ABSTRACT

A navigation system that treats a collision with every obstacle as equally bad is implicitly assuming no difference between humans and objects. The navigation system casts around 400 possible paths from its current position, and then detects which ones are likely to result in collisions, based on the predicted paths of objects in the environment. The wheelchair then integrates map of the terrain of collision-free paths with its map of the most efficient paths to reach its goal, and updates its movements from the original route to this new route. A utilitarian vehicle will steer towards free space and come to a complete stop to avoid most collisions, just like a Contractarian vehicle. A driverless vehicle system will need to have components like a human mind: faculties of perception, memory, planning, and motion execution. Moving vehicles will have larger cones of uncertainty compared to pedestrians, and vehicles at higher speeds will have larger cones than ones at lower speeds.