REAL LIFE NEWS: DRIVERLESS CARS HAVE A PROBLEM WITH BIKES
by Hazed
Riding a bicycle through city traffic is hazardous enough at the moment, with human error causing many accidents and even deaths. But as driverless cars start to take to the roads, they could cause another threat to the poor cyclist, because it turns out that they have a real problem recognising bikes.
The problem is that bikes are relatively small, and they move rapidly. Unlike a car, which is a big block of metal, a bicycle has much less mass. Their appearance can also vary what with the variety of things riders can attach to them.
So for years, the detection rate for cars has outstripped bicycles. That’s because the systems train themselves by studying thousands of images in which known objects are labelled, and so far that training has concentrated on images containing cars.
Still, things are getting better, with many of the developers of the awareness systems used by driverless cars coming up with technology to stop the cars from running into cyclists – as well as being used to aid human drivers of large trucks or busses from running them over!
But meanwhile, if you think driverless cars are being tested in your city, then be extra vigilant if you ride a bike.
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/self-driving/selfdriving-cars-have-a-bicycle-problem
