2014-07-01
July 1, 2014
Intel Chases Sales on Silicon Road to Driverless Cars
Ian King Jun 30, 2014 “…The market for automotive chips is projected to grow 6.1 percent to $27.9 billion this year, according to IHS Corp. Within that business, sales of chips for automated driver-assistance systems, or ADAS, will increase an average of 13 percent a year through 2020, making it the fastest-growing area. …” Read more
Ingenious Self-Driving Vehicle Saves Lives by Detecting Roadside Bombs
Jordan Golson 06.30.14 “…The system does more than steer and hit the throttle and brakes. It can intelligently control a central tire inflation system and driveline locks to navigate deep sand or mud, all without any input from the operator….” Read more Another outgrowth of the DARPA Challenges. Arguably the next best military investment after GPS. Alain
Will Driverless Cars Fuel Cheap Insurance?
Mark Chalon Smith, June 26, “…A CarInsurance.com survey of 2,000 licensed motorists found that only about 20% would happily switch to autonomous cars if they became readily available. The other 80% said they just don’t feel comfortable with the technology.
But what if insurance rates would drop significantly in a world with much fewer accidents caused by hapless drivers? More than a third said an 80% cut in premiums, which has been predicted by some analysts, would make it “very likely” that they’d buy a driverless car, and 90% said they would at least consider the possibility….” Read more Be sure to look at the survey summary. It is 6 month old, but probably still good. Alain
Are driverless cars only a generation away?
| Alan Davies | Jun 23 “…A lot of the discussion on driverless cars focuses on the considerable problems of implementation, particularly the transition period during which human-controlled vehicles are likely to share road space with machine-controlled vehicles. This could take decades so there are bound to be serious problems. Some of them will be technical but most will be political…. |
I think there’s a parallel here with the introduction of cars at the end of the nineteenth century. Back then it wasn’t obvious cars would succeed on the scale they ultimately did. They were expensive to buy and operate for all other than the extremely rich. There was limited supporting infrastructure such as fuel stations and all-weather roads. The vehicles themselves were mechanically unreliable, difficult to control and operate, and unsafe for occupants. They were seen as a serious threat to pedestrians and horses as they were capable of what must’ve seemed incomprehensible speeds.
Moreover, there was active opposition to cars. As Aaron Wiener notes in the Washington City Paper: ….in the early days of the automobile, when the technology itself was being questioned and few rules existed to govern traffic and parking, there really was a war on cars. Driving could get you arrested in some places, whacked with stones in others, and actually shot by gun-wielding police in at least one. This wasn’t a philosophical debate over parking or bike lanes. It was a real, knock-down, drag-out battle.
I don’t think autonomous cars will provide the same quantum leap in mobility and productivity that cars and trucks offered back in the early twentieth century, but it seems likely they’ll nevertheless offer a compelling, even irresistible, proposition…” Read more
Thoughtful and well worth reading. Alain
Retro-fit an ‘autopilot’ to your car!
Fri, 27 Jun “… Then there’s the fact that many of the benefits the Cruise PR1 system offers have been standard or cost options on a host of premium European cars for quite some time.
Mercedes owners in particular will be scratching their heads trying to understand what the fuss is all about. The Distronic Plus system has been offered on the E-Class and S-Class since 2013 and is now available to C-Class, CLA and CLS owners too…” Read more
Even in Africa, SmartDrivingCars are part of the news. Alain
Visualizing MBTA Data
Mike Barry and Brian Card - June 10, 2014 An interactive exploration of Boston’s subway system
“…We attempt to present this information to help people in Boston better understand the trains, how people use the trains, and how the people and trains interact with each other…” Read more
Half-baked stuff that probably doesn’t deserve your time:
Google, Detroit diverge on road map for self-driving cars
This is about a meeting in 2012 which is eons ago in SmartDrivingCar time.
A lot has changed since 2012. Reuters should write about what is happening today and tomorrow. Alain
How to Invest in the Driverless-Car Future
“…Tesla’s Elon Musk stated in early June, “I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on-ramp to highway exits without touching any controls.” …” Gee Elon, go way out there on the end of a limb! If Mercedes released the software upgrade which I’m sure they have my S class could do it today. Alain
Perspective: Self-driving Cars As An Ideal, Is Not The Same Thing In Real Life
| By Rick Carlton | June 27 “…That’s why in the case of auto-drive, Google is continuing to operate slowly, and on the basis of a series of well-controlled practical programs; where, on the other hand, Cruise’s premature public rollout is likely to turn their early buyers into test dummies, rather than satisfied customers. Granted it’s all about risk-management, but if I had to put my family in an auto-drive vehicle developed by a company that harbors a market cap well beyond $300 Billion, versus eight guys in a business park in San Francisco, I’d take the big company any day.” Hmmm I guess Rick owns a GM car (New General Motors Recall Includes Best Sellers) |
What Will a Self-Driving Future Look Like?
…Total PR. Alain
Calendar of Upcoming Events:
http://www.auvsi.org/avs2014/register
Invitation ONLY
Save the date
September 6th, 2014 in Detroit
Recent Versions of:
June 23, 2014
In wake of Tracy Morgan crash, rising truck fatalities lead to new scrutiny
Ted Sherman/The Star-Ledger June 15 “The Wal-Mart truck that slammed into a chauffeured van carrying comic Tracy Morgan on the New Jersey Turnpike just over a week ago was state-of-the-art.
According to company officials, its high-tech cab was equipped with sophisticated collision-avoidance systems that included forward-looking radar with interactive cruise control — all designed to begin automatically braking the big truck when it sensed traffic slowing down.
It was programmed to notify the driver of any vehicles stopped ahead in the roadway. There was an on-board computer, blind spot sensors, and electronic controls limiting its top speed to 65 miles per hour….” Read more
Hmm… I wrote last Tuesday as to how the Tracy Morgan Accident needs to be wake-up call to Walmart and other shippers and carriers (see below) to install automatic collision avoidance systems. I will repeat it again here in this special post. While Walmart might feel that it had done all it can by having what it calls a “high-tech cab”, its truck was in fact a very low-tech cab. Something like having a PrincessPhone relative to an iPhone5. The “interactive cruise control” only begins to automatically brake when it senses traffic slowing down (doesn’t bring the truck to a complete stop if the traffic ahead stops AND it needs to have been actively engaged by the driver to work at all!). Moreover…“programmed to notify the driver of vehicles stopped ahead”, but NOT programmed to automatically stop the truck before hitting the stopped traffic ahead. While subtle, these are VERY important differences between a “PrincessPhone” cab and a “SmartPhone” cab! Walmart’s and the trucking industry’s focus MUST be on automatic collision avoidance, automatic lane centering and beyond, not simply useless warnings. I applaud Walmart for taking a first baby step, but it needs to up its game substantially!
US DoT also needs to take notice with respect to its V2V and connected vehicle initiatives.
These initiatives have been timidly focused on warnings rather than automatically avoiding the accidents. I understand that the government fears resistance to its efforts to intervene, as it should. And it certainly hasn’t wanted to acquire the responsibility. However, warnings are simply insufficiently effective. Maybe government should step aside and let someone else accept the responsibility, someone like the insurance industry. Accepting responsibility is in fact their fundamental business. Alain
June 10, 2014
If Robots Drove, How Much Safer Would Roads Be?
Claire Cain Miller, June 10 “Human error is the culprit in 93 percent of automobile crashes – including the pileup last weekend that left Tracy Morgan in critical condition, caused, prosecutors say, by a truck driver who had been awake for 24 hours (see following)… But two studies by researchers at Virginia Tech — H. Clay Gabler, a professor of biomedical engineering, and Kristofer D. Kusano, a research associate — suggest how much safer robot cars might be. They found that even cars that are not fully autonomous but that automate some of the most dangerous aspects of driving could have as big an effect as seatbelts have had…Read more
Hmm…
The studies:
Thomas I. Gorman, Kristofer D. Kusano, and Hampton C. Gabler “Model of Fleet-wide Safety Benefits of Lane Departure Warning Systems”. “…The expected reduction in road departure crashes due to LDW is estimated to be 30.3%. The expected reduction in injuries that are caused by LDW applicable crashes is estimated to be 25.8%…” Read more
Kusano, K., Gabler, H., and Gorman, T., “Fleetwide Safety Benefits of Production Forward Collision and Lane Departure Warning Systems,” SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 7(2):2014, doi:10.4271/2014-01-0166. “…The 16 FCW systems evaluated could have potentially prevented between 9% and 53% of all rear-end collisions and prevented between 19% and 60% of injured (MAIS2+) drivers….For LDW systems, the 10 systems tested had similar benefits if distance to the lane marking was used as the metric for delivering the warning. For all vehicles, the number of crashes prevented varied from 29% to 32% and the number of injured (MAIS3+) drivers prevented varied from 25% to 27%. LDW benefits are more sensitive to Time to Lane Cross (TTLC) as a metric for warning delivery. The number of crashes varied from 13% to 47% and the number of injured drivers varied from 10% to 42% when TTLC was the metric used to deliver the LDW. This result suggests that future LDW tests should consider TTLC as a metric in addition to distance to lane cross….” Read more
Driver Charged in Crash Involving Tracy Morgan Had Not Slept in 24 Hours, Prosecutors Say
J. DAVID GOODMAN JUNE 9, “The Walmart driver whose truck collided with a van carrying the comedian Tracy Morgan and other performers had not slept for more than 24 hours before the crash, New Jersey prosecutors said on Monday….A preliminary police investigation found that Mr. Roper had failed to perceive slow-moving traffic ahead of him, and, at the last minute, swerved in an attempt to avoid a collision. The complaint did not explain how the New Jersey State Police determined that Mr. Roper had been sleep deprived… Walmart …believed Mr. Roper “was operating within the federal hours of service regulations,” which limit work shifts to 14 hours, with only 11 of those behind the wheel. Read more
Hmmm… this is enormously tragic because existing collision avoidance technology could have likely avoided this accident altogether even if Mr. Roper had not slept for 48 hours or was in complete compliance with all “hours of service regulations”. Even if Mr. Roper had not slept for 24 hours, tougher hours of service regulations would not have prevented this accident. What would have prevented this accident would be the application of collision avoidance technology on this truck. If Walmart somehow feels indisposed by this accident and wants to react constructively, Walmart should contribute to the advancement of collision avoidance technology and insist that all trucks moving their goods be equipped with such technology! In fact, calling this an accident may well be a misnomer; maybe we should call it irresponsibility on Walmart’s part for not insisting that the trucks serving their stores have this technology. The cost of this technology may well evolve to be more than offset by the reduction in truck insurance expense. In other words, Walmart would not be indisposed and save money. That doesn’t sound like an accident to me. It sounds like fiduciary (and societal) irresponsibility on the part of Walmart.
Of course, Walmart is not the only business that relies on long haul truckers to supply goods to its stores. The Tracy Morgan collision should be a wake up call for businesses that rely on large trucks on US roads every day driven by drivers operating under pressure on deadlines. Now that collision avoidance technology is available, Walmart and other business should insist that their logistics partners use trucks equipped with this technology. They will save money in the long run and lives in the short and long runs. Alain
May 29, 2014
Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle
Posted: Tuesday, May 27 “Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History.
We’re now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention. They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work. The vehicles will be very basic—we want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible—but they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And that’s an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people. ..” Must watch video Read more
May 22, 2014
Update on my “997” Package
Since I walk to work, I haven’t had the opportunity to test my Mercedes “997 package” every day; however, it has assisted me around New Jersey’s jug-handled roads as well as the NJ Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, I-195 and 295 as well as longer trips on the PA Turnpike, I-81 and I-95 and earlier this week to and from
May 13, 2014
Autonomous Vehicles: Handing Over Control: Opportunities and Risks for Insurance
Gillian Yeomans, Lloyd’s Exposure Management “…The insurance industry’s expertise in risk management will be a factor in the adoption of autonomous … technology. In an area where regulation and safety standards are yet to be developed, insurers can encourage prudent progress by making their own risk assessments and providing policies for responsible operators. There is an opportunity for insurers to engage in the transfer of new risks, making it possible for continued technological innovation. This technological innovation may give rise to new business opportunities, with corresponding opportunities for insurers….” Read more Nice to see Lloyd’s weigh in here. Alain
May 2, 2014
Who Is at Fault When a Driverless Car Gets in an Accident?
John Villasenor Apr 25 2014 “It may seem odd, but we already have the laws we need for dealing with this inevitable situation.” Read more especially the source report:
Products Liability and Driverless Cars: Issues and Guiding Principles for Legislation
April 18, 2014
Newly Available Drafts of Recent Student Theses
Wyrough, Alexander Penn Hill Jr.: A National Disaggregate Transportation Demand Model for the Analysis of autonomous Taxi Systems
Included is one synthetic realization for each of the 308.7 Million individuals contained in the 2010 Census and each of the 1.01 Billion trips {oLat, oLon, oTime, dLat, dLon} these individuals were synthesized to have made on a typical weekday in October. Persons are organized in individual Home County Files (All 186,49 persons that lived in Peoria County, Il., or the 1,585,873 persons that lived in Manhattan, for example). Trips are available in files for each person residing in a county ( with many trips diffusing into other counties, states and even countries ) as well as by oCounty (the 649,781 trips that originate in Peoria County or the 8,085,055 trips that originate in Manhattan, many of which are made by 1.5 million persons that don’t live in Manhattan.). For example, one can get all the trips made by the residents of Manhattan or by all trips originating in Manhattan. The user is left with the task of finding all trips that either originate, terminate or go through Manhattan. Note, trips to work where the work place was greater than 200 miles from the home location were routed via the nearest major airports. Alain
Sun, Zhuyi (Judy): Causal Price Discrimination: An Analysis of the Healthcare Costs Associated with Motor Vehicle and Transportation Collisions
Rhodes, Brandon Xavier: An Analysis of Economically Efficient Insurance Schemes for Automated Vehicle
April 11, 2014
Hands-On: 2015 Hyundai Genesis Flirts with Autonomous Driving
By Scott Schaen on April 7, “…Lane keep assist worked very well if you’re slow to make a slight turn. It doesn’t work for the bigger turns. Similarly, smart cruise control and the automatic emergency breaking system would slow you down a lot, but it won’t bring you to a complete stop. They’re SAFETY features; they’re not intended to auto-drive (yet)…” Read more
April 4, 2014
Webinar on the 3DV product
Thursday, March 27, 2014 Video of Webinar. Excellent presentation by Prof. Alberto Broggi Alain
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