M. Anderson, May 4, "...The rapid, Facebook-like or smartphone-like adoption curve, the report says, will be driven largely by market forces. Self-driving electric car share plans, in which consumers “subscribe” to a self-driving service much like they subscribe to a cellphone plan today, will be cheaper and more convenient for many people than owning a vehicle. ..." Read more Hmmm.... What continues to bother me about these reports is the basic sloppy headline terminology which places context and concepts in the reader's mind that is contrary to the substance that is contained in the actual work. Case in point...
The
headline is
"self-driving"
electric car...
whereas the substance,
being the report's
dramatic conclusion,
hinges of "driverless"
(Level 5 ). This is
important because
there is an enormous
technological/psychological
hurdle that must be
negotiated to get from
"self-driving" to
"driverless" which
this writer does not
appreciated and can't
be assumed to be
anything but
monumental. As far as
I know, only one state
(California) has even
begun to deal with
empty vehicles sharing
roads with with
conventionally driven
vehicles.
So... I agree with the meteoric rise in the adoption and eventual popularity of of "driverless electric vehicles" (yes, they will be electric because the corporate entity(ies) that provide that service will be more profitable if electric is used rather than anything else and they will not suffer from "range anxiety" which completely dampens any future savings or even "greenness" that an electric might offer individual car buyers. (The whole car buying experience is dominated by "anxiety relief"..."getting-stuck" anxiety (why we buy one in the first place. It is ours.; always at our beck and call)... "haul-stuff" anxiety (why we buy Ford F-150s maxi-cabs and SUVs. We might want to go to the beach one summer day and we'll need to bring beach chairs, yet most of the time there is just one person in car going to and from or from someplace)..."range" anxiety (I may have to go to grandma's house 150 miles away yet rarely do. A person's 90th percentile of daily travel for all trips is way under 50 miles.) ...
If
we only do
"self-driving" (can't
travel empty sharing
roads with
conventionally driven
vehicles) then the
future is completely
different. It is more
of what we have now
for which there is
essentially zero car
sharing, that is
growing glacially and
unlikely electric
because electric have
little resale value
and requires the
car-share provider to
install rechargers at
EVERY car-share
location. If
car-share electrics
was such a great idea
without the need for
"driverless" they'd
already be the
"RethinkX 2030"
because they've been
around for 13 years.
So it is all about "driverless", please! and only Google was doing "driverless", but one wonders what Waymo is really doing since they seem to have abandoned the bug, gone to minivans and John Krafcik has stated..."we’re in the business of making better drivers" which can be achieved by Safe-driving cars and doesn't even need self, let alone driverless, cars to achieve. Oh well, maybe Apple will jump in and save the day??? Alain
M. Sena, May 2017, Vol 4, Issue 6, "...It is very interesting that these same lawmakers are now falling all over themselves to open their roads to robot-driven vehicles that will, in principle, obey the very laws that humans have difficulty accepting and dwindling police forces struggle to enforce. We do not need government task forces. The vehicle industry simply needs to be told to make their cars follow the rules of the road even when their drivers have other thoughts. It is not a matter of turning our vehicles over to robots, but making our vehicles safe to drive by humans." Read more Hmmm.... Lots to read and ponder here including... "...Herein lies the conundrum. The more successful a city or region becomes, the more people it attracts until it cracks under the weight of its own growth. Government officials and citizens pray for new miracles, like driverless, electric cars, when the answer lies in front of their noses: put things in the right places." ...Alain
A. Webb, May 4, "A mile away from where Google builds the maps used by people around the world, a 25-person startup is trying to do something similar for robots. DeepMap Inc., which was founded by mapping veterans of Alphabet Inc., is building systems enabling self-driving cars to steer through complex cityscapes. DeepMap plans to license its map-building software to automakers and technology companies looking to teach cars how to drive...." Read More Hmmmm...Limitation of the detailed maps is that they don't contain any information about the other moving objects that a SmartDrivingCar is trying to avoid hitting. So I'm going to need something else. In the end, why not just use that something else to also do the permanent objects too. Alain
J. Janai, " ..This paper
attempts to narrow this
gap by providing a
state-of-the-art survey on
this topic. Our survey
includes both the
historically most relevant
literature as well as the
current state-of-the-art
on several specific
topics, including
recognition,
reconstruction, motion
estimation, tracking,
scene understanding and
end-to-end learning....Read
More Hmmmm...
Excellent
State-of-the-Art
survey. Must
reading. Alain
D. Harris, Apr 30, "Bridj, a data-driven, venture-backed bus startup based in Boston, said Sunday it's winding down operations after a deal with a "major car company" fell through....The company, which operated in Boston, Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and Austin, Texas and describes itself as a "pop-up" urban transportation system, officially shut down last Friday...." Read More Hmmmm... Not all Cruise and Otto. Alain
http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/
Artur
Filipowicz'17, Virtual
Environments as
Driving Schools for
Deep Learning
Vision-Based Sensors
in Self-Driving Cars,
April 2017
Nayan Bhat'17, DeepFollowing: Vision-Based Distance Estimation on Synthetically-Generated Driving Video using 3D Convolution, April 2017
Antigone Hope Valen'17, The ATaxi Revolution: Autonomous Vehicle Implementation and Ride-Sharing Optimization in the United States and China, April 2017
Keith Gladstone'17, The Search for the Sustainable Fleet: Driverless Taxi System Simulations , April 2017
Rebeca De La Espriella'17, Developing the Regulatory Environment for Autonomous Vehicles: Historical Lessons for the Socio-technical Transition, April 2017
Thomas P. Byrne '17, Commercial Auto Insurance Risk Management Strategies, April 2017
[log in to unmask]" alt="" height="29"
width="28">
Kara Kockelman,Appendices, Ensuring the Benefits of a Connected and Auto , April2017
R. Hagemann, May 1,
"...Now, there’s little
doubt that autonomous
vehicles are the next
frontier of
transportation.
...however, there are a
number of roadblocks to
surmount: infrastructure
issues, restrictive state
licensing policies, driver
education, cybersecurity
and privacy
vulnerabilities, and more.
For innovators,
regulators, and
policymakers, solving
these problems will
involve a long to-do list,
but a pointless
regulatory scuffle
over technology standards
should not be on it.
So why is the federal
agency responsible for our
road safety looking to
introduce a totally
avoidable roadblock to
automotive innovation by
mandating a severely
flawed technological
standard for vehicle
communications?...". Read
More Hmmmm...
I love it..." a
pointless regulatory
scuffle"
and "a
severely flawed
technological
standard".
Only DSRC.
could
engender such
criticism.... "...Imagine
if the government had
demanded that Henry Ford
equip every one of his
Model Ts with telegraph
machines that could only
communicate with other
Model Ts. A 19th century
communications technology
mandated for use in a 20th
century innovation would
have been a crushing blow
to innovation and
competition in the
emerging automobile
industry. That’s precisely
what is happening with the
DSRC mandate, and the same
potential for future
innovation is at risk with
its implementation...". Alain
D. Hall, Apr 17, "In the
race to the autonomous
revolution, developers
have realized there aren’t
enough hours in a day to
clock the real-world miles
needed to teach cars how
to drive themselves. Which
is why Grand Theft Auto V
is in the mix.
The blockbuster video game
is one of the simulation
platforms researchers and
engineers increasingly
rely on to test and train
the machines being primed
to take control of the
family sedan. Companies
from Ford Motor Co. to
Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo may
boast about putting
no-hands models on the
market in three years, but
there’s a lot still to
learn about drilling
algorithms in how to
respond when, say, a
mattress falls off a truck
on the freeway....The idea
isn’t that the highways
and byways of the
fictional city of Los
Santos would ever be a
substitute for bona fide
asphalt. But the game “is
the richest virtual
environment that we could
extract data from,”
said Alain Kornhauser..."
Read
More Hmmmm...
Well...we have a
slightly different
view of history wrt to
GTA5. The 'Alain
view' is that Chenyi
Chen*16 independently
started investigating
the use of virtual
environments as a
source of Image -
Affordances data sets
to use as the training
sets in a 'Direct
Perception' approach
to creating a
self-driving
algorithm. Images of
the road ahead are
converted into the
instantaneous geometry
that is implied by
those image. An
optimal controller
then determines the
the steering, brake
and throttle values to
best drive the car.
The critical element
in that process are
the Image
- Affordances data
sets which need to
be pristine.
Chenyi
demonstrated in
his PhD
dissertation
, summarized in
the ICCV2015
paper, that
by using the
pristine Image -
Affordances data
sets from an
open-source game TORCS
one could have a
virtual car drive
a virtual race
course without
crashing. More
importantly, when
tested on images
from real driving
situations, the
computed
affordances were
close to correct.
This
encouraged us to
look for more
appropriate
virtual
environments. For
many reasons,
including:
"wouldn't it be
amazing if 'Grand
Theft Auto 5'
actually generated
some positive
'redeeming social
value' by
contributing to
the development of
algorithms that
actually made cars
safer; saving
grief, injuries
and lives".
Consequently, in
the Fall of 2015,
Artur
Filipowicz'17
began to
investigate using
GTA5 to train
Convolutional
Neural Networks to
perform some of
the Direct
Perception
aspects of
automated
driving.
With
Jeremiah Liu, he
continued
his efforts in
this direction
last summer which
were
presented
at TRB in
January.
Yesterday, he
and Nyan
Bhat'17
turned in their
Senior Theses
focused on this
topic.
A. Kornhauser, Jan 14, "Orf467F16 Final Project Symposium quantifying implications of such a Nation-wide mobility system on Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO), energy, environment and congestion, including estimates of fleet size, needed empty vehicle repositioning, and ridership implications on existing rail transit systems (west, east, NYC) and Amtrak of a system that would efficiently and effectively perform their '1st mile'/'last-mile' mobility needs. Read more Hmmm... Now linked are 1st Drafts of the chapters and the powerPoint summaries of these elements. Final Report should be available by early February. The major finding is, nationwide there exists sufficient casual ridesharing potential that a well--managed Nationwide Fleet of about 30M aTaxis (in conjunction with the existing air, Amtrak and Urban fixed-rail systems) could serve the vehicular mobility needs of the whole nation with VMT 40% less than today's automobiles while providing a Level-of-Service (LoS) largely equivalent and in many ways superior than is delivered by the personal automobile today. Also interesting are the findings as to the substantial increased patronage opportunities available to Amtrak and each of the fixed rail transit systems around the country because the aTaxis solve the '1st and last mile' problem. While all of this is extremely good news, the challenging news is that since all of these fixed rail systems currently lose money on each passenger served, the additional patronage would likely mean that they'll lose even more money in the future. :-( Alain
B. Grush,
Oct. 2016, "Two
contradictory stories
about our transportation
infrastructure are
currently in circulation.
One is that Ontario’s
aging, inadequate and
congested infrastructure
is perennially unable to
catch up with a growing
and sprawling GTHA. The
other is that vehicle
automation will soon
dramatically multiply
current road capacity by
enabling narrower lanes,
shorter headways and
coordinated streams of
connected vehicles to pass
through intersections
without traffic signals to
impede flow.
Since the premature
forecast of peak car in
2008 and now the hype
surrounding the automated
vehicle, we are often told
that we have enough road
capacity; that shared
robotic taxis will
optimize our trips, reduce
congestion, and largely
eliminate the need for
parking. This advice
implies we need wait only
a few short years to
experience relief from our
current infrastructure
problems given by decades
of under-investment in
transportation
infrastructure.
This is wishful thinking. Vehicle automation will give rise to two different emerging markets: semi-automated vehicles for household consumption and fully automated vehicles for public service such as robo-taxi and robo-transit. These two vehicle types will develop in parallel to serve different social markets. They will compete for both riders and infrastructure. The purpose of this report is to look at why and how government agencies and public interest groups can and should influence the preferred types and deployment of automated vehicles and the implication of related factors for planning..." Read more Hmmm...Bravo! The Key Findings & Recommendations are excellent. This is an excellent report (but it largely misses goods movement.) Especially 5.1 (read 'semi-autonomous' as 'Self-driving' and 'full-automation' as 'Driverless'. My view: Driverless may well be at the heals of Self-driving because it is a business play rather than a consumer play. Driverless will be ordered by the hundreds or thousands rather than individually.) and, of course Ch 10: Ownership (the business model) is more important than technology. Alain
September
2016, "Executive
Summary...For DOT, the
excitement around highly
automated vehicles (HAVs)
starts with safety. (p5)
...The
development of advanced
automated vehicle safety
technologies, including
fully self-driving cars,
may prove to be the
greatest personal
transportation revolution
since the popularization
of the personal automobile
nearly a century ago. (p5)
...The benefits don’t stop with safety. Innovations have the potential to transform personal mobility and open doors to people and communities. (p5)
...The remarkable speed with which increasingly complex HAVs are evolving challenges DOT to take new approaches that ensure these technologies are safely introduced (i.e., do not introduce significant new safety risks), provide safety benefits today, and achieve their full safety potential in the future. (p6) Hmmm...Fantastic statements and I appreciate that the fundamental basis and motivator is SAFETY. We all have recognized safety as a necessary condition that must be satisfied if this technology is to be successful. (unfortunately it is not a sufficient condition, (in a pure math context)). This policy statement appropriately reaffirms this necessary condition. Alain
"...we
divide the task of
facilitating the safe
introduction and
deployment (...defines
“deployment” as the
operation of an HAV by
members of the public who
are not the employees or
agents of the designer,
developer, or manufacturer
of that HAV.) of HAVs into
four sections:(p6) Hmmm...Perfect!
Alain
"...2. Model
State Policy (p7) The
Model State Policy
confirms that States
retain their traditional
responsibilities...but...
The shared objective is to
ensure the establishment
of a consistent national
framework rather than a
patchwork of incompatible
laws..." Hmmm...
Well done. Alain
"...3. NHTSA Current Regulatory Tools (p7) ... This document provides instructions, practical guidance, and assistance to entities seeking to employ those tools. Furthermore, NHTSA has streamlined its review process and is committing to..." Hmmm... Excellent. Alain
"...4. New Tools and Authorities (p7)...The speed with which HAVs are advancing, combined with the complexity and novelty of these innovations, threatens to outpace the Agency’s conventional regulatory processes and capabilities. This challenge requires DOT to examine whether the way DOT has addressed safety for the last 50 years should be expanded to realize the safety potential of automated vehicles over the next 50 years. Therefore, this section identifies potential new tools, authorities and regulatory structures that could aid the safe and appropriately expeditious deployment of new technologies by enabling the Agency to be more nimble and flexible (p8)..." Hmmm... Yes. Alain
"...I.
Vehicle Performance
Guidance for Automated
Vehicles (p11) A.
Guidance: if a vehicle is
compliant within the
existing FMVSS regulatory
framework and maintains a
conventional vehicle
design, there is currently
no specific federal legal
barrier to an HAV being
offered for sale.(footnote
7) However,
manufacturers and other
entities designing new
automated vehicle systems
are subject to NHTSA’s
defects, recall and
enforcement authority.
(footnote 8) . and
the "15
Cross-cutting Areas
of Guidance"
p17)
In
sum this is a very
good document and
displays just how far
DoT policy has come
from promoting v2v,
DSRC and centralized
control, "connected",
focus to creating an
environment focused on
individual vehicles
that responsibly take
care of themselves.
Kudos to Secretary
Foxx for this 180
degree policy turn
focused on safety.
Once done correctly,
the HAV will yield the
early safety benefits
that will stimulate
continued improvements
that, in turn, will
yield the great
mobility,
environmental and
quality-of-life
benefits afforded by
driverless mobility.
What are not addressed are commercial trucking and buses/mass transit. NHTSA is auto focused, so maybe FMCSA is preparing similar guidelines. FTA (Federal Transit Administration) seems nowhere in sight. Alain
Hmmm...What we know now (and don't know):