Google’s self-driving car will use road-based QR codes to get directions

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/109887-google-patent-self-driving-car

by vdondeti • 15 years ago

36 33 15 years ago

savramescu• 15 years ago

I guess Google learned from the patent war on smartphones and they'll be better prepared against the auto industry.

"In one scenario, it appears, a driver is looking for a parking space and drives over a giant QR code on a street or in a parking garage. The QR code might either have exact directions to a specific parking spot, or it might link to a parking garage database of which parking slots are open."

This strikes me as ripe for abuse.

patrickod• 15 years ago

Surely the technical part is no more open to abuse than normal parking signs in cities listing the amount of available spaces in certain car parks.

The QR codes would contain very little information I would imagine but rather a key that is used by the car as an argument for further operations. Leaving all the directional data on the road would be way too easy to abuse.

mike-cardwell4• 15 years ago

You're thinking too small.

"it might link to a parking garage database of which parking slots are open"

Imagine creating a QR code, (or copying one that already exists) which tells the car to fetch information from http://your.competitor.example.com/. Then imagine going out late at night and sticking it on a busy motorway.

DOS by traffic.

Also. You better hope that your car doesn't have any vulnerabilities that can be abused by a specially crafted QR code, or by fetching specially crafted data that a QR code prompts it to fetch.

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

>This strikes me as ripe for abuse.

Yeah. The obvious first idea is to sign the codes, but then when the private key gets stolen (100% certain to happen sooner or later,) you have to repaint every road.

buro92• 15 years ago

Why?

Could you not have the QR codes generated against a private key and the vehicle verify it against the public key to determine whether the instruction came from a trusted source?

Just because it's plain text data in a QR code doesn't mean that it's inherently ripe for abuse.

adaml_623• 15 years ago

The instruction might be from a trusted source but how do you guarantee that it is in the correct place.

How could people resist creating a loop of instructions...

damoncali• 15 years ago

It also wont work when it snows.

obtu• 15 years ago

This was discussed a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3355876

CosmicShadow• 15 years ago

Good thing it doesn't snow down there!

nkassis• 15 years ago

The pavement could be heated only where the QR code is located.

nitrogen3• 15 years ago

...thus creating a patch of ice around the QR code as the melted snow refreezes.

maeon3• 15 years ago

Can I tell the robot car to run over a pedestrian if he has an ak-47 pointed at me and he is on the curb? A self defense situational awareness algorithm that understands kill or be killed?

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

Can't they just use NFC?

rmccue• 15 years ago

As they mention in the patent (and the article too), it only says "reference indicator" in the patent, so this could be anything, including NFC.

DasIch• 15 years ago

This is a patent and not a detailed report on what they intend to use or are implementing.

Strategically speaking the optimal case is a patent to cover the process of sending directions to a car, including everything needed to request them, using any means.

Everyone who produces cars will have to implement some form of that at some point to stay relevant, which makes this a very valuable patent.

SoftwareMaven• 15 years ago

Sad that a patent could have so many ways to be implemented. Patents are supposed to be implementable. Google could hide a ton of trade secrets behind this patent.

alexhawdon2• 15 years ago

I suspect this is simply one of many self-driving car patents Google will file, but it's fun to speculate:

Technological hurdles aside, the catch-22 situation is that without much evidence the technology works there will never be public acceptance and legislation for it to be used on the roads. Perhaps Google plan to initially market the system as some sort of beefed-up parking assist - one where you leave your car at the entrance to a car park and collect it from there later. I'm not lawyer, but car parks != public roads, so different laws should apply.

Obviously, nobody would pay loads of extra cash just for that feature, but maybe Google would be willing to subsidise it in the hope that it gets them over the public-acceptance hurdle as people would start getting used to cars driving themselves around without incident and start to trust the technology. It would also build up thousands of hours of evidence of the safety of the system, which the legislators are going to want to see before they okay it for general driving.

Personally, I can't wait until self-driving cars are a reality. It's going to revolutionise transport. :)

JanezStupar• 15 years ago

Probably autopilots will be sold and marketed as glorified cruise control. To be used only with a driver behind the wheel. And then they will gradually get accepted to the scale that it will be silly not to have a full permit for autonomous vehicles.

alexhawdon2• 15 years ago

Possibly. Though they'd either have to build in something to monitor the driver or accept that they're just going to tune out and read the paper/go to sleep.

Could be a potential way to bring it to market that keeps the insurers happy though. Make the driver 'promise' to pay attention and should an accident happen and the driver didn't take over then the insurer doesn't pay.

jimbobimbo• 15 years ago

Cue in "drive-by buffer overrun".

Google’s self-driving car will use road-based QR codes to get directions

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