Lifeboat Foundation

Managing road intersections in crowded and dynamic environments, such as urban areas, can be highly challenging. The poor management of traffic at these can lead to road accidents, wastage of fuel, and environmental pollution.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have recently developed GAMEOPT, a new algorithm that could help manage unsignalized road intersections with high traffic more efficiently. The research team with members, Nilesh Suriyarachchi, Rohan Chandra, John S. Baras and Dinesh Manocha introduced their method in a recent paper to be published in the proceedings of the 25th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (IEEE ITSC 2022). This method combines optimization techniques with ideas from game theory, a mathematical construct that represents situations in which different agents are competing with one another.

“Forty percent of all crashes, 50% of serious collisions, and 20% of fatalities occur at unsignalized intersections,” Chandra, a member of the research team, told TechXplore. “Our primary objective is to improve traffic flow and fuel efficiency in poorly regulated or unregulated traffic intersections. To achieve this objective, we propose an algorithm that combines ideas from optimization and game theory to understand how different traffic agents cooperate and negotiate with each other at traffic intersections.”

MIT researchers unveil the first open-source simulation engine capable of constructing realistic environments for deployable training and testing of autonomous vehicles. Since they’ve proven to be productive test beds for safely trying out dangerous driving scenarios, hyper-realistic virtual worlds have been heralded as the best driving schools for autonomous vehicles (AVs). Tesla, Waymo, and other self-driving companies all rely heavily on data to enable expensive and proprietary photorealistic simulators, because testing and gathering nuanced I-almost-crashed data usually isn’t the easiest or most desirable to recreate.

Trains that run on hydrogen.

Re-sharing.

(CNN) — The future of environmentally friendly travel might just be here — and it’s Germany that’s leading the charge, with the first ever rail line to be entirely run on hydrogen-powered trains, starting from Wednesday.

Continue reading “The world’s first hydrogen-powered passenger trains are here” »

When California announces anything to do with automobiles we tend to sit up and take notice.

New policy along with the federal Inflation Reduction Act should accelerate the production and adoption of EVs in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Underwater robots are being widely used as tools in a variety of marine tasks. The RobDact is one such bionic underwater vehicle, inspired by a fish called Dactylopteridae known for its enlarged pectoral fins. A research team has combined computational fluid dynamics and a force measurement experiment to study the RobDact, creating an accurate hydrodynamic model of the RobDact that allows them to better control the vehicle.

The team published their findings in Cyborg and Bionic Systems on May 31, 2022.

Underwater robots are now used for many marine tasks, including in the fishery industry, underwater exploration, and mapping. Most of the traditional underwater robots are driven by a propeller, which is effective for cruising in open waters at a stable speed. However, underwater robots often need to be able to move or hover at low speeds in turbulent waters, while performing a specific task. It is difficult for the propeller to move the robot in these conditions. Another factor when an underwater robot is moving at low speeds in unstable flowing waters is the propeller’s “twitching” movement. This twitching generates unpredictable fluid pulses that reduce the robot’s efficiency.

The software that runs John Deere tractors was successfully “jailbroken” at this year’s DEF CON hacker convention, enabling farmers to repair or retune their equipment without engaging with the company that sold them their vehicles.

The hacker involved, who calls himself Sick Codes, was responding directly to U.S. farmers’ long-standing concerns that their “smart” tractors are run on software that only John Deere can access to repair. Smart tractors, including those manufactured by John Deere, are also widely used in the U.K.

Continue reading “‘Liberate the tractors’: The right to repair movement that’s regaining control of our devices” »

A Tesla Model 3 owner has implanted a chip in his hand that unlocks his car. The chip also has a wide array of other functions.

Acoustic location was used from mid-WW1 to the early years of WW2 for the passive detection of aircraft by picking up the noise of the engines.

Passive acoustic location involves the detection of sound or vibration created by the object being detected, which is then analyzed to determine the location of the object in question.

“Imagine how techology we see as innovative today will look to people in the future”

A Tesla driver can now unlock his car without using his smartphone. Thanks to a chip implanted in his hand, he will never lose his keys again.