous golf carts and surveying drones. Yet Jonathan Petit, a principal scientist at Security Innovation, believes lidar sensors are “the most susceptible technologies” in self-driving vehicles.

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Network World Security

Study: Self-driving cars will make a lot of people sick

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A recent study conducted by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute predicts that passengers in self-driving cars will be more likely to experience motion sickness than in traditional automobiles.

Specifically, the study estimates that anywhere between 6% and 10% of passengers would experience some level of motion sickness “often, usually, or always,” while as many as 12% would feel moderate or severe motion sickness “at some time.”

The researchers looked at the factors that contribute to motion sickness – “conflict between vestibular and visual inputs, inability to anticipate the direction of motion, and lack of control over the direction of motion” – and estimated how much more likely passengers would be to experience them while traveling in self-driving cars. They concluded that these factors “are elevated in self-driving vehicles.”

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Network World Colin Neagle

Google built its own self-driving car

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In May, Google released a teaser image showing a mock-up of the autonomous vehicle it planned to build. Today, the company followed up with an image showing the finished product, which looks just as silly as the original mockup.

Google’s previous autonomous car was a modified Toyota Prius, which used a combination of cameras, sensors, and software to drive itself around California. The modified Prius was very successful, reportedly driving more than 700,000 miles with minimal issues.

Google says the first edition of its self-made self-driving car will feature “temporary manual controls as needed while we continue to test and learn.” When Google introduced its prototype back in May, the company claimed its self-driving cars “won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pad, or brake pedal…because they don’t need them.” Apparently, it still has yet to reach that point.

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Network World Colin Neagle

World-Changing Awesome Aside, How Will The Self-Driving Google Car Make Money? (MG Siegler/TechCrunch)

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MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
World-Changing Awesome Aside, How Will The Self-Driving Google Car Make Money?  —  Google made a stunning revelation this morning: the existence of a secret self-driving car project.  Even more amazing: it has been in testing for months, on actual roads across California, and things seem to be running smoothly.

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