SmartDrivingCar.com/6.29-UnderBus-063018
29th edition of the 6th year of SmartDrivingCars
F.
Fishkin, June 30, "Self
driving technology
speeds along in China.
Uber looks to resume
testing this summer.
Public transit, the Koch
brothers and Nuro's
partnership with Kroger.
Join Princeton
University's Alain
Kornhauser and co-host
Fred Fishkin for Episode
46 of the Smart Driving
Cars Podcast!" Listen
and subscribe."
Hmmmm.... Now you
can just say "Alexa,
play the Smart
Driving Cars
podcast!" .
Ditto with Siri,
and GooglePlay.
Alain
A. Efrati, June 28, "Uber plans to resume testing self-driving cars by August, in Pittsburgh and possibly San Francisco, said a person familiar with the decision, five months after an Uber car struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz. ...Earlier this week, it announced to employees that it was implementing 16 recommendations for safety changes made by an internal team that reviewed Uber’s operations after the accident. Those include developing emergency braking features to help minimize collisions if the main self-driving system fails....
Uber also plans to publish information about its practices publicly, possibly with academic researchers, to ensure that all autonomous vehicle providers are equally safe, reflecting the unit’s leader Eric Meyhofer’s internal statement that Uber “won’t compete on safety.” That stands in contrast to the approach of one of Uber’s main rivals in autonomous vehicle development, Alphabet’s Waymo....
Uber also has undone the
changes it made to its
software at the start of
the year that resulted in
the cars ignoring more
objects on the road, a
factor that Uber believes
contributed to the deadly
collision in March..." Read
more Hmmmm....
Sounds
encouraging:
Not competing on
Safety, being
much more
intelligent
about stationary
objects ahead as
well reworking
its AEB. Alain
T. Higgins, June 26, "As
the arrival of driverless
cars gets closer, cities
are scrambling to get
ready. And for good
reason: The driverless car
promises to reshape the
urban landscape as we know
it.
Little wonder, then, that
the potential changes are
creating excitement—and
fear—among city planners.
As they host test fleets
of robot vehicles and
figure out how to rework
ordinances to prepare for
the autonomous future,
they’re imagining what
life is going to be like
when the streets are
filled with cars that can
largely think for
themselves. Some see an
opportunity to create
on-demand public transit
that gets people where
they’re going faster and
reaches more of the
population. Or open up
streets for more green
space and greater
walkability. Or redirect
traffic to make it easier
to hold functions like
farmers markets.
But, even as they
acknowledge the promise,
others see possible
problems...." Read
more Hmmmm....
Actually pretty
good. The land
use implications
are tough to
forecast, but at
least there is a
view of these
being fleet
managed
"transit"
vehicles
offering
mobility to
all. Alain
B. Leukhardt, June 26, "As of this week, Windsor Locks appeared to be the only town or city in Connecticut applying to be one of four communities where the state will put remote-controlled vehicles on local streets as part of a pilot road test program. “We’re considering having an autonomous shuttle from Bradley Airport and the new passenger train,” First Selectman Chris Kervick said. “We decided to apply to be part of the pilot for a chance to see how the technology works. It doesn’t mean we will definitely have a driverless shuttle. But being a pilot study community would give us a close look at autonomous vehicles.”..." Read more Hmmmm.... Not the sharpest vision, but at least some naive interest in Connecticut. Alain
H. Tabuchi. June 19,
"...Early polling here had
suggested that the $5.4
billion transit plan would
easily pass. It was backed
by the city’s popular
mayor and a coalition of
businesses. Its supporters
had outspent the
opposition, and Nashville
was choking on cars.
But the outcome of the May
1 ballot stunned the city:
a landslide victory for
the anti-transit camp,
which attacked the plan as
a colossal waste of
taxpayers’ money....
Supporters of transit investments point to research that shows that they reduce traffic, spur economic development and fight global warming by reducing emissions. Americans for Prosperity counters that public transit plans waste taxpayer money on unpopular, outdated technology like trains and buses just as the world is moving toward cleaner, driverless vehicles...." Read more Hmmmm....You decide! What is important is that by operating a fleet of autonomousTaxis with slightly reduced level-of-service (operating from designated aTaxi stands no more than a 5 minute walk from essentially anywhere in a city and delaying any departure for at most 10 minutes) so as to accommodate ride-sharing, affordable (less than $0.50/passengerMile) high-quality 24/7 mobility from anywhere to anywhere can be offered to essentially everyone throughout cities such as Nashville. While such aTaxi technology isn't yet available, what Waymo has operating in Phoenix today is close and is likely to scale sooner than Nashville can build any proposed light rail system. Properly invested, $5.4B can provide a life-time annuity of roughly $250M/year which can easily support the capitalization of a continuing fleet of 10,000 aTaxis. Such a fleet would serve roughly 0.5 million trips per day or about 5% of all trips generated by a regional population of 3 million. Alain
Interested in working
in Toronto? Have a
good background and
interest in working on
safety and security for
autonomous driving
vehicles and fleets?
Contact Dr. Fengmin
Gong, DiDi Labs
3rd
Annual
Princeton SmartDrivingCar
Summit
evening May 14 through
May 16, 2019
Save
the Date; Reserve
your Sponsorship
Photos
from 2nd Annual
Princeton
SmartDrivingCar Summit
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& Links to
slides from 2nd
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SmartDrivingCar
Summit
F. Fishkin, June 12, "What is the big mistake California is making in driverless vehicle testing? Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser says the key is to promote ride sharing. Join the professor and co-host Fred Fishkin for Episode 44 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast for more on that, Waymo, Tesla and more.
F. Fishkin, June 8, "What is missing from the NTSB's preliminary report on the March Tesla crash? Princeton's Alain Kornhauser's speaks out along with co-host Fred Fishkin in Episode 43 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast. Plus... Waymo to bring self driving vehicles to Europe? Self driving shuttles in Canada. And GM bringing Super Cruise to more vehicles. Listen and subscribe."
F. Fishkin, June 3, "Softbank makes a multibillion dollar investment in GM's self driving company and Google's Waymo orders more than 60 thousand additional Chrysler minivans for a self driving fleet. Where does Uber fit in? Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser dives in along with co-host Fred Fishkin in Episode 42 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast. Listen and subscribe."
F. Fishkin, May 31, "Artificial Intelligence may be able to drive better than humans most of the time....but is that good enough? Join Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser and Co-host Fred Fishkin for Episode 41 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast. More on the latest from Uber, Tesla and Nuro. Listen and subscribe."
F. Fishkin, May 17, "How close is California to giving the green light to driverless testing on public roads? Deputy DMV Director Bernard Soriano joins Alain Kornhauser, Fred Fishkin and guest Michael Sena on Episode 39 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast. And we review some highlights of the just concluded 2nd annual Princeton Smart Driving Car Summit. Listen and subscribe!"
F. Fishkin, May 10, "The continuing Uber crash investigation, Waymo and Ohio rolls out the welcome mat for the testing of self driving cars. All that and more in Episode 38 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast. This week Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin are joined by Bryant Walker Smith of the University of South Carolina and Stanford. Tune in and subscribe!"
F.
Fishkin, Apr 4, "
Waymo is making
it real! In Episode 33
of the Smart Driving
Cars Podcast, hosts Fred
Fishkin and Princeton's
Alain Kornhauser are
joined by Michael Sena,
publisher of The
Dispatcher newsletter.
Take a deep dive into Waymo's
deals with Jaguar and
talks with Honda..
Tesla, Volvo, Uber and Ambarella.
And the Princeton Smart
Driving Car Summit is
coming up! "
Waymo team, June 13,
"Ariel rides after
school. Neha hops to the
grocery store. Barbara
and Jim zip around town
while kicking back.
They’re all part of the
Waymo early rider
program we launched last
April. Today, over 400
riders with diverse
backgrounds use Waymo
every day, at any time,
to ride all around the
Phoenix area. Their
feedback helps us
understand how fully
self driving cars fit
into their daily lives.
One year in, our early
rider program and our
extensive on-road
testing is helping us
build the world’s most
experienced driver. In
fact, our fleet of cars
across the U.S. is now
driving more than 24,000
miles daily; that’s the
equivalent of an around
the world road trip!
Here’s a quick report on
how our riders use
Waymo, what we’ve
learned, and what’s
next....As some of the
first people in the
world to use
self-driving vehicles
for their everyday
transportation needs,
our early riders are
helping shape this
technology. Thanks to
their feedback, we’re
refining the rider
experience to make sure
that: ... nobody wants
to carry grocery bags a
block down the street...
" Read
more Hmmmm....
Yipes!! The
personal car
isn't bad enough
in its focus on
private
single-occupant
parkingSpot2parkingSpot mobility? Are we now going to have Waymo
providing it
Door2Door with
zero opportunity
to share rides
and while
delivering
negative public
benefits of
increased
energy,
pollution and
congestion with
all of its empty
vehicle
repositioning.
No wonder the
CPUC voted to
forbid
ride-sharing.
Did Waymo made
them do it since
Waymo hasn't
done
ride-sharing in
Phoenix? Having
2 or more people
in the car isn't
ride sharing if
they would have
all gone
together in
their own car
had Waymo not
been there. So
Bad!!! Without
ride-sharing,
this is just
expensive,
energy
inefficient
and
environmentally
challenged
private
chauffeuring
for the
entitled
privileged
class:
See
video Just
like watching Oszzie & Harriet
or Leave
it to Beaver.
For Waymo to
"Win it",
they'll need to
embrace
ride-sharing
because no
"Blue-state" PUC
is going to be
as
impressionable
as as
California's.
Alain
F. Piekniewski, "Deep learning has been at the forefront of the so called AI revolution for quite a few years now, and many people had believed that it is the silver bullet that will take us to the world of wonders of technological singularity (general AI). ...We have now mid 2018 and things have changed. ..By far the biggest blow into deep learning fame is the domain of self driving vehicles ..
But by far the biggest
prick punching through the
AI bubble was the accident
in which Uber self driving
car killed a pedestrian in
Arizona. From the
preliminary report by the
NTSB we can read some
astonishing
statements:..." Read
more Hmmmm....
Very
interesting. We
still have an
awful lot to
do. See also,G. Marcus, below. Alain
KMay 24, "About 9:58
p.m., on Sunday, March 18,
2018, an Uber
Technologies, Inc. test
vehicle, based on a
modified 2017 Volvo XC90
and operating with a
self-driving system in
computer control mode,
struck a pedestrian on
northbound Mill Avenue, in
Tempe, Maricopa County,
Arizona.
...The vehicle was
factory equipped with
several advanced driver
assistance functions by
Volvo Cars, the original
manufacturer. The systems
included a collision
avoidance function with
automatic emergency
braking, known as City
Safety, as well as
functions for detecting
driver alertness and road
sign information. All
these Volvo functions are
disabled when the test
vehicle is operated in
computer control..."
Read more Hmmmm....
Uber must believe
that its systems
are better at
avoiding
Collisions and
Automated
Emergency Braking
than Volvo's.
At least this gets
Volvo "off the
hook".
"...According
to data obtained from
the self-driving
system, the system
first registered radar
and LIDAR observations
of the pedestrian
about 6 seconds before
impact, when the
vehicle was traveling
at 43 mph..." (=
63
feet/second)
So the system
started
"seeing an
obstacle when
it was 63 x 6
= 378 feet
away... more
than a
football
field,
including end
zones!
"...As
the vehicle and
pedestrian paths
converged, the
self-driving system
software classified
the pedestrian as an
unknown object, as a
vehicle, and then as a
bicycle with varying
expectations of future
travel path..."
(NTSB:
Please tell us
precisely when
it classified
this "object'
as a vehicle
and be
explicit about
the expected "future
travel paths." Forget
the path, please
just tell us the
precise velocity
vector that Uber's
system attached to
the "object", then
the "vehicle".
Why didn't the the
Uber system
instruct the Volvo
to begin to slow
down (or speed up)
to avoid a
collision? If
these paths (or
velocity vectors)
were not accurate,
then why weren't
they accurate?
Why was the object
classified as a
"Vehicle" ??
When did it
finally classify
the object as a "bicycle"?
Why did it change
classifications?
How often was the
classification of
this object done.
Please divulge the
time and the
outcome of each
classification of
this object.
In the tests
that Uber has
done, how
often has the
system
mis-classified
an object as a
"pedestrian"when the object was
actually an
overpass, or
an overhead
sign or
overhead
branches/leaves
that the car
could safely
pass under, or
was nothing at
all??
(Basically,
what are the
false alarm
characteristics
of Uber's
Self-driving
sensor/software
system as a
function of
vehicle speed
and
time-of-day?)
"...At 1.3 seconds before impact, (impact speed was 39mph = 57.2 ft/sec) the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision" (1.3 x 57.2 = 74.4 ft. which is about equal to the braking distance. So it still could have stopped short.
"...According to Uber,
emergency
braking
maneuvers are
not enabled
while the
vehicle is
under computer
control, to
reduce (eradicate??) the potential
for erratic
vehicle
behavior.
..." NTSB: Please describe/define potential and erratic vehicle
behavior Also
please uncover
and divulge
the design
& decision
process that
Uber went
through to
decide that
this risk
(disabling the
AEB) was worth
the reward of
eradicating "
"erratic vehicle behavior". This
is
fundamentally
BAD design.
If the Uber
system's false
alarm rate is
so large that
the best way
to deal with
false alarms
is to turn off
the AEB, then
the system
should never
have been
permitted on
public
roadways.
"...The vehicle operator
is relied on
to intervene
and take
action. " Wow! If Uber's
system
fundamentally
relies on a
human to
intervene,
then Uber is
nowhere near
creating a
Driverless
vehicle.
Without its
own Driverless
vehicle Uber
is past "Peak
valuation".
K. Pyle, May 9, "Safety and, as importantly, the perception of safety could be the pin that pricks the expectations surrounding the autonomous vehicle future. Recognizing the importance of safety to the success of this still nascent industry, autonomous taxi start-up, Voyage, recently placed their testing and reporting procedures in an open source framework. ...Oliver Cameron, Voyage Co-Founder and CEO, is excited to see participation and says, “We can’t wait to have all of these contributions from companies from around the world; contribute to build the actual standard in autonomous safety.” Read more, Hmmmm.... See the video that was played at the Princeton SDC Summit which generated substantial positive discussion at the Summit. See also full length video. Alain
A. Efrati, May 7, "Uber
has determined that the
likely cause of a fatal
collision involving one of
its prototype self-driving
cars in Arizona in March
was a problem with the
software that decides how
the car should react to
objects it detects,
according to two people
briefed about the matter."
Read
more Hmmmm....Uber
is "leaking"
this??? Is this
Spin? Fake News??
I guess Uber
doesn't believe in
transparency
here. Where is
the official
public
statement of
reassurance???
"The car’s sensors
detected the pedestrian,
who was crossing the
street with a bicycle,
Hmmmm....Pretty
much what I wrote
on March 24, the
sensors "Saw
something" ...
but Uber’s software
decided it didn’t need to
react right away. ..."right
away" is Fake
News. It never
reacted. Uber has
not released any
data indicating
that the software
ever reacted. "That’s
a result of how the
software was tuned." ...That
was a major
"tuning" faux
pas. What is
being divulged
here is that
Uber's software
never became
confident enough
that what it was
seeing was
something that it
should not hit
and, at least,
begin to apply the
brakes (or swerve,
or ???). Even the
driver in the
video recognized
that the object
should not be hit
a split second
before the crash.
So the Problem
is not
"tuning" it is
outright "fuhgeddaboudit"
Like other autonomous
vehicle systems, Uber’s
software has the ability
to ignore “false
positives,” or objects in
its path that wouldn’t
actually be a problem for
the vehicle, such as a
plastic bag floating over
a road.... Is
Uber suggesting
that its software
can't tell the
difference between
a plastic bag
floating over the
road and a
pedestrian with a
bicycle, even
after seeing the
object 30 to 60 or
more times over
the 3 or more
seconds that the
object was in
view? If this
isn't Fake News
then Uber is
hopelessly far
behind... In
this case, Uber executives
believe the company’s
system was tuned so that
it reacted less to such
objects." It
didn't react at
all!...
But the tuning went too
far, and the car didn’t
react fast enough, one of
these people said....
... It didn't
react at all! If
this wasn't so
important I'd put
it in C'mon man.
"False
positives" are the
symptom, not the
problem. The problem
is Uber's system
design and operational
policy. Uber system
designers knew that
the sensors under
certain conditions
reported "false
positives" (were
"spooked"). One of
those conditions was
possibly the
combination of "is the
closing speed = car's
current speed" AND "is
the car's current
speed greater than
30mph." In situations
in which both are
true, then Uber's
"tuning" is outright
"fuhgeddaboudit".
This "tuning"
effectively turns-off
Uber's sensors to
detecting anything
that is stationary or
moving across its lane
ahead. If Uber has
understood this, then
Uber would/should have
...
1. limited the operation of its cars to speeds under 30 mph,
2.
limited the operation
of its cars at speeds
greater than 30 mph only
to roadways where
pedestrians are
extremely unlikely to
cross, and
3.
focus on substantially
improving its ability
to interpret its
sensor data so that
the false alarm rate
becomes so small that
false alarms are
tolerated throughout
Uber's operational
domain.
..."Meanwhile, the human
driver behind the wheel,
who is meant to take over
and prevent an accident,
wasn't paying attention in
the seconds before the car
hit..." ...I
think that this is a
cheap shot against the
driver. I suspect
that this car had a
screen that displayed
the real-time status
of the automated
driving system. I
would not be surprised
if that screen was
mounted below the
radio and that the
driver was actually
monitoring the
operation of the
automated driving
system prior to the
crash. Why this
display wasn't on the
dash so that the
driver's peripheral
vision could remain on
the road ahead when
the driver was
monitoring the
performance of the
system is a question
Uber should
answer,... if it had
any interest in being
transparent.
Another
question that Uber
could be asked: Why
didn't the monitoring
system warn the driver
that it was "seeing
something" and ask
the driver to look to
see if it should be
"saying/doing
something".
Since
it doesn't look like
Uber is going to
really divulge
anything, it is
incumbent on the NTSB
to dig deeply into
this "false alarm"
issue. Disregarding
"false positives" in
order to circumvent a
little
passenger/customer
discomfort enables
"false negatives"
which kill people.
Not pretty!
A. Madrigal, Mar 28, "On Tuesday, Waymo announced they’d purchase 20,000 sporty, electric self-driving vehicles from Jaguar for the company’s forthcoming ride-hailing service.... But the company embedded a much more significant milestone inside this supposed announcement about a fancy car. With orders now in for more than 20,000 of these vehicles and thousands of minivans that Chrysler announced earlier this year, Waymo will be capable of doing vast numbers of trips per day. They estimate that the Jaguar fleet alone will be capable of doing a million trips each day in 2020. ..." Read more Hmmmm...Yup!! This is HUGE! It will change the city and the key to making it so it doesn't make thing worse is Ride-sharing. If we ride-share we'll reduce energy, pollution & GHG by more than 50% and provide high-quality, affordable mobility indiscriminately for all. It becomes the new high-quality, low-cost mass transit. If it's kept/operated as another alternative for the 1%ers to be chauffeured alone, then the outcome is UGLY. Ride-sharing is KEY! Alain
R.
Mitchell, Mar 22,
"Police late Wednesday
released a video that
shows an Uber robot car
running straight into a
woman who was walking
her bicycle across a
highway in Tempe, Ariz.
The woman was taken to a
hospital, where she died
Sunday night.
The video, shot from the
car, is sure to raise
debate over who's to
blame for the
accident. In the
video, the victim,
Elaine Herzberg, 49,
appears to be illegally
jaywalking from a median
strip across two lanes
of traffic on a dark
road. But she was more
than halfway across the
street when the car —
traveling about 40 mph,
according to police —
hit her. The car did not
appear to brake or take
any other evasive
action....
Bryant Walker Smith, a
law professor and
driverless specialist at
the University of South
Carolina, said:
"Although this appalling
video isn't the full
picture, it strongly
suggests a failure by
Uber's automated driving
system and a lack of due
care by Uber's driver as
well as by the
victim."..." Read more
Hmmmm... "..."What we
now need is for the
release of the radar and
lidar
data," Princeton's
Kornhauser said in an
email. (Lidar is a
sensing technology that
uses light from a
laser.) "Obviously, the
video of the driver is
extremely bad for Uber
and probably implies
that Uber should suspend
all of its
'self-driving' efforts
for a while if not for a
very long while.
"The 'self-driving'
systems are supposed to
have 'professional'
overseers who are really
supposed to be paying
attention during these
'tests'. Apparently Uber
didn't make it clear in
this case."
Kornhauser questioned
the police description
of a situation that
would have been
difficult to avoid. He
said Uber should reveal
what its
collision-avoidance
software was doing
during the couple of
seconds before impact.
"The front-facing video
suggests that this
person was crossing the
lane at a slow speed and
should have been noticed
by the system in time to
at least apply the
brakes, if not stop the
vehicle completely," he
said. "While a human may
not have been able to
avoid this crash, a
well-designed,
well-working collision
avoidance system should
have at least begun to
apply the brakes."..."
"
...
Again, my
sincerest
condolences to
Elaine Herzberg's
family and
friends.
The
simple arithmetic
is: She crossed
more than a lane
and a half before
being struck or
more than 15
feet. Average
walking speed is
about 4.6 ft/sec
which means that
she was "visible"
on this stretch of
road for more than
3 seconds. Uber's
speed of 38 mph =
55.7 ft/sec
means: Uber was
150 ft
away when she
began crossing the
left-hand lane and
could have been
visible by an
alert driver. The
car's lidar
and radar surely
must have "seen"
her beginning at
about that time.
Car
stopping
distance
including
"thinking time
used in The
Highway Code" @
38mph is 110
feet. The driver
should have been
able to stop 40
feet short. Any
Automated
Emergency Braking
(AEB) system
should have been
able to stop the
car in little more
than the stopping
distance of 72
feet, half way to
Elaine. This
simple arithmetic
suggests that
there may be a
very fundamental
fatal flaw in
Uber's AEB.
And
the driver was not
paying attention.
At 3 seconds prior
to impact, Elaine
was within a 12
degree field of
view when she
began to cross the
left lane. While
outside the fovea,
this is well
within a normal
gaze had the
operator been
looking out the
window.
The
released video is
from a "dash cam"
and is unlikely to
be the video
captured by Uber's
"Self-driving"
system (or
whatever Uber
calls it). That
video may well be
at a much higher
resolution and
frame rate. Uber
MUST release that
video (not just
the dash-cam
video) as well as
the radar and
lidar
data that was
being used by
their
"Self-driving"
system. Uber was
testing its system
at the time of the
crash and
therefore MUST
have been logging
those data in case
something went
wrong. Uber needs
those recorded
data in order to
have a chance to
learn what went
wrong and fix it.
Something did go
wrong, very
wrong. Uber and
everyone else MUST
also have the
opportunity to
learn from this
tragedy. So Uber
MUST release all
of the data.
Alain
R.
Mitchell, Mar 21, "As
long as robot cars roam
public streets and
highways, they will
occasionally kill
people. That's an ugly
truth that no one in the
driverless vehicle
industry can deny.
Will those robot cars
kill people at
significantly lower
rates than drunk,
stoned, tired or
distracted human drivers
do now? Automakers,
technology companies,
politicians and
regulators are betting
they will, as driverless
vehicles are rolling out
faster than almost
anyone expected as
recently as a year ago.
But the Sunday night
incident in Tempe,
Ariz., in which an Uber
robot car hit and killed
a woman walking her
bicycle across the
street, makes clear the
industry is much further
behind in making its
case to the public.
"It's likely there will
be far fewer deaths with
driverless cars," said
Marlene Towns, a
professor at Georgetown
University's McDonough
School of Business. "But
getting to the point
where people will be
convinced of that will
be tough."
Speculation by Tempe's
police chief that the
robot may not be at
fault in the crash may
temper any public or
political backlash.
Uber was testing the
robot car in autonomous
mode with a human
engineer, who was behind
the wheel but not
driving. Elaine
Herzberg, 49, walking a
bicycle, stepped in
front of the car from a
center median, according
to video evidence,
police said...." Read more
Hmmmm...
"...Carmakers
and technology
companies need to be
far more transparent
as they push forward,
experts said. "It's
important that we all
learn from this
accident and we make
these technologies
even better, said
Alain Kornhauser, a
professor at Princeton
University and a
leading authority on
driverless cars. "To
that end Uber must
release all of the
data leading up to
this crash. All of the
video, radar, lidar
and logic trails for
the three or so
seconds leading up to
the crash. If this
releases some of
Uber's intellectual
property, so be
it."..."
" ...
My sincerest
condolences to
Elaine Herzberg's
family and
friends. I hope
that Uber with its
"$60"B valuation
will make a very
generous
contribution to
homeless charities
and think even
more seriously
about "buying" (by
partnering) rather
than "making" this
technology. Alain
G.
Kumparak, Mar
13, "...." Read more
Hmmmm...
This is REALLY big
news.This
marks the real
beginning of
on-demand mobility
provided by
vehicles without a
driver or an
attendant
on-board, only the
passengers and the
vehicles used
normal public
roadways that
operated in normal
everyday manner
and used by
conventional cars
and trucks. Ng
Waymo to
their o police
escorts, no
warning signs,
just normal
everyday operating
conditions.
Except for the one
trip given to
Steve Mahan in
November 2015 in
Austin Texas, this
is the First time
that it kind of
mobility service
has been delivered
anywhere in the
world. Waymo
has achieved 5
million vehicle
miles of
Self-driving
(automated driving
on normally
operating public
roadway; however,
with a
driver/attendant
in the car ready
to take over
should the
automated system
begin to fail.
Many others
including Uber,
Lyft/Aptiv,
GM/Cruise, nVIDIA,
Apple, Tesla,
Nissan and many
others have also
done many miles of
Self-driving on
normal roads but
each an everyone
had a
driver/attendant
in the vehicle
ready to "save the
day" should
something go bad.
Nobody else
anywhere in the
world is doing
what Waymo
is now doing in
Chandler AZ. Now
that the first one
has been done, any
community that is
similar to
Chandler AZ can
now think
seriously about
inviting Waymo
to provide
affordable
on-demand mobility
to everyone in
their city.
Be
sure to see the
video.
Congratulations
Waymo!!!!!
Alain
D. Etherington, Feb 27, "California’s Department of Motor Vehicles established new rules announced Monday that will allow tech companies and others working on driverless vehicle systems to begin trialling their cars without a safety driver at the wheel. The new rules go into effect starting April 2 ..." Read more Hmmmm... Even though we have been expecting this, it is a major hurdle for it to actually have occurred. How long after April 2 will Waymo take to begin this type of testing. Again this is only testing and deployment, but NOT commercial service, which may happen first in Arizona, but it is a major step in this r-evolution. Commercial services are regulated by other agencies in California, not CA DMV. It is those other agencies that will need to grant/award the licenses for the various commercial operations where these driverless vehicles would be used. This regulation allows properly licensed commercial operations using CA DMV certified driverless vehicles to have those vehicles use California public roadways in delivering the otherwise licensed commercial activity. Note: CA DMV does not license the commercial transport of people or goods. That is the purview of other CA regulatory agencies. Alain
Andrew Hawkins, Jan 30, “Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, has reached a deal with one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers to dramatically expand its fleet of autonomous vehicles. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced today that it would supply “thousands” of additional Chrysler Pacifica minivans to Waymo, with the first deliveries starting at the end of 2018.
Waymo currently
has 600 of FCA’s
minivans in its fleet,
some of which are used
to shuttle real people
around for its Early
Rider program in
Arizona. The first 100
were delivered when the
partnership was
announced in May 2016,
and an additional 500
were delivered in 2017.
The minivans are plug-in
hybrid variants with Waymo’s
self-driving hardware
and software built in.
The companies co-staff a
facility in Michigan,
near FCA’s US
headquarters, to
engineer the vehicles.
The company also owns a
fleet of self-driving
Lexus RX SUVs that is
has been phasing out in
favor of the new
minivans. (The cute
“Firefly” prototypes
were also phased out
last year.)…” Read
more Hmmmm...
We’ve all been
wondering” Who’s
going to make the
cars? How will that
evolve?Will
they magically
appear???
Well….Looks
like it is FCA for
now. We've gone from
a handful 5 years
ago, 2 years ago
added 100, added 500
last year,
“thousands”
this/next year, …
Beginning to look
like exponential
growth! (A Bit Coin
Bubble??) What is
also most
interesting: no
parallel
announcement that Waymo
was hiring
“thousands of
attendants” to ride
around as "drivers"
in these “thousands
of minivans”. Guess
what that means… The
Kornhauser
Scale is going
to start really
going up!!! J
While
ultimately they’ll
need about 35
million of these to
provide affordable
mobility to all in
the US, this is a
real start at making
this into a business
as opposed to an
NSF-style study that
collects dust on a
shelf or, worse yet,
a digital manuscript
that is never
downloaded by anyone
outside a "group of
three". This is a
major announcement!
From Stan Young: It will be interesting to watch. It probably has the OEMs, Uber and Lyft scared out of their wits. Based on any objective comparison of accomplishment with automated vehicles, there is not a close second to Waymo, despite all the claims to the contrary by trade rags – and the competition knows it. Still a huge unknown concerning the ‘social side’ of riding in an un-attended vehicle, but we will likely get over it like we did with elevators. ‘Thousands’ of vehicles if deployed in one city will put it on scale of Uber and Lyft – an interesting study when/if it comes to that.
...An issue is: where will Waymo choose to deploy (and for Waymo, the word "deploy" is the right word... they make the decision where to place these, in some sense take it or leave it... as opposed to waiting for people to show up at a dealership to buy or have it stay on the lot or have some governmental agency thinking that it actually has a role/power/where-with-all to “deploy”) where, when and how many. They could "flood/concentrate" on Chandler/Phoenix/Tuscon area with scale to be really relevant and substantively demonstrate the evolution of mobility, or they could sprinkle them out nationwide and remain irrelevant everywhere. I like the "flood/concentrate" approach in a state (Arizona) where they seem to be truly welcomed and whose climate, topography and road network are "easy". More importantly it would demonstrate the viability/challenges of the at-scale approach. From our simulations we uncovered that at-scale, one might need to be managing as many as 20,000 aTaxis in a 2.5x2.5 mile area (the extreme in Manhattan, which may be the last place that you want to try this) but it can be large. We’ll drill down in our data and take a look at Chandler/Phoenix and report back as to what we think it would take to provide mobility for all. Alain
Jan. 9, T. Papandreou & E. Casson. "... Waymo driverless service..." Read more Hmmmm... Tim and Ellie made presentation at the Transportation Research Board's Vehicle-Highway Automation (AHB30) Committee meeting on Tuesday in which they gave an update on Waymo's progress to launch "Waymo's driverless service" (slide 11), an app-based ride hailing service to the general public in a geo-fenced area of Arizona. To date Waymo has been testing such a service using volunteer riders in their driverless vehicles in various areas around the country (slide 7): however, to date, except for one ride given to Steve Mahan in Austin, TX, rides on normally operating public streets have always had trained Waymo-authorized personnel (an attendant) in the vehicle capable to intervene in the driving of the vehicle should the need arise. Since October, in Arizona, those personnel no longer sit behind the wheel, but are in the back seat so that Waymo can observe the response of the volunteer riders to riding in a vehicle on normal public streets under normal conditions without anyone in the front seats of the vehicle.
Tim said, without providing a specific date, that Waymo will soon launch "Waymo's driverless service" providing mobility to the general public on public roads in a geo-fenced area of Arizona. I asked Tim "Will that service be offered with vehicles that have an attendant in the vehicle?". Tim's answer was "No!". I asked a follow-up question: "Will these vehicle's have telemetry capabilities that enable these vehicles to be closely monitored from a "situation room" or "control center" that would enable remote operation of the vehicle, should the need arise?". Tim's answer was "No!". Another questioner asked if the geo-fenced area included special "connected vehicle" road infrastructure improvement that Waymo's system will be relying on?" Tim's answer was "No!".
While the definition of "soon" was not given, I've taken this as a really big pronouncement that Waymo is actually going to go to launch commercially-viable on-demand mobility to the general public on conventional public roads. This is really big news because this is finally going to enable us to begin to evolve on the "Kornhauser Scale" ( log of (world-wide VMT of Driverless (VMT-D) vehicles without a human attendant/driver on board accumulated while providing mobility to the general public on conventional roadways). So far we are beyond the "undefined value" associated with VMT-D = 0 and are at KS = 1 only by virtue of the one Steve Mahan ride in Austin). :-) Alain
AP,
Nov. 7, 2017 "Waymo,
the self-driving car
company created by Google,
is pulling the human
backup driver from behind
the steering wheel and
will test vehicles on
public roads with
only an
employee in the back
seat.
The company’s move — which
started Oct. 19 with an
automated Chrysler
Pacifica minivan in the
Phoenix suburb of
Chandler, Ariz. — is a major
step toward vehicles
driving themselves on
public roads without human
backup drivers. ..." Read
more Hmmmm... Not to be too critical, but Waymo
is still just
'Self-driving' .
While they moved the
'engineer' with the
ability to 'take
over and drive the
vehicle' from behind
the wheel to the
back seat, this is
just a step along
the broad
'Self-driving'
continuum which is a
vehicle that, under
certain
circumstance, can
drive itself, but
does that only if
there is a person
ready and able to
take over if the
unexpected appears.
The
big-leap/major-step
will come when
Waymo
removes the
'engineer' entirely
from the vehicle and
it is human-less
when it arrives to
pick up a passenger
and drives
away human-less
after the last
passenger(s)
disembark. That
enormous
leap-of-faith in the
technology will mark
Waymo's
inception of the Driverless
Era. (or what
Waymo
prefers to call
'Fully Self-driving'
era.)
Just
to be clear, when
that time comes, I'm
sure that
Waymo will
have telemetry
throughout that
Driverless vehicle
and there will be a
room full of
engineers in Waymo's
'Situation
Room' ready to
take over the
driving should the
need arise.
However, until that
time, Waymo
is just like all the
other
wanabes,
they are just
'Self-driving'
without the 'Fully'.
The
reason why 'remote
emergency driving'
is 'Driverless' is
because it scales.
By that I mean that
it takes the
provision of
horizontal mobility
on our public
streets from needing
at least one human
per vehicle to
needing less than
one human per
vehicle. Initially
the remote driver
will monitor one
car. Before you
know it that person
will be monitoring
two, four, eight,
... vehicles and
truly Driverless
with zero remote
human oversee-ers
will be approached
asymptotically. But
just like the old
saw between the
engineer and the
mathematician:
engineer and
mathematician were
sitting on a bench
recalling their
youth... Engineer
said "Long ago, I
was sitting on this
very bench with my
girl. We wanted to
kiss but we were too
far apart. So we
agreed to move
towards each other
by halving the
distance between us
on each move. The
mathematician blared
" You're so stupid!
If you did that, you
never came
together!" The
engineer just
smiled: "we got
close enough!".
Alain
Rulemaking
Actions, Oct 1The following 3 PDFs are important:
1.
Autonomous Vehicles
Notice of Modification
(PDF) Act
2.
Autonomous Vehicles
Statement of Reasons
(PDF) Act
3.
Autonomous Vehicles 15
Day Express Terms (PDF)
Act Hmmmm..This is all about Driverless! Thank you
California, and
especially Dr.
Bernard Soriano, for
leading this noble
effort and for
continuing to
distinguish this
technology from Self-driving
and all of the
various other names
seemingly meant to
confuse. Alain
The
docket material is
available at: https://go.usa.gov/xNvaE"
Read more Hmmmm... A few comments...
1.
Since lateral
control (swerving)
couldn't have
avoided this crash
(the truck is almost
70 ft
long (6 lanes wide)
stretching broadside
across the highway)
, it doesn't matter
if Josh Brown ever
had his hands on the
steering wheel.
That's totally
irrelevant.
2.
Why didn't autobrake
kick in when the
tractor part of the
tractor-trailer
passed in front of
the Tesla?
3.
How fast was the
truck going when it
cut off the Tesla.
I couldn't find the
answer in 500
pages.
4.
With sight distances
of greater than
1,000 feet, why
didn't the truck
driver see the
Tesla? Was it the
drugs?
5.
This intersection
invites "left-turn
run-throughs" (no
stop or yield and a
53 foot median and
turn lane need to be
crossed before one
slips through a gap
in two traffic
lanes. So you
certainly roll into
it, (plenty of room
to stop if you see
something coming)
and if you don't see
anything, you hit
it. If you're in
the Tesla, you think
you've been clearly
seem, you expect the
truck to stop, it
doesn't, you can't
believe it, BAM!
All in probably a
second or so.
6.
The head injury
description (Table
1 p2 of 3)
certainly suggests
that Joshua Brown
was seated upright
facing forward at
impact. The
bilateral
lacerations on the
lower arm from the
elbow to the wrist
may indicate that he
saw it coming in the
last second and
raised his arms in
an attempt to
protect his head.
The evidence
reported doesn't
seem to suggest he
saw this early
enough to bend
toward the passenger
seat and try to pass
underneath.
7.
About 40 feet of
tractor and trailer
passed directly in
front of the Tesla
prior to impact.
Depending on how
fast the truck was
traveling, that
takes some time.
Has NTSB run Virtual
Reality simulations
of various truck
turn trajectories
and analyzed what
the truck driver and
the Tesla driver
could/should have
seen? Seems like a
relatively simple
thing to do. We
know what the Tesla
was doing prior to
the crash (going 74
mph straight down
the road.) and we
know where it hit
the truck. How fast
the truck was
traveling doesn't
seem to be known.
8.
Why wasn't there any
video captured from
the Tesla. Didn't
that version of the
MobilEye
system store the
video; I guess not,
:-(
Anyway,
lots to read in the
500
pages, but
there is also a lot
missing. I'm not
linking the many
articles reporting
on this because I
disagree with many
of their
interpretations of
the facts reported
by NTSB. Please
reach your own
conclusions. Alain
May
18, Enormously successful
inaugural Summit starting
with the Adam
Jonas video and
finishing with
Fred Fishkin's
live interview with Wm.
C Ford III. In
between, serious
engagement among
over 150 leaders from
Communities at the
bleeding edge of
deployment, Insurance
struggling with how to
properly promote the
adoption of technology
that may well force them
to re-invent themselves
and AI (Artificial
Intelligence) and the
various technologies that
are rapidly advancing so
that we can actually
deliver the safety,
environmental, mobility
and quality of life
opportunities envisioned
by these “Ultimate
Shared-Riding Machines”.
Save the Date for the 2nd
Annual... May 16 & 17,
2018, Princeton NJ Read
Inaugural Program with
links to Slides. Fishkin Interview of Summit Summary
and
Interview of Yann LeCun.
Read Inaugural Program
with links to Slides.
Hmmmm...
Enormous thank you to
all who participated.
Well done! Alain
Video similar to part of Adam's Luncheon talk @ 2015 Florida Automated Vehicle Symposium on Dec 1. Hmmm ... Watch Video especially at the 13:12 mark. Compelling; especially after the 60 Minutes segment above! Also see his TipRanks. Alain
This list
is maintained by Alain
Kornhauser and
hosted by the Princeton
University
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