My guess is that the basic systems (keep the car from going off-road or colliding, letting people takeover, etc) will run on an real-time barebones OS on a embedded system and will have a very simple and well defined interface to a full machine that runs all the crap like the UI, navigation systems and such.
I wouldn't discount having your car stolen remotely, but hijacking with humans inside is unlikely to work, and so is crashing into things.
These aren't "dumb" cars. For example, Google's have a high fidelity laser range finder that builds dense 360 point clouds 15 times second. If the car is given a bad map which sends it into a build or other cars, the collision avoidance system will recognize that fact before an accident occurs and stop the vehicle.
It's a lot more complicated than that. The car can't always stop when the map disagrees with the sensor. There are any number of situations where that's a bad idea.
If a cars sensor says there is a wall in front of the car and it goes with the map then some coder some where made a mistake. If the car sensor says there is a cliff in front of the car and it goes with the map some coder some where made a mistake.
replace wall and cliff with obstacle/dangerous environment of your choice and the sentence will always end with some coder some where made a mistake. It's really is as simple as that. sensor wins over map when it comes to avoiding a crash. What possible condition can you come up with that would make it desirable for a car to ignore it's sensors and go with what a map says is supposed to be in front of it?
If the car stops every time the map differs from the sensors, then I just give you a nonsensical map and you go nowhere. Or if the map is outdated, which will of course happen.
If sensors say the road turns and you go with the sensors, what happens to the navigation? Eventually they become irreconcilable. The car will completely lose track of where it actually is, having only local (and perhaps some limited amount of historical) sensor data.
The scenarios aren't just limited to "STOP or CRASH", there's a lot of subtle ways things can go wrong.
>If the car stops every time the map differs from the sensors, then I just give you a nonsensical map and you go nowhere.
..Yeah, as opposed to driving nonsensically? I think I'll take the car that defaults to whatever won't kill everyone around me.
>Or if the map is outdated, which will of course happen.
Assuming the cars download new maps on a regular basis, I'd consider this situation pretty unlikely on any official road or highway (unless we are to accept that in certain locations every car will consistently stop driving).
However, if this situation were to occur, option one: sync with the latest map data; failing that (network issues, etc.), option two: pull to the side of the road, stop, and enter manual mode.
>If sensors say the road turns and you go with the sensors, what happens to the navigation? Eventually they become irreconcilable. The car will completely lose track of where it actually is, having only local (and perhaps some limited amount of historical) sensor data.
What do you mean by this? Google Maps and most GPS navigation systems recalculate routes perfectly fine.
What if someone games the sensor? There are some pretty heinous examples or road rage out there - everything from attacking people's cars with a nine-iron to throwing their poodles into traffic at a stoplight. What happens to that point cloud if someone throws a bunch of silver ball bearings out their window in front of you? What if they aim a laser pointer at the receiver? What's to stop someone from developing a universal remote that you can point at any car to make it think there's a wall 3 feet in front of it? And how do you design a countermeasure against that and still ensure that the car does stop if there is a wall?
* Being possible is not the same as being easy or likely. For example, what if the system only accepts maps digitally signed by the company? You know have to either get the signing cert from the company or break digital cryptography.
* If there's a person inside, the can still take over and drive it themselves or tell it to park and ask for technical support.
I wouldn't discount having your car stolen remotely, but hijacking with humans inside is unlikely to work, and so is crashing into things.