Monday, 24 August 2015

realism - Is the electric track the tour vehicles follow on in Jurassic Park actually possible?

I think the question is whether an autonomous car technology exists. The answer is yes.

The movie displays electronics that depended on communication on a short range of 1-2 ft. The current vision is to include communications to drive cars from 'such techniques as laser, radar, lidar, GPS and computer vision.'

People have been talking about autonomous cars and driverless highways since the 40's (corrected from 70's), and I met people during my job in the 90's who were hired to design such systems.

Also, the technology is independent of the power needed to propel the car. Gasoline/electric power - the technology makes no distinction. I think the movie made the car electric because it could be easily disabled for the plot.

UPDATE: While reviewing the relevant movie section, I hear Samuel Jackson specifically mentions the car batteries, leading me to think the track supplies no energy.

When the kids and the scientists jump out of the car to aid the Triceratops, the central computer says something to the effect 'Stopping park vehicles...'.

When Nedry (Newmann) sets the power to fail so he can escape, the track data flow fails to the vehicles bringing them to a halt right next to the T-Rex cage. T-Rex is no longer contained by 10k volts.

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