无人驾驶汽车的未来不再遥远

JERUSALEM — Last month, on a freeway from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, I sat in the drivers seat of an Audi A7 while software connected to a video camera on the windshield drove the car at speeds up to 65 miles an hour — making a singular statement about the rapid progress in the development of self-driving cars.耶路撒冷——上月，在从耶路撒冷到死海的高速路上，我躺在一辆奥迪(Audi)A7的驾驶座上，而与装有在挡风玻璃上的摄像头连接的软件，则在驾驶员这辆汽车以每小时65英里（约合104.6公里）的速度行进，表明着自动驾驶汽车发展的神速。While the widely publicized Google car and other autonomous vehicles are festooned with cameras, radar and the laser range finders called lidars, this one is distinctive because of the simplicity and the relatively low cost of its system — just a few hundred dollars worth of materials. The idea is to get the best out of camera-only autonomous driving, said Gaby Hayon, senior vice president for research and development at Mobileye Vision Technologies, the Israeli company that created the system in the Audi.受到普遍宣传的谷歌(Google)汽车和其他自动驾驶汽车装进了摄像头、雷达和被称作“激光雷达”(lidar)的激光测距仪，而这部汽车的独到之处却在于简练，以及成本比较较低的系统，材料只需几百美元。

为奥迪研制这套系统的以色列移动眼视觉技术公司(Mobileye Vision Technologies)负责管理研发的高级副总裁特比·阿永 (Gaby Hayon)称之为，“我们的点子是充份研发要用摄像头的自动驾驶系统。”The Mobileye car does not offer the autonomy achieved by Googles engineers. The Google car, which has been tested for more than 300,000 miles in California traffic, will merge onto freeways, drive safely through intersections, make left and right turns, and pass slower vehicles.用于移动眼的汽车不具备谷歌工程师所构建的那种自动化程度。

谷歌汽车曾在加利福尼亚展开过30万英里的驾驶员测试，它将不会经常出现在高速公路上，在交叉路口安全性行经，能左右弯道，还能多达速度稍慢的汽车。By contrast, the Mobileye vehicle is capable only of driving in a single lane at freeway speeds, as well as identifying traffic lights and automatically slowing, stopping and then returning to highway speeds.忽略，移动眼汽车不能以高速在一条车道上行经，可以辨识红绿灯，并自动滑行、行驶，之后再继续以高速行驶。But by blending advanced computer vision techniques with low-cost video cameras, the company is demonstrating how quickly autonomous driving can be commercialized. You cannot have a car with $70,000 of equipment, said Amnon Shashua, a computer scientist at Hebrew University and a founder of Mobileye, referring to Googles lidar system, and imagine that it will go into mass production.然而，通过将先进设备的计算机视觉技术与低成本的摄像头配上用于，这家公司向人们展出了，自动驾驶的商业化可以多么慢地构建。

希伯来大学(Hebrew University)计算机科学家，移动眼公司创始人阿姆农·沙舒瓦(Amnon Shashua)评价谷歌的激光雷达系统说道，“要是一辆汽车配备的设备价值高达7万美元，你是没有办法设想让它大规模生产的。”Elon Musk, the automobile and spaceship entrepreneur, recently made headlines by saying much the same thing. Mr. Musk said he was interested in designing self-driving versions of his Tesla automobiles, possibly in partnership with Google, but in an interview with Bloomberg Mr. Musk said lidars were too expensive to be used in production cars. Like Google, Mobileye is not an automobile company, but rather a technology firm that is intensely focused on developing the next generation of artificial intelligence software.汽车和宇宙飞船行业的企业家埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)最近因公开发表大致相同的观点而上了新闻。

马斯克称之为，他很有兴趣为为自己的Tesla汽车设计自动驾驶的版本，可能会与谷歌合作，但在拒绝接受彭博社(Bloomberg)专访时，他回应激光雷达成本太高，呼吸困难用作汽车生产。与谷歌一样，移动眼也不是一家汽车公司，而是主要研发下一代人工智能软件的技术公司。

The company was founded in the 1990s, after developers persuaded General Motors to buy an inexpensive camera that could detect vehicles in adjacent lanes.20世纪90年代，开发人员在劝说通用汽车(General Motors)出售一种可以观测到邻接车道上的汽车的廉价摄像头之后，正式成立了这家公司。Mobileye has recently begun offering the third generation of its technology, which companies like Volvo have promoted for its ability to detect pedestrians and cyclists. Nissan also recently gave a hint of things to come with a demonstration of a car that could automatically swerve to avoid a pedestrian who walked out from behind a parked car. The system was based on Mobileye technology.最近移动眼公司开始获取第三代技术，由于需要观测行人和骑自行车的人，这项技术获得了像沃尔沃(Volvo)这样的公司的推展。日产(Nissan)最近展出的一款汽车，可以自动弯道避免从停着的汽车背后走进的行人，其系统的基础就是移动眼技术。这款车有可能似乎了未来的某种方向。

As soon as this summer, the first limited systems offering a feature known as traffic jam assist will begin arriving from more than five major automobile makers. Those cars will drive safely in stop-and-go traffic, but will require that drivers keep their hands on the steering wheel.今年夏天，首批不具备受限功能，获取“交通堵塞助手”服务的系统就不会组装到五家以上大型汽车制造商生产的汽车上。这些车可以在走走停停的路况中安全性行经，但司机还是必须夹住仍然放到方向盘上。But more advanced systems will be introduced as early as 2016, according to Mobileye, and it was that advanced capability I experienced last month, during my foray in freeway traffic.不过，移动眼透漏，更加先进设备的系统最先将于2016年发售，它正是我上个月在高速路上飙车族时，体验的那套功能先进设备的系统。

With two Mobileye engineers, Dr. Hayon and Eyal Bagon, we drove several miles east of Jerusalem, where Mobileye is located, and then pulled off at a nondescript turnout where another Mobileye employee waited in a shiny white Audi A7.在两名移动眼工程师阿永博士和埃亚纳·巴贡(Eyal Bagon)博士会见下，我们在耶路撒冷以东进了几英里路，那里是移动眼公司的所在地，之后在一个没什么特征的关城停车了车，另一名移动眼的员工躺在一辆闪闪发亮的白色奥迪A7里等我们。On the way out of town, the two men were apologetic. This was a work in progress, they told me.在出镇的路上，两名男士充满著歉意，他们对我说道，这是一套还在研发的系统。

I was already feeling a little let down. In California in 2010, I had been the first reporter to drive in the Google car, a Toyota Prius fitted with sensors that created a remarkably detailed map of the world around the car. Moreover, it was connected wirelessly to the Internet, giving it access to a vast cloud-based set of data that could be matched to what the local sensors were seeing.我早已深感有点儿沮丧了。我曾是2010年在加利福尼亚驾驶员谷歌自动驾驶汽车的第一个记者，那是一辆丰田普锐斯(Toyota Prius)，上面布满感应器，它们针对车周围的世界，建构出有一幅精细得难以置信的地图。

不仅如此，它还能无线网际网路，这让它能取得以云计算为基础的大量数据，这些数据需要与现场感应器正在捕猎的图像一一与众不同。It was a tour de force. The car merged seamlessly with traffic on Highway 101 and then turned off the freeway to automatically drive through downtown Mountain View, Calif., where Google has its headquarters. It was taken out of automatic pilot just twice — while passing a cyclist and then again to back into a parking space. The Google engineers did not want to chance a mishap with a reporter on board.那是一件杰作。车天衣无缝地带入了101号高速路的车流，而后从高速上下来，自动驾驶着穿越加州山景市区，即谷歌公司总部所在地。车子解散自动驾驶模式的情况只再次发生了两次，一次是跨过一个骑马自行车的人，另一次是方向灯转入停车位。

鉴于有一名记者在车上，谷歌工程师想冒再次发生事故的风险。There was no such caution last month with the Mobileye engineers.上个月，移动眼公司的工程师就没有这么小心翼翼。Why dont you drive? Dr. Bagon suggested as he slid into the passenger seat behind a large display and keyboard. Dr. Hayon jumped into the back seat, and I had no choice but to get behind the wheel.巴贡坐进前面装有着大显示器和键盘的机长时建议，“要不你来进？”阿永早已跳入了后座，我别无选择，不能坐进驾驶座。

The Mobileye engineers proceeded to give me a rapid-fire lesson on how to drive their robot car: Turn on the automatic navigation by pressing the cruise-control button and then pulling a stick on the steering wheel toward you to activate the lane-keeping, or steering, feature.移动眼公司的工程师旋即给我上学兵课，教我如何驾驶员他们的自动车：按下巡弋掌控按钮，关上自动导航系统，然后把方向盘上的操纵杆扳向自己，启动“车道维持”或驾驶员模式。Following another engineer who had taken off in a car ahead of us, we pulled onto the highway. After a false start, I engaged the autopilot, and off we went; I put my hands in my lap and tried to relax as we snaked down a desolate canyon road on our way to the Dead Sea.另一名工程师躺在我们前面的一辆车里，我们回来他驶过了高速公路。

第一次启动告终后，我关上了自动驾驶仪，然后汽车之后关掉了；我把双手放到大腿上，企图在沿着一条荒芜的峡谷道路前往死海的途中放开片刻。In the Google car, I had felt detached from the machine intelligence that guided it. But in the Mobileye car I was acutely aware of the autopilots limitations. The car had a tendency to weave a bit when it started to pull away from an intersection. Once, as we were passing a parked car, the Audi pulled in the direction of the other vehicle. I lifted my hands out of my lap and nudged it back to the center of the lane. The Mobileye engineers sat perfectly calm.躺在谷歌的汽车内，我实在自己与引领车辆的机器智能并没过于大关系。而躺在移动眼车内，我需要显著觉察到自动驾驶仪的局限性。在离开了交叉路口的时候，行车的路线总会有点包抄。

有一次，当我们驾车经过一辆驶离路边的汽车时，奥迪车朝另一辆车的方向驶了过去。我抱住放到腿上的手，把车新的进电路中央。移动眼公司的工程师十分耐心地躺在一旁。After 20 minutes of freeway driving, I pulled the Audi off at an intersection, and then put it back on autopilot and headed toward Jerusalem. The demonstration was not as eye-popping as my Google ride, but it gave me a clearer understanding of what the automobile industry has in its sights.在高速公路上行经了20分钟以后，我把奥迪车停在了一个岔路口，然后关上自动驾驶仪，朝耶路撒冷驶向。

这次试驾并不像驾驶员谷歌汽车那样令人震惊，但它让我更为确切地解读了汽车行业的愿景。

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