Autonomous vehicles someday,

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JimPghPA

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Audi announces that it has been granted the second-ever license for testing self-driving cars in Nevada.

And yesterday I watched a TV program of a Pennsylvania motorcycle group that deals with government regulations regarding motorcycles. One of the subjects brought up, was that "when public traffic flow control systems in the future control the speed of vehicles so as to optimize traffic flow, these people who ride motorcycles want to drive home the point that when motorcycles have their speed controlled by systems other than the rider if the speed is made too slow in a turn the motorcycle will fall over".

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Someday when the technology is ready, the yearly deaths and injuries caused by people being in control of vehicles will force laws to be passed requiring vehicles to be designed so it is not possible for a human to be in control when the vehicle is on public roadways.

Look on Wikipedia. We are talking of approximately 30,000 people killed each year in vehicles accidents here in the United States, and probably more than that number injured.
 
Originally Posted By: spasm3
And when the system crashes for a few minutes, 30,000 could be in one day.


It would make a good target for international terrorist computer hackers to wreak havoc on the "riding" public if they intentionally crashed the system say in Los Angeles or New York at 8:30 AM on a Tuesday morning.
 
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The required vision system (like Velodyne's) on a autonomous vehicle is incredible. While watching sides and rear the vision system has to see in front of the vehicle at a distance to stop safely or adjust for any object. The vision system has a hard time.

I think I remember a magazine saying the pixel count of a $100k lidar system to be around 10% the pixel count of an eye. If I am right, it sees less than 10% of what we do at distances.

Stuff triggers our attention and triggers cautions that a machine won't figure out for our lifetimes. Ever see a truck sire start smoking as you catch up to it on the Interstate? Some one veering on the road as if they are playing angry birds? Rain? Fog? What is the autonomous vehicle going to do with something weird on the road? And what will human drivers do with the autonomous vehicle slowing down for no good reason? Or speeding up in danger.

The computer would have to process video at an incredible rate. Develop all target data. Compare to previous scans. Compute what that target is and if it is going to affect the autonomous vehicle in the future. Now, keep doing this several times per second with the limited vision. Programmed by ... who ...?
 
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"I'll give up my manual transmission when they pry the shift lever from my cold, dead hands."
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I'd bet my left one that before any such "public good" system is introduced, that the manufacturers lobby and are given immunity from the "small" number of incidental incidents as a cost of the greater good.

Only until the manufacturers and designers are exposed to the full responsibility of their actions should such a system even be considered.

US could go a long way through other measures.

Population a dozen times that of Oz, and road toll 30 times would indicate that there's room to move on prevention.
 
You are exactly right. There will be a big "push" to rewrite auto liability law to "accomodate" accidents caused by the "It could never happen" system failures. I can't think of a single branch of the consumer electronics business which I would trust to build equipment reliable enough to keep me from rear ending another car in heavy traffic. Even military avionics BREAKS. Oh yeah, my car is guided by an "E Machine".
 
The personal injury law "lobby" will go nuts over any immunity attempts unless they are paid off with some other way to make their blood money. Perhaps "universal" no fault vehicle insurance so that you have to hire one of them to fight with your OWN company about how badly you were hurt by the defective "E Machine" in the driver's seat. Will there be a "last clear chance" doctrine where YOU will be personally at fault if you "didn't take over" in time when the consumer grade electronics fail in heavy traffic? What does "Bob" say when HIS electronics fail and knock YOU into a parallel universe..." Not MY fault I had my "autodrive engaged". Does that mean you NEVER touch the controls because then YOU might be blamed?
The Germans drive faster than we do, on roads which are NO BETTER, and THEY have NOT given up on driver training and skill. Why should WE?
 
Originally Posted By: dave munson
The required vision system (like Velodyne's) on a autonomous vehicle is incredible. While watching sides and rear the vision system has to see in front of the vehicle at a distance to stop safely or adjust for any object. The vision system has a hard time.

I think I remember a magazine saying the pixel count of a $100k lidar system to be around 10% the pixel count of an eye. If I am right, it sees less than 10% of what we do at distances.

Stuff triggers our attention and triggers cautions that a machine won't figure out for our lifetimes. Ever see a truck sire start smoking as you catch up to it on the Interstate? Some one veering on the road as if they are playing angry birds? Rain? Fog? What is the autonomous vehicle going to do with something weird on the road? And what will human drivers do with the autonomous vehicle slowing down for no good reason? Or speeding up in danger.

The computer would have to process video at an incredible rate. Develop all target data. Compare to previous scans. Compute what that target is and if it is going to affect the autonomous vehicle in the future. Now, keep doing this several times per second with the limited vision. Programmed by ... who ...?

The military has had terrain following radar for decades. Phoenix missiles could hit targets 100 miles away decades ago as well.

You don't need full human vision to determine what a car, bridge, or truck is.

Who is writing the software is a very real issue. Google is testing their cars and no crashes that I am aware of. I saw an off road military vehicle on TV a while ago that successfully found its way around a large pond, in the middle of a forest. Even the developer was impressed by the decision making ability of the computer.

I think liability is the only true impedance to autonomous cars.
 
The first autonomous vehicles have to be able to handle more than the autonomous vehicles in the future, because the first ones are (not will be) on the road with vehicles driven by humans who make driving mistakes. When ALL moving vehicles are autonomous each vehicle will not have to make allowances for bad driving by the others around it.

The insurance issues will be interesting to say the least. Liability, the manufacturer of the computer, software, and hardware probably will be responsible. Anti-theft, voice, and other bionic recognition will make that impossible. Even if the vehicle is financed, it will be interesting to see if any insurance is required.

As for the approximately 10 percent pixel, in a fog or a white-out, the computers ability to locate the vehicle and where it is on the road weather it be through GPS, magnets in the road, lidar, or some combination, and also the fast communication with all vehicles around it probably will allow normal transportation in low or no visibility situations that would make a NASCAR driver grip the wheel with white knuckles today.

Today when you travel in a vehicle you share the road with drivers who are drunk, drug users, people texting, people on phones, people falling asleep, people eating, people unaware of the common safety rules of the road such as not having the rite of way when making a left turn and therefore not making a left hand turn infront of opposing traffic, people distracted by passengers, people with mental problems, people with medical problems, and I am sure there are other problems people have that leads to them causing accidents. While we usually do not see enough of what these bad drivers are doing wrong, they are none the less around us every time we travel on public roads. This is why there is are such high yearly vehicle death and injury numbers.

In general many of the drivers on the road today are unsafe in one way or another.

As for the amount of information, and the speed that computers will have to process information, the rate of computing power and speed continues to grow, and has not yet broken Moores (rule of thumb)law.

I remember more years ago than I would care to admit, reading in a grade school science book that computers would never be able to beat a human at chess. It went on to say that if the entire world were made into a computer it would not be able to make the first move in a game of chess against a human. Back then computer were 4 bit machines and ran at speeds that today we would call barely running.

Autonomous vehicles are coming. Sure there may be some bugs that have to be shaken out. But that is a matter of throwing enough dollars at the problem to pay for a big enough engineering / software writing team to spend enough time to identify all the problems, and come up with the solutions.

Today saying that computers will never control ALL vehicles on public roads, makes about as much scene as the grade school science book that said computers would never be able to beat a human at chess.

It is not a matter of if, it is just a matter of when.

BTW, maybe / hopefully, by the time computers control ALL moving vehicles on public roads, medical science will have come up with ways to manufacture organs so as to be able to fill the void for donors that will be created when we no longer have yearly vehicle death numbers in the tens of thousands, because of computers driving our vehicles much safer than we can.
 
Computers will never (well for a while) have situational awareness, where stuff like seeing balloons on a street corner and a bouncing castle in the yard translate to "kids party - may be kids tearing around here", and can only react to stuff that it can detect, not pre-empt.

A sheep or a cow between a fence and the road, down here means that a farmer could be "grazing the long paddock", resulting in a slow down around the corner in case you have a sea of animals around the corner.

In Oz, if I grab the steering wheel when my partner is driving and something happens, then we both share a full round of charges each for the accident, and I would trust that when the car takes over for avoidance, or actual autonomy, that the manufacturer/programmer/govt body who gave the road/speed information is fully liable as well.

I'd like the idiot who programs the "stability" control on Subaru Forresters to have a long hard look...sand dried over bitumen on a corner when "stability control" is not how a car should respond to driver input...and certainly not autonomously.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: dave munson
The required vision system (like Velodyne's) on a autonomous vehicle is incredible. While watching sides and rear the vision system has to see in front of the vehicle at a distance to stop safely or adjust for any object. The vision system has a hard time.

I think I remember a magazine saying the pixel count of a $100k lidar system to be around 10% the pixel count of an eye. If I am right, it sees less than 10% of what we do at distances.

Stuff triggers our attention and triggers cautions that a machine won't figure out for our lifetimes. Ever see a truck sire start smoking as you catch up to it on the Interstate? Some one veering on the road as if they are playing angry birds? Rain? Fog? What is the autonomous vehicle going to do with something weird on the road? And what will human drivers do with the autonomous vehicle slowing down for no good reason? Or speeding up in danger.

The computer would have to process video at an incredible rate. Develop all target data. Compare to previous scans. Compute what that target is and if it is going to affect the autonomous vehicle in the future. Now, keep doing this several times per second with the limited vision. Programmed by ... who ...?

The military has had terrain following radar for decades. Phoenix missiles could hit targets 100 miles away decades ago as well.

You don't need full human vision to determine what a car, bridge, or truck is.

Who is writing the software is a very real issue. Google is testing their cars and no crashes that I am aware of. I saw an off road military vehicle on TV a while ago that successfully found its way around a large pond, in the middle of a forest. Even the developer was impressed by the decision making ability of the computer.

I think liability is the only true impedance to autonomous cars.
Do trees move? Have you any idea how many guys bought the farm in F 111s filled with the finest in militagy grade electronics. ?
 
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Originally Posted By: HerrStig

Do trees move? Have you any idea how many guys bought the farm in F 111s filled with the finest in militagy grade electronics. ?

Yes, I am aware. It was 2 crews:
http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/cit-triplett.html?c=y&page=4

Only 6 total aircraft were lost in Vietnam.

It was a first ever technology using 1960's tech. I am not aware of any TFR problems since.

Computers / sensors have come quite a ways since that time.
 
^When I worked at General Dynamics in the late 80's they were retrofitting F111's with digital flight controls. The terrain following radar didn't always work as intended with the original analog controls from the 60's.

I can say this with a fair amount of certainty, though. As time passes and suburban sprawl continues there will never be enough highway lanes to make up for the differences in driving decisions being made by scores of tired, distracted, belligerent, and yes, stupid, folks. If we intend to continue to base city layouts on automobile transit some form of logical control will end up being required unless you enjoy Washington DC style commutes.
 
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
^When I worked at General Dynamics in the late 80's they were retrofitting F111's with digital flight controls. The terrain following radar didn't always work as intended with the original analog controls from the 60's.

I can say this with a fair amount of certainty, though. As time passes and suburban sprawl continues there will never be enough highway lanes to make up for the differences in driving decisions being made by scores of tired, distracted, belligerent, and yes, stupid, folks. If we intend to continue to base city layouts on automobile transit some form of logical control will end up being required unless you enjoy Washington DC style commutes.
+1 Nothing like giving out HALF the story. That system required a GROUND CREW to be dropped in to make it work. I know some of the guys who did it. Also aware of some "training accidents" that didn't make it into the combat losses records.
 
As for the slowing down with respect to hints so as to be ahead of the game when the kid or animal is in the way around the bend, those kind of thoughts are thinking in terms of how a human senses the environment. Now days low power multi-frequency radar using less than one watt of power, gives range and detail way better than anything we humans can take in with out vision. And plotting the direction and speed of moving objects so as to determine if a near future collision is possible is not that big of a computing problem. While radar can not look through a hill in the way, electronics can link with the radar of other vehicles to get a more complete picture. And the reaction time of electronic systems make humans look like they are swimming in cement.

While proper computer system(s) on the level required to safely control ALL moving vehicles is something requiring years of work from hundreds or even thousands of computer software and electronic hardware engineers, once this system(s) are up and working properly the lives saved and injuries avoided will be worth much more than the cost of making it all happen.

The increase in miles per gallon by safe computer controlled drafting at distances and speeds that today other drivers would be blowing the horn at you, avoiding the vast majority of stopping at intersections for red lights (red light at intersections may become obsolete), automatically re-routing traffic to avoid congestion, timing traffic to allow safe passage through intersections, decreasing transit times to something akin to traveling at 3 AM, and allowing occupants to use transit time to do many other things such as eat, sleep, watch videos, play games, do computer work, will add to the quality of life, and free up some time for other things in life.
 
Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
As for the slowing down with respect to hints so as to be ahead of the game when the kid or animal is in the way around the bend, those kind of thoughts are thinking in terms of how a human senses the environment. Now days low power multi-frequency radar using less than one watt of power, gives range and detail way better than anything we humans can take in with out vision. And plotting the direction and speed of moving objects so as to determine if a near future collision is possible is not that big of a computing problem. While radar can not look through a hill in the way, electronics can link with the radar of other vehicles to get a more complete picture. And the reaction time of electronic systems make humans look like they are swimming in cement.

While proper computer system(s) on the level required to safely control ALL moving vehicles is something requiring years of work from hundreds or even thousands of computer software and electronic hardware engineers, once this system(s) are up and working properly the lives saved and injuries avoided will be worth much more than the cost of making it all happen.

The increase in miles per gallon by safe computer controlled drafting at distances and speeds that today other drivers would be blowing the horn at you, avoiding the vast majority of stopping at intersections for red lights (red light at intersections may become obsolete), automatically re-routing traffic to avoid congestion, timing traffic to allow safe passage through intersections, decreasing transit times to something akin to traveling at 3 AM, and allowing occupants to use transit time to do many other things such as eat, sleep, watch videos, play games, do computer work, will add to the quality of life, and free up some time for other things in life.
Nothing like teaching an E Machine "experience". And, NOTHING can ever go wrong go wrong go wrong....
 
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