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The Closing Day keynote was given by Sebastian Kurn a professor at the University of Stanford. His main subject was Robotics and the keynote was interesting. He postulated what if a world could happen with half the cars, half the accidents and half the freeway congestion that it has today? The future is on artificially intelligent robot cars.
He used the DARPA Grand Challenge autonomous car race as an example of how an idea can become reality if the impetus was right. The first race held in 2004 had disastrous results with the furthest driving automatic car going 7 out of 150 miles. The second race held in 2005 had much better results with Professor Kurn’s car winning.
The problem with using these cars on a course of road was there were no obstacles in the race. Obviously there is a huge difference between a car going down a road with turns and through tunnels and winding its way through a complex urban environment with cars and other obstacles in the way. The 2007 Urban Challenge required designers to build vehicles to obey all traffic laws while they detect vehicles and other objects on the course.
The point of the keynote was it is not that far from that point where robot cars can drive down a road using sensors and GPS to pinpoint their location to avoid objects. The idea of a robot car that you could call to pick you up as needed means that there would be less congestion on the road as cars would be used on a need basis not parked in someone’s garage 80% of the time. Further, cars can be made more precise, meaning they can drive closer together saving gas due to drag. At the end of the day technology is evolving more and more every day and graphics technology is a driving force behind it.
