Auto engineers are leaving you with fewer and fewer excuses for hitting things with your car. Radars, cameras, and cross sensor fusion of the two work to make sure you never collide with anything in the first place. So where does GM engineer Jim Nickolaou go to test his driver assistance systems?
In a story for Wired, Nickolaou shares the logistics as to why the historic bridge is ideally suited for this particular test, other the fact that it’s really, really cool looking.
The Brooklyn Bridge epitomizes the challenges of radar energy bouncing off of the metal girders. There are also a lot of right angles on the girders and it tends to propagate the radio emissions from the radar back in with some information that might not be accurate. And the overhead girders throw shadows for the cameras. So there are a lot of challenges from that one bridge.
So if you’re ever stuck in traffic there, know that you could be in the middle of a giant science experiment. The human race needs you to be there, for cameras and radars to scan. Or at least these GM guys do.
(Photo: dremmetbrown/flickr)
