Augmented Reality Driver’s Training In a Self Driving Car Simulator on Real Roads

Training young drivers isn’t so easy, and it’s enough to have you pulling your hair out, well unless you have a death wish and love to live on the edge for just the adrenal rush. One of the best ways to train drivers, other than driving around in one of those dual steering wheeled vehicles with an extra brake pedal, is to use a simulator, virtual reality style, albeit a cruder version than let’s say an aircraft simulator.

But what if we could use augmented reality to teach driver’s education, perhaps using a robotic driving indestructor, Freudian Slip, I meant to say “instructor” and before you say I am crazy, let me give you some component information as to my plan here, as there is a bit of method to my madness, I think?

Now then, Joseph B. White wrote an interesting article on April 26, 2012 in the Wall Street Journal, perhaps you noted the piece yourself; “Google Seeks Partners for Its Autos,” which stated that Google was in contact with all of the major car companies to see if it might license some of its latest self-driving car technologies or partner up with them, a wise choice indeed from my perspective.

Well, how about self-driving cars for driver’s training, the car would drive and the student would steer and the car would measure how close the steering, braking, and acceleration controls were applied by the student, against the actual safe driving of the self-driving system, as the controls wouldn’t be hooked up but would nevertheless be the ultimate in augmented reality simulation you see? Of course as you know all of the results from the student’s performance could be stored in Google’s new cloud offering; Drive! Maybe that’s why they are calling it drive, it’s a test-drive for something bigger?

Eventually, as enough video footage and data was taken, we could make driving simulators so realistic it would actually blow away the jet-fighter simulators in realness. Plus, no one could get hurt, and no driving instructors would have heart problems of nervous breakdowns.

The robotic system would record everything and give the student a pass or fail, or a list of areas of (much) needed improvement, or things to study up on for the future? And if we did this, we could also use the same system and strategy for truck drivers, until all the trucks drive themselves of course, and for student pilot training also. Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.