GM Developing WiFi Direct-based Pedestrian Detection

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sacre

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Jee, someone really wants to screw up the system, all they have to do is throw a tiny WIFI device into a highway and laugh as all the cars stop, swerve, etc.
 
[citation][nom]sacre[/nom]Jee, someone really wants to screw up the system, all they have to do is throw a tiny WIFI device into a highway and laugh as all the cars stop, swerve, etc.[/citation]
Wi-FI Jammer :)

I am guessing they will not use the same frequencies as other devices(if they are smart).
 

f-14

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i actually like this idea despite it's some what flawed system, now if they could just figure out a way to prevent drunks from driving i'd give them a medal and a cookie.
 

teh_chem

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There are a lot of established methods of obstacle-detection. Don't see why they'd want to use wifi. Unless it's relaying secondary info like GPS coordinates from a pedestrian, I don't see how wifi signal could be nearly precise enough to be beneficial in this application.
 
[citation][nom]teh_chem[/nom]There are a lot of established methods of obstacle-detection. Don't see why they'd want to use wifi. Unless it's relaying secondary info like GPS coordinates from a pedestrian, I don't see how wifi signal could be nearly precise enough to be beneficial in this application.[/citation]
+1.
Methods already in existence include use of radar, ultrasound, lasers, even cameras for shape detection (to tell a human obstacle, for instance) would be more accurate than this.
Another bullshit actually meant as an excuse to control one's hardware. Really, if my WiFi is off (which will be, because I'm on a street and I see no reason to keep it on), this method would fail, unless there will be a backdoor created in the device that allows them to turn the WiFi back on without the user's knowledge.
[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]i actually like this idea despite it's some what flawed system, now if they could just figure out a way to prevent drunks from driving i'd give them a medal and a cookie.[/citation]
Agreed with the drunk drivers idea; how come they can't figure that one out, yet they come up with this kind of bull?
 

geeksinhere23

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is good to know that more and more technology approaching and improving for driving safety. I truly hope it will be totally virus free. I don't want this new feature stop me from just making a parallel side parking,
 

bobusboy

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Carrying my cellphone and being able to be monitored and tracked (if the government desires) is bad enough. Having an actively transmitting device for the sole purpose of locating me in relation to other people and vehicles is just looking for abuse. Whether It's advertising/marketing, invasive monitoring or fraud (because criminals would find a way to exploit it) I'm not in favour of this idea.
 

AndrewMD

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There are a lot of short minded comments about this technology that GM is creating. However, many of today's safety technologies come from companies like GM, Toyota, MB, and others. While everyone thinks they are competing against each other for everything, the automotive industry in a whole works together and collaborates on a number of safety technologies we have today and for tomorrow.

@John_4 - You don't have to buy a GM car, just know that whatever car you do drive has parts made by GM, Ford, and just about every other manufacture out there.

@sacre - While you might think that is funny, GM and the other companies involved in this technology have enough smarts to understand rouge devices. If not, just hope your not dumb enough to throw one of these devices into traffic, if you do, I hope they charge you with heavy crime, especially if someone gets hurt.

@oj88 - Most likely this will be a combination of multiple systems to work together with sensors and cameras.

@bobbusboy - at this time, technology is getting more consolidated and expensive so companies will eventually sell your access to other companies to recoup.

 

GhosT94

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[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]i actually like this idea despite it's some what flawed system, now if they could just figure out a way to prevent drunks from driving i'd give them a medal and a cookie.[/citation]
Google auto pilot cars when it exists on a large scale is the only solution so far
 

teh_chem

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[citation][nom]AndrewMD[/nom]There are a lot of short minded comments about this technology that GM is creating. However, many of today's safety technologies come from companies like GM, Toyota, MB, and others. While everyone thinks they are competing against each other for everything, the automotive industry in a whole works together and collaborates on a number of safety technologies we have today and for tomorrow. @John_4 - You don't have to buy a GM car, just know that whatever car you do drive has parts made by GM, Ford, and just about every other manufacture out there.@sacre - While you might think that is funny, GM and the other companies involved in this technology have enough smarts to understand rouge devices. If not, just hope your not dumb enough to throw one of these devices into traffic, if you do, I hope they charge you with heavy crime, especially if someone gets hurt.@oj88 - Most likely this will be a combination of multiple systems to work together with sensors and cameras. @bobbusboy - at this time, technology is getting more consolidated and expensive so companies will eventually sell your access to other companies to recoup.[/citation]
They might be short-minded comments, but it doesn't change the fact that we have so many options for obstacle detection. Why reinvent the wheel if you're actually concerned about implementing pedestrian-detection when there are a variety of ready-to-use technologies?
 

_Cosmin_

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[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]i actually like this idea despite it's some what flawed system, now if they could just figure out a way to prevent drunks from driving i'd give them a medal and a cookie.[/citation]

How about installing a alcohol detector in stering wheel and preventing the automobile to start? It is easy to find solutions when you really want (now ask yourself why they don`t want to)!
 

razor512

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hmm so ford is saying that we can capture the signal then replay it endlessly through a yagi antenna in order to annoy people driving form and GM cars.

I can see this being abused rather quickly.
 

joebob2000

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[citation][nom]teh_chem[/nom]There are a lot of established methods of obstacle-detection. Don't see why they'd want to use wifi. Unless it's relaying secondary info like GPS coordinates from a pedestrian, I don't see how wifi signal could be nearly precise enough to be beneficial in this application.[/citation]

It's pretty simple really, you can do distance measurement with a rather good accuracy. What use is that? If the distance measurement delta (aka speed) is compared to the speed of the vehicle, then the difference is the tangent of the angle that the transmitter lies on respective to the vector of the vehicle. All you really care about is how far off course the transmitter is from the current vector, so that information is easy to obtain from just a series of distance measurements.

And i only took basic college math class. Imagine what a real smart person could do.

In simpler words, if your radio communicates with one on a pedestrian and it's distance to you is decreasing very rapidly, odds are good that you are going to hit them unless corrective action is taken.
 

teh_chem

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[citation][nom]joebob2000[/nom]It's pretty simple really, you can do distance measurement with a rather good accuracy. What use is that? If the distance measurement delta (aka speed) is compared to the speed of the vehicle, then the difference is the tangent of the angle that the transmitter lies on respective to the vector of the vehicle. All you really care about is how far off course the transmitter is from the current vector, so that information is easy to obtain from just a series of distance measurements.And i only took basic college math class. Imagine what a real smart person could do.In simpler words, if your radio communicates with one on a pedestrian and it's distance to you is decreasing very rapidly, odds are good that you are going to hit them unless corrective action is taken.[/citation]

How do you extract position info from something via a wifi signal from entirely different devices? By measuring signal strength? That's the only thing I can think of, and that doesn't work because all devices have different antenna strengths. So if something picks up my antenna's signal strength as, say, 50dB, does that mean I'm just as close as another antenna that is also reading 50dB? No. So there's no way to know with any precision without the wifi signal relaying secondary info (like communicating GPS info). This also assumes that everyone will carry (and enable) wifi-direct devices to be effective on all pedestrians--including young children that probably can't even use such a device? This is a retarded situation to even entertain when cars already have object-detection systems integrated (radar, lidar, visual-recognition). But of course, those don't generate interest from buzz-technologies...
 

lamorpa

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Maybe GM could instead put a few dollars into building modern engine manufacturing facilities instead of producing designs right out of 1960 that have the worst power-to-weight ratio on-average for any automobile manufacturer on the Earth!
 

gm0n3y

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If every car in the future has wifi I can see the airwaves getting pretty congested. We should really try to avoid unnecessary signal bloat like this.
 
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