DRIVR Part 4: Go backwards forwards quickly

So we all know that the government laced our vaccines with microchips and hid 5G repeaters in our masks, but while the rest of you were baking sourdough, I studied the blade. Wait no, I was figuring out how to leverage this new availability of decentralized processing and high-speed data connections.

Everybody loves a good origin story, and meesa is no exception. So today we're going back to the beginning, and we'll eventually explain why in order to build autonomous technology I decided it was necessary to strap TVs to everyone's faces. But don't worry, we'll take it painstakingly slow.

It all started when I read a book. I mean, you can see why people want to ban so many of them, they lead to scary things like practical knowledge and independent thought. Now this book in particular, Fiber, talked largely about the positive effects of gigabit internet connections (and how America is missing the boat, but let's table that for now).

At the time of reading Fiber, I was working on an autopilot written in Elixir, which leverage the decentralized nature of the BEAM virtual machine (read more about the autopilot here). To my brain, which still half-expected the internet to arrive via CDs in the mail, the inevitability of high-speed data was one those "obvious after the fact" moments. From there I wondered what one might do with a high-speed, low-latency data pipeline. Since I was already working on a rewrite of the autopilot and was in the mood for some good old fashioned anarchy, I decided to go all-in on the network revolution.

The result of this conceptual exercise was to remove as much decision making as possible from the onboard computer(s) and bring it back to a stationary location on the ground. Since I had already built an architecture that used multiple compute devices connected via Ethernet, the decision to "cut the cord" really didn't change things much. Instead of getting commands from an onboard wired connection, the high-level decisions would come from a remote wireless connection.

And since I am into the whole brevity thing, that's where I'll leave you. To summarize: we're counting on high-speed data to be available (at least somewhere), and we're designing a vehicle control system to utilize this data link. We'll continue next time with all the things this new architecture buys us. Hint: it's a lot.

- Greg

The story continues with Part 5: Aslantis