U.S. Government Agencies Creating Their Own Driverless Vehicles

NASA, yes the space agency, has released a video of its own autonomous vehicle. Like luggage, its wheels can move independently so that the car can go sideways. Cool feature, though the vehicle bears an uncanny resemblance to a golf cart. Not sure if this is how NASA plans to generate its own funding.

The U.S. Army is being much less ambitious in its driverless vehicle plans. The development of a tactical, fully autonomous vehicle, was announced yesterday as a 30-year project. The army will have a rudimentary vehicle ready in 10 years. Government agencies do not generally communicate with each other much, but perhaps a general at the army should just pick up a phone, call NASA, and figure out how to save decades of tax money to develop what NASA already has with its autonomous golf cart.

That golf cart, by the way, can go 43 miles an hour. That is certainly enough for rush hour and side streets. I don't know if a set of clubs comes with the vehicle.

Update: In other driverless news from the US government, the Department of Defense is funding research to prevent hacking into autonomous vehicles. That turns out to be somewhat easy and such anti-hacking technology would be applicable in drones and driverless vehicles. According to the article, This is a priority because autonomous technology, such as automatic breaking, is on the roads already.