{"id":13208,"date":"2015-06-12T00:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T07:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=13208"},"modified":"2015-06-10T18:41:35","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T01:41:35","slug":"driverless-cars-one-step-closer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/06\/12\/driverless-cars-one-step-closer\/","title":{"rendered":"Driverless cars one step closer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prof. Zvi Shiller in the RAV Lab.\u00a0(photo from israel21c.org<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Within a few years, you may be traveling in a car with nobody at the wheel. Whether you call it an autonomous, driverless or self-driving vehicle, this automobile of the near future needs a host of complex components, some now under development at Israeli companies and academic laboratories.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will be able to go to, let\u2019s say, Paris or Tokyo, rent a car, swipe a card and tell it where you want it to go. You won\u2019t have to know the area or the traffic rules,\u201d explained Prof. Zvi Shiller, founder of the department of mechanical engineering and mechatronics at Ariel University and director of its Paslin Laboratory for Robotics and Autonomous Vehicles (RAV Lab).<\/p>\n

The biggest benefit will be fewer traffic accidents than we have today \u2013 which cause more than 30,000 casualties annually in the United States alone \u2013 by eliminating human error in driving. But that requires a very, very smart car.<\/p>\n

In the RAV Lab, Shiller and his students are developing algorithms that will automatically modulate speed and handling in response to constantly changing, unpredictable road conditions. Driverless cars will need this capability to meet future safety regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s driverless cars, introduced by leading car companies such as Ford, Volvo and even Google, can drive very well on a road that is smooth and flat. Our research is about driving over a surface with bumps, ruts and hills,\u201d said Shiller. \u201cThis is much more difficult because you can easily lose stability on that kind of terrain. If you\u2019re driving too fast over a bump, you may jump into the air. You have to know at which speed you can drive safely without losing contact with the ground. You may need off-road driving capabilities less than 10% of the time, but you can\u2019t trust a car that cannot handle those 10%.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current research continues Shiller\u2019s work at the University of California-Los Angeles Laboratory for Robotics and Automation, which he founded and headed for 14 years before joining Ariel University in 2001.<\/p>\n

At the RAV Lab, Shiller and his students have developed a small mobile robot that manoeuvres between obstacles at high speed, showing how the driverless car would handle itself.<\/p>\n

[vsw id=”pGgmBVxFsB8″ source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen a similar robot moving as fast,\u201d said Shiller. \u201cThis stems from our ability to compute the optimal velocity that exploits the robot\u2019s motion capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, the lab published their results from testing a simple version of this algorithm against one developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Shiller earned graduate degrees in mechanical engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur algorithm computes a collision-free path among 70 tightly spaced obstacles in half a millisecond, compared to 500 milliseconds (0.5 seconds) it took the algorithm from MIT,\u201d he reported. \u201cThat\u2019s 1,000 times faster!\u201d<\/p>\n

RAV Lab\u2019s technology could be one of a few systems for driverless cars to come out of Israel. The different systems address everything from motion planning to cyber-security.<\/p>\n

Among the companies working on self-driving car technologies is Jerusalem-based Mobileye, whose driver-assistance software is already built into approximately 3.3 million vehicles worldwide. Mobileye reportedly is collaborating with American electric car manufacturer Tesla on developing its driverless vehicle.<\/p>\n

Shiller said that one of the most difficult functions to automate is the 3-D mapping system to take the place of human perception in identifying and avoiding moving and stationary hazards in the car\u2019s vicinity.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearchers are still working on this,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce we map the region around the vehicle, we can use this information to do the next part, which is planning the vehicle\u2019s motion. That\u2019s where my research comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making life easier<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Over the years, Shiller\u2019s students have produced robots that climb stairs, clean windows, operate wheelchair lifts, dispense pills, push baby strollers uphill, turn pages and accomplish other everyday tasks. They\u2019ve built up a portfolio of almost 90 robotic products over the last 10 years to solve daily life problems in a futuristic way. \u201cSome of these are world firsts,\u201d said Shiller.<\/p>\n

[vsw id=”461BsHCuKLk” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]<\/p>\n

The RAV Lab\u2019s research has been supported by Israel\u2019s ministries of science, transportation and defence, the Israeli Space Agency, General Motors and the Paslin Foundation.<\/p>\n

As head of the Israeli Robotics Association (IROB), Shiller is optimistic that Israel can become a world leader in smart robotics.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite a few of the Israeli robotics companies are world leaders in their fields,\u201d he said, citing examples such as Robomow, the Dolphin swimming pool cleaner, the SpineAssist surgical device, Mobileye and the ReWalk exoskeleton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe research we do in Israel is state of the art,\u201d said Shiller. \u201cI believe that if we build upon the infrastructure developed over the last 25 years in the remarkable Israeli high-tech industry, we can become world leaders in robotics as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, visit ariel.ac.il\/sites\/shiller\/ravlab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel21C<\/strong> is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof. Zvi Shiller in the RAV Lab.\u00a0(photo from israel21c.org) Within a few years, you may be traveling in a car with nobody at the wheel. Whether you call it an autonomous, driverless or self-driving vehicle, this automobile of the near future needs a host of complex components, some now under development at Israeli companies and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[3934,3935,3608,3936,3937,3933],"class_list":["post-13208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-automotive","tag-driverless-cars","tag-high-tech","tag-rav-lab","tag-robotics","tag-zvi-shiller"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}