What Next? Driverless Cars Get Taught Self-Defense

A little while ago I posted a discussion on the topic of driverless trucks getting robbed in more lawless areas or countries.

Incredibly, someone is already looking at this problem and taking the idea of ‘defensive driving’ a bit more literally than most – his name is David Mascarenas and he’s from the Los Alamos National Lab.

One of Mascarenas’s projects makes robots less predictable and reduces their vulnerability to ambush. If you know a driverless delivery truck always goes down the same deserted street at 6:14 am, you can get there first. Mascarenas addressed this using a technique known as info-gap decision theory. This allows the robot to weigh the risk of any particular route with the possible benefits. This would apply equally to a robot submarine looking at the best way to gather oceanography data while avoiding fishing nets, or a pizza-carrying droid finding the shortest way through city streets. Crucially, the process is unpredictable: The machine will not always take the same route twice, and would-be ambushers can’t anticipate where it will be.

He also designed robots to behave in such a way that makes them less vulnerable to being hijacked while moving. Follow the link to check it out.

Thanks Chris L for sending the article in.

Related posts:

1. Driverless Cars Making Life And Death Decisions