2014-07-07

July 07, 2014Newsletter archive →

Jack Roberts
July 3 "...Speculation about autonomous — or "driverless" — vehicles has been commonplace in the trucking industry for years. Now, Daimler has made this concept a reality...

The truck, a specially-equipped Mercedes Actros tractor-trailer, is fitted with front-facing radar sensors and cameras to scan the road ahead. Both systems are tied into a Lane Keeping Assist system. Additional sensors track areas to the sides and rear of the truck to provide the system with a complete view of the vehicle's surroundings.

Daimler says the new sensors are so precise they can not only recognize the road edge by marker lines, but even identify the course of the road surface by detecting guardrails or vegetation." Read more Watch Video

Erick Ayapana | July 02 "A few stunt drivers put their lives on the line in a video demonstrating some of the new, fancy tech features found in the 2015 Hyundai Genesis. Titled "The Empty Car Convoy," the video was shot at Hyundai's expansive proving grounds in the California Mojave Desert, where there was plenty of room to pull off a stunt demonstrating the sedan's Advanced Smart Cruise Control (ASCC) and Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) systems..." Read more Watch video Hmm... Little goofy, but another small step forward. Hyundai doesn't seem to cheat or use mirrors. Note all of the disclaimers and caveats at end the video. Also note about Lane Keeping Assistance System: "...Above 43 mph LKAS will automatically detect when a driver has difficulty staying in their lane and helps by using gentle steering compensation. For this film LKAS was modified not to turn off. If LKAS can keep you in your lane, why would Hyundai ever turn it off??? I just don't understand. It's not that I can't readily over-ride it. I can! So why does Hyundai turn it off. Seems totally irresponsible of them (or the Regulator that's makes them do that!!!) Alain

Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield July 2 "...While Governor Kuroiwa didn't give his official response to riding in Nissan's Autonomous Drive LEAF for the second time in his career, footage from the event shows the self-driving car confidently navigating the closed section of new road with ease. As with previous outings, a Nissan engineer sat behind the wheel with his hands and feet poised to intervene and take control of the car should things go wrong.." Read more Watch video

Tim Steven, May 16 "Autonomous cars are coming soon, and Volvo wants to be there first. The company is pledging to have self-driving autos on sale by 2017, and by 2020 wants to build a nearly uncrashable car. Join us in Sweden for an early test ride." Read more See Video

"Gestures", C-Mon Man !!! Daimler please stick to substance! Alain

http://www.auvsi.org/avs2014/register

Invitation ONLY

Save the date

September 6th, 2014 in Detroit

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

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

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

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

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

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 Cleveland on more

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

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:

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

Lee, Eileen: Uncovering Systemic Corruption in the ER: An Empirical Analysis of Motor Vehicle-Related Hospital Bill and their Impact on Insurance Companies

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

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

Thursday, March 27, 2014 Video of Webinar. Excellent presentation by Prof. Alberto Broggi

Alain

2014-07-07

Inside Volvo's self-driving car: Improving driver safety without the driver.

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn't deserve your time:

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Recent Versions of:

Update on my "997" Package

Newly Available Drafts of Recent Student Theses