This self-driving car relies on spinning lasers to navigate down rural roads

If you hope to ride in a driverless car someday, chances are that the trip will take place in an urban area. When offering jaunts to the public in autonomous cars, companies like Waymo and Drive.ai And Cruise, a part of General Motors, plans to offer an autonomous taxi service next year in a major U.S. city. But what about running an autonomous car on a stretch of rural road--just an asphalt strip with natural objects like grass and trees nearby, and no detailed, three-dimensional map for the vehicle to reference? Researchers from MIT have been working on that problem, and their strategy involves teaching cars to drive like humans.