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广州科技翻译公司:优步全力提速无人驾驶技术研发

作者: 来源: 日期:2016-09-19 8:29:29

Uber’s Pittsburgh pitch at a driverless future

优步全力提速无人驾驶技术研发

 

广州科技翻译公司:缺少了自动驾驶技术,优步的愿景不可能实现,因此尽管进入这个领域并不久,优步决定不惜代价、全力以赴,

 

In an industrial corner of Pittsburgh’s Strip district lies a quiet alley lined with rusted steel beams. They support an old railway bridge that hints at this steel town’s past. But tucked at the end of the alley, hidden from the view of passers-by, sits a gleaming research centre that points to a rather different future, one in which self-driving taxi fleets will have revolutionised urban transportation.

在匹兹堡市横排区(Strip District)一个工业区的角落,有一条僻静的小巷,巷子里成排地竖立着生锈的钢梁,它们支撑着一座旧铁路桥,提醒人们该钢铁城的过去。但在小巷尽头路人看不见的地方,却坐落着一幢明晃晃的研发大厦,预示着一种截然不同的未来——无人驾驶出租车将掀起城市交通的革命。广州科技翻译公司。

 

This is the vision of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center, a research facility that has become a central focus for the San Francisco-based transportation company as it tries to develop driverless cars. The effort began just 18 months ago, and Uber has spared no expense in its aggressive effort to build the best autonomous car research program in the world — from scratch.

这正是优步(Uber)先进技术中心(Advanced Technologies Center)的愿景,该研发设施已成为这家总部位于旧金山、正尝试研发无人驾驶汽车的交通运输公司的核心焦点。优步18个月前才开始这项研发努力,从零开始,不惜代价,全力以赴,试图打造世界最出色的自动驾驶汽车研发项目。

 

Some of this lavish ambition is on display in the building itself, with a giant floor-to-ceiling glass frontage overlooking the Allegheny River — the company spent some $30m on remodelling it during the past year, according to permit records.

这种勃勃的野心部分地体现在该建筑的设计上,透过一块巨大的落地玻璃可以俯视阿勒格尼河。改建许可记录显示,过去一年,优步花了约3000万美元改造这座大厦。广州科技翻译公司。

 

The remodelling costs pale in comparison to what Uber is spending on its autonomous vehicle programme overall. Uber has redoubled its focus on self-driving vehicles following the sale of its Chinese business, a unit that had been heavily lossmaking and was demanding on the time of Travis Kalanick, Uber’s hard-driving chief executive.

但与优步在自动驾驶汽车项目的整体支出相比,此项改造费用并不算什么。在将其中国业务出售后,优步更加致力于推进无人驾驶汽车项目。优步中国一直处于严重亏损,而且耗费了优步首席执行官特拉维斯•卡兰尼克(Travis Kalanick)很多时间。

 

A month ago, Uber paid more than $600m in equity to buy a driverless truck start-up, Otto, whose team included leading Google engineers. And this week, Uber launched a driverless testing programme in Pittsburgh that will ferry passengers around the city, although a human “driver” will still be at the wheel to take control if needed. Uber also has a partnership with Volvo, in which the companies are prepared to invest a combined $300m into driverless research.

一个月前,优步斥资逾6亿美元收购无人驾驶卡车初创公司奥托(Otto)的股权,后者的团队中包括多名一流的谷歌(Google)工程师。上周,优步在匹兹堡启动了一项无人驾驶测试项目,在市内运送乘客,但如果有需要,坐在驾驶座的人类驾驶员仍将随时控制车辆。优步还与沃尔沃(Volvo)建立了合作,准备共同投资3亿美元用在无人驾驶技术研发上。广州科技翻译公司。

 

Mr Kalanick says unequivocally that Uber’s mission — providing transportation to everyone, everywhere — is not possible without autonomous vehicles. After raising more than $15bn in equity and debt, making it the best capitalised start-up in Silicon Valley, Uber is prepared to spend heavily to reach its goal.

卡兰尼克明确表示,优步的使命——为所有人提供无处不在的交通服务——没有自动驾驶汽车是不可能实现的。在靠出售股份和发债筹集超过150亿美元成为硅谷资本最充裕的初创企业之后,优步准备斥巨资实现这一目标。

 

Self-driving technology means saving lives, and low-cost transportation that is accessible to the masses in a way the world has never seen,” Mr Kalanick told the Financial Times last month. “More and more of our cities are going to get wired up,” he added, pointing to how driverless technology will change the urban environment.

“自动驾驶技术意味着挽救生命,以及低成本的交通,它会以世界前所未有的方式服务于大众,”卡兰尼克上月对英国《金融时报》表示。“越来越多的城市将被连接起来,”他接着说,他指的是无人驾驶技术将如何改变城市环境。广州科技翻译公司。

 

However, Uber’s bold investments in autonomous research have not been without controversy. As it was establishing the Advanced Technologies Center last year, Uber poached a third of the staff — 40 people — from Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, a mass exit that sent shockwaves through the university.

然而,优步在自动驾驶研发上的大胆投资也惹来了争议。去年成立先进技术中心时,优步从卡耐基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)的机器人研究院(Robotics Institute)挖走了三分之一的人员(40人),此次大规模离职对卡耐基梅隆大学造成了冲击。

 

Although Uber has since tried to mend the rift by endowing a professorship at Carnegie Mellon University, the incident still rankles. Andrew Moore, dean of computer science at CMU, recalls that the university had to work quickly to keep the Robotics Institute strong. “The thing that was hardest about that time was that people would meet me and greet me as if someone in my family was really ill,” he says, adding that the Robotics Institute has now recovered. Within the department, some joked at the time that it was a “hostile takeover”.

虽然优步后来试图修补裂痕,向卡耐基梅隆大学资助了一个教授职位,但该校仍无法释怀。该校计算机科学学院院长安德鲁•摩尔(Andrew Moore)回忆称,学校不得不快速采取行动使机器人研究院保持强大实力。他说:“那时最艰难的是,人们遇到我都会问候我,好像我的家人生病了,”并补充道,机器人研究院如今已经恢复元气。在该院,当时有人开玩笑说这是一次“敌意收购”。广州科技翻译公司。

 

Others in the industry question how far Uber’s self-driving technology has really developed in just 18 months. Uber started real-world testing of its autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh five months ago, which pales in comparison with the years of tests performed by Alphabet in California, with its self-driving cars.

还有业内人士质疑优步的无人驾驶技术在短短18个月内能有多大真正的进展。五个月前,优步开始在匹兹堡对其自动驾驶车辆进行路测,相比之下,Alphabet的自动驾驶汽车已经在加州进行了多年测试。

 

Uber’s cannot yet execute moves like changing lanes, requiring the human driver to intervene if a lane is blocked. At present, the autonomous cars do not travel faster than 35 miles per hour, although Uber is planning to increase this and to start making trips to Pittsburgh’s airport, which includes driving on a highway, “within weeks”.

优步的自动驾驶汽车还无法完成变道之类的动作,如果一条车道堵住了,需要人类驾驶员干预进行变道。目前,优步自动汽车的行驶速度不超过每小时35英里,但优步正计划提升车速,并将“在几周内”开始在通往匹兹堡机场的公路(其中包括一段高速公路)上测试。广州科技翻译公司。

 

The company has revealed few details about the sensors and software it uses to guide its driverless cars. The Ford Fusions that were launched in the pilot test this week are outfitted with 20 cameras and seven lasers, as well as GPS and radar units. Each car steers itself using a detailed three-dimensional map that Uber has developed itself, using landmarks and context to identify its position.

优步公布了其用于引导无人驾驶汽车的传感器和软件的少量细节。最新测试中启用的车型福特Fusion配有20个摄像头、7个激光扫描器以及全球定位系统(GPS)和雷达。每辆车都利用优步自主开发的详尽的三维地图引导行车,并利用地标和环境来确定车辆位置。

 

Raj Rajkumar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who works on autonomous vehicles, said that from a technical standpoint, what Uber is doing now is similar to what Google has been doing for many years. “Because the technology is so complex, I do expect it will take some time to catch up.”

卡内基梅隆大学从事自动化汽车领域研究的教授拉杰•拉杰库马尔(Raj Rajkumar)表示,从技术角度看,优步现在做的事情与谷歌(Google)多年来做的事情相似。“因为这项技术非常复杂,我的确预计它将需要一些时间才能赶上来。” 广州科技翻译公司。

 

He added that Uber’s vast suite of sensors had been a bit of a surprise. “It looks very much like overkill,” he said. “Like they were not sure what would be needed, what would not be needed.”

他补充称,优步众多的传感器让人有些意外。他说:“看起来太夸张了,好像他们不确定什么是需要的、什么是不需要的。”

 

Uber’s self-driving technology is still being worked out. Raffi Krikorian, director of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center, admits that “this is early days for us in a lot of ways”. The challenges ahead include reading human intention — such as whether a pedestrian is about to cross a street — and preparing for rarer incidents, such as animals darting across the road.

优步的自动驾驶技术仍在发展之中。优步先进技术中心的主管拉菲•克里科里安(Raffi Krikorian)承认,“我们在很多方面还处于初期阶段”。未来的挑战包括理解人类意图——比如一名行人是否要穿过街道——并准备应对较为罕见的情况,比如动物突然蹿到路上。

 

Despite the technical challenges, the ambition of Uber’s self-driving programme has thrown down the gauntlet for Alphabet, which has yet to figure out how it will use the driverless cars it has been developing. Alphabet has been piloting a carpooling system among users of its mapping app, Waze, and has looked at launching a separate app for transportation. But it has stopped short of outlining how it might put its driverless fleet to commercial use.

尽管技术上面临难题,但优步雄心勃勃的自动驾驶项目对Alphabet构成了挑战,后者仍在考虑如何将其正在研发的无人驾驶汽车投入使用。Alphabet一直在其地图应用Waze的用户当中试行拼车系统,并考虑过推出一款独立的交通应用。但它没有概述如何将其无人驾驶汽车用于商业用途。广州科技翻译公司。

 

The nascent competition between Uber and Alphabet has become significant enough to force David Drummond, a top Alphabet executive, to resign from the Uber board last month. The step was striking because Alphabet is one of Uber’s biggest shareholders, after making a large investment in an early fundraising round.

优步和Alphabet新产生的这种激烈竞争迫使Alphabet高管戴维•德拉蒙德(David Drummond)上月辞去了优步董事职务。此举引人注目,因为在优步一轮初期融资中大举投资之后,Alphabet已经是优步最大的股东之一。

 

Recently Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, said he was preparing to join the fray, and outlined a long-term vision for the company that included a shared fleet of Tesla vehicles accessible to passengers through an app.

最近特斯拉(Tesla)首席执行官埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)表示,他准备加入这场战局。马斯克概述了特斯拉的长期愿景,包括允许乘客通过一款应用搭乘特斯拉共享汽车。

 

While Google still retains a technological edge in driverless technology, Uber’s access to customers could prove a boon in the long run. By opening up its self-driving test fleet to real passengers this week, Uber has capitalised on one of the great strengths of its autonomous programme: a ready pool of riders who are prepared to hop in an Uber car at a moment’s notice, whether there is a human in the driver’s seat or not.

尽管谷歌仍在无人驾驶方面保持技术上的领先优势,但长期来说,优步在客户资源方面处于有利地位。优步最近尝试以无人驾驶汽车接送真实乘客,这是利用了其自动驾驶项目中最大的优势之一:现成的用户群体愿意跳上召之即来的优步汽车上,无论驾驶座上有人与否。

 

广州科技翻译公司

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