Drive.AI is a Silicon Valley start-up that is working on Artificial Intelligence to make Self-Driving Cars more Pedestrian Friendly.
Self-driving cars may be in their initial development stage, but there is no lack of ideas that are coming to make the rider’s experience much better. While most of the innovators and startups are engaged in making the experience for the rider better, there aren’t many who think about the people around the self-driven car.
Drive.AI Looks to Make Autonomous Cars more Human
Drive.AI is one such startup based in California that has worked in this regard. The company is a Silicon Valley start-up founded by former lab mates out of Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. The tech start-ps’ focus is on creating deep learning software for the growing autonomous vehicle market.
In today’s conventional cars, there is a human driver sitting inside the car to communicate with the pedestrians or other drivers. This can be by way of expressions, hand gestures and nods.
But what about the self-driven cars? The car is being controlled by a computer and its interaction with humans is yet to be fully discerned. Pedestrians might not know if it would be safe to cross the road while the car is waiting at the signal, for example.
Even the person sitting on the front seat wouldn’t be controlling the car, they may even not be paying attention to the road. It would require a leap of faith over a period of decades for people to start trusting this futuristic technology.
Every person behaves differently around self-driving cars. And not everyone can so easily accept a new technology just getting into their normal routine lives. In the near future, the conflict between autonomous cars and humans could remain dangerous.
Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning
Carol Reiley, co-founder of Drive.AI, and her team have come up with a very innovative idea to bring a human-like-feel to the already smart self-driven cars. As a simple answer to the question – “How do you get self-driving cars on the road to interact with people?” The concept was to add an audio-visual medium to convey what the car exactly wants to do. An LED display on top of the vehicle and maybe a speaker system will also be used to replicate human gestures.
For a car being able to self-drive, it requires a 360-degree camera, a deep learning AI engine and a Lidar for a perfect drive. Reiley’s team wants to add a few of her gizmos to make the car even smarter. Drive.AI is yet to decide the most effective signs and messages. These would help pedestrians and other car drivers determine the self-driven car’s intentions.
The LED panel can show emojis, for instance, or show some gestures like a thumbs-up, a nod or maybe an indication to show that the car is seeing the pedestrian crossing the road so that they feel safe. Reiley also mentions about the horn, which is hard to discriminate if the driver is honking politely or indicating something else.
With their new innovation, Drive.AI is trying to change future cars. The team wants to make horns more directional so that it can be directed towards the one person the driver or the car wants to indicate.
Amid all the rush among carmakers to come up with a working self-driving car that is ready for commercial use, Drive.AI’s approach seems to give them an edge over others. Their technology will definitely improve as they reach closer to the final implementation on future self-driven cars.
