2014-11-08

November 08, 2014

November 7, 2014

Fujitsu Laboratories develops lower-cost millimeter-wave radar for automobiles

Oct 08, Technology/Engineering “Fujitsu Laboratories today announced that it has produced a transceiver chip for millimeter-wave radar in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) implementation, which is a semiconductor process that enables costs to be reduced, while at the same time successfully boosting the short-range detection performance of the transceiver….To make the driving experience safer and more pleasant, cars are increasingly being equipped with technologies that can detect obstacles nearby and even control the brakes or accelerator in response. Technologies used for obstacle-detection include millimeter-wave radar, LiDAR, and stereoscopic cameras. Compared to LiDAR and stereoscopic cameras, which both use the visible wavelengths of light, millimeter-wave radar is relatively unaffected by rain, fog, and reflections, giving it an important role to play as an onboard sensor. The value that sensors such as these bring to cars creates an impetus to develop technologies for implementing these sensors at lower costs. …”. Read more Hmmm…

Very interesting. Do reads the whole article. Very promising, but not really available until 2018. Alain

The USDOT wants your input …

on the Proposed Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 2015 Guidance for Connected Vehicles and the Formation of a V2I Deployment Coalition. October 23, 2014 “Draft Guidance Is Available for Review: The FHWA plans to produce deployment guidance in 2015 on connected vehicles for transportation infrastructure owners/operators. Initial guidance is posted on the website listed below… Interested parties may provide comments on the initial draft guidance through November 14, 2014….Review source materials and provide comments at: http://www.its.dot.gov/meetings/v2i_feedback.htm, by Friday, November 14, 2014. Read more

Hmmm…

Everyone is in favor of crowd sourcing transportation data; however: “infrastructure owners/operators” have little justification, nor the charter, for collecting anything but the most superficial data. In fact, what “operational” rights and responsibilities do infrastructure “owners” actually have? Sure they set the speed limit, deploy intersection control device, put up no parking signs, etc., but do they get to micro-manage what we do when we choose to consume their infrastructure with our vehicles? I don’t think so. Private cars are not airliners that use the airway infrastructure to offer mobility “by the drink” (many customers are served by the bottle). They aren’t even private pilots who are minority users of the airway infrastructure, therefore there is some justification for micro-managing and meticulously tracking private pilots. It is not as if we are going to use our vehicles on BART’s tracks. If so, then BART would have more rights to track us and tell us exactly what to do. Our public roadways, some of them are even called freeways, have been chartered to allow private vehicle owners to “freely” use these facilities that, in the end, are financed by the private vehicle owners. Moreover, those that have been entrusted with “ownership” of this infrastructure have to date been given the authority to micro-manage, micro-control or meticulously track private vehicle users of these facilities. So, if nothing else, DoT’s request here is premature.

In addition, V2I already exists, it is called cellular. Heck, 10 years ago I used it (my smartPhone, GPS receiver, and CoPilot) to “continuously” send out my real-time status while I ran the 2004 NYC marathon. And V2I should be a private sector activity (period!). Alain

Airbag Maker Takata Saw and Hid Risk in 2004, Former Workers Say

HIROKO TABUCHI NOV. 6, 2014 “Alarmed by a report a decade ago that one of its airbags had ruptured and spewed metal debris at a driver in Alabama, the Japanese manufacturer Takata secretly conducted tests on 50 airbags it retrieved from scrapyards, according to two former employees involved in the tests, one of whom was a senior member of its testing lab…. But instead of alerting federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives discounted the results and ordered the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the airbag inflaters in the trash, they said….” Read More

Hmmmm

As I’ve commented previously, SmartDrivingCars substantially improve the quality of life for many; however, they will not be perfect and we’ll undoubtedly introduce new problems and challenges. However, it is imperative that we have the data systems in place to capture all the details about those problems and challenges. AND have accessibility to those data so that we can replicate them. AND once discovered, focus on creating solutions to circumvent these problems and challenges rather than “…ordering the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the…”.

As humans, we are simply not very good at anticipating rare events and outcomes. By their nature, we don’t trip over rare events very often, so when we “happen to” we must have prepared ourselves by first capturing the appropriate data continuously (because we don’t know when a rare event will rear its ugly head), and be prepared to harvest those captured data once we realize that we’ve just experienced a rare event. (We have enough data about common events, no need to harvest those.) In order to accomplish this most important task, we must:

Enact legislation that will “hold harmless” any individual associated with these data, consider the data to be “self-incriminatory” towards any individual, consider the data to be protected by “attorney-client” privileged, or any other means by which these data cannot be admissible in any court aimed at any individual. (or something like that.), and
Have the Federal Government establish a fund to be the insurer of last resort to pay for remedying the harm done these rare events so as to remove the temptation for any company to “…order the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the…” Alain

3rd Symposium on Connected Cars and Autonomous Vehicles

November 5, 2014 Conference Presentations Alain’s Presentation “Efforts to Advance SmartDrivingCars in New Jersey”

GM Paves Way for Global Active Safety Development

2014-10-23 General Motors today revealed that the development of one of the largest active automotive safety testing areas in North America is nearly complete at its Milford Proving Ground campus.

The $12 million project broke ground in June 2013 and is scheduled to be fully functional by December of this year.

This newly added, 52-acre facility was specifically designed for developing, testing, and validating Active Safety, or crash avoidance, features. It will include a 16-acre dynamics pad and various road networks to evaluate sensors, algorithms, and the performance of these features, including cutting-edge systems involving autonomous control and vehicle-to-vehicle communication….”Read more

Hmmm…

That’s, in part, what we’re trying to create at Fort Monmouth for all of the other players that don’t wish to set up their own facility; however, that facility will not only do R&D, but also certification and, very importantly, commercialization. Alain

Trains and self-driving cars, headed for a (political) collision

David Z. Morris Nov. 2, 2014 “The promise of autonomous vehicles is becoming a talking point for opponents of mass transit systems. “It’s like they’re designing the pony express in the world of the telegraph.”

Florida state senator Jeff Brandes, a Republican representing District 22, uses that line frequently to characterize Greenlight Pinellas, a comprehensive transit plan for Florida’s Pinellas County. Up for a public referendum on Election Day this Tuesday (Hmmm…Voters reject Greenlight Pinellas! Alain), Greenlight will fund increased bus service and a new light rail system. Supporters say it represents a tried, true, and long overdue solution to the area’s perennial transit woes. Pinellas, the city of St. Petersburg, and the broader Tampa Bay region are consistently near the bottom in a number of transportation and livability indexes. They suffer high average commute times, astronomical pedestrian fatality rates, and massive per-capita spending on the private automobiles that, given today’s inadequate public transit system, even the very poorest need to get by.

But Brandes argues that the entire idea of bus- or train-based public transit is on the verge of obsolescence. Instead, he sees a future in which autonomous vehicles—also known as automated vehicles, or AVs for short, and best embodied by Google’s self-driving cars—solve the region’s transit problems. “I absolutely believe that technology is going to transform mass transit in a way that very few people can see,” he says. “It’ll definitely be within 15 or 20 years, which is right when the light rail system for Greenlight Pinellas would be coming online.”… Read more Hmmm…

Very interesting! Actually, what is missed is that truly self-driving vehicles will be the basis of the new revolution in mass transit. It will usher in the opportunity for an operator, be it a public utility or a private entity, to offer very inexpensive, high-quality on-demand mobility to anyone at almost any time to almost anywhere. Consequently everyone (mass) will have real mobility (transit).

Now that’s Mass Transit! Alain

Robert William Kingett, Oct 30, 2014 “If I want to go anywhere in Chicago, my methods of transportation are very limited. For someone who’s blind and has cerebral palsy, taking public transit is beyond difficult.

In order for me to go to the movies, on a date with a gorgeous guy, to interview someone for a journalistic endeavor, or to go to school, I have to pay $6 a day, $180 a month, or $2,190 a year to ride Chicago’s Paratransit system. That isn’t even a fraction of the costs for PACE to operate the Paratransit system. But why do I care? I’m just a consumer, right? I’m not just a consumer, I’m a blind journalist in Chicago who’s advocating for getting a law passed that would allow autonomous cars to drive on the streets of Illinois, breaking my dependence down to zero, and also saving the state billions of dollars on Paratransit cars. There’s a solution to all of my independent transportation problems bundled with a nifty solution for state costs. That solution is what’s commonly referred to as the Google car…” Read more Absolutely!

Alain

This is the future: Google’s Larry Page shares his radical view of tomorrow

November 2, 2014 By Richard Waters “Wouldn’t the world be a happier place if 90 per cent of the people with jobs put their feet up instead and left the robots to do the work? Why didn’t the last house you bought cost only 5 per cent of what you paid for it? And is there any reason why you or your children shouldn’t one day enjoy limitless cheap power from nuclear fusion and a greatly extended lifespan?

These are the sort of questions that occupy Larry Page. At 41, the co-founder and chief executive of Google is freeing himself up to think big. A reorganisation in recent days has shifted responsibility for much of his company’s current business to a lieutenant and left him with room to indulge his more ambitious urges. The message: the world’s most powerful internet company is ready to trade the cash from its search engine monopoly for a slice of the next century’s technological bonanza…” Read more

Self-driving car advocates tangle with messy morality

Stephen Shankland, 5 Nov. 2014 “Sure, dealing with lane changes, firetrucks and construction projects is difficult for engineers building self-driving cars. But what about deciding which people to kill when an accident is unavoidable? That’s the kind of the thorny problem that’s a real issue for the auto industry as it moves to vehicles that steer, brake and accelerate for themselves. Perhaps because computer-driven cars are so closely compared to human-driven cars, though, people have begun wrestling with those moral issues.

One of them is Chris Gerdes, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford, who’s brought philosophy colleagues in to help get a grasp on emergency life-or-death decisions. One approach is to give rules in advance – don’t hit pedestrians, don’t hit cars, don’t hit other objects. Another is to try to project consequences – the approach humans generally take. “The car is calculating a lot of consequences of its actions,” Gerdes said, speaking here Tuesday at the Web Summit conference. “Should it hit the person without a helmet? The larger car or the smaller car?”…” Read more

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

Oh the Places We’ll Go!

Janice King Nove 3, 2014 “Perhaps the most anticipated element of ITS is the connected vehicle. The imminent arrival of connected vehicles is one reason for new visions of transportation within a metro area….” Read more Hmmm

Can’t understand why the government is so gun ho about “connected vehicles”.

Then again, I guess I know why. Alain

C’mon Man!

(These folks didn’t get/read the memo):

Driverless cars in N.J. / Rethink this one

Friday, October 31, 2014 “…On the one hand, having fewer actual New Jerseyans behind the wheel would have to count as a good thing. On the other hand, unless all the cars on the road are driverless, you know Jersey drivers are going to make a game of trying to make the robot cars crash…” Read Less Hmmm…

We know that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Can’t really expect anything better from the press of AC. So sad!! C’mon Man! Alain

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Webinar hosted by Timmons Group

Transportation Engineering in the Age of Self-Driving Cars

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

2014 FLORIDA AUTOMATED VEHICLES SUMMIT

Walt Disney World; Coronado Springs Resort

December 15 -16, 2014

Recent Versions of:

October 31, 2014

N.J. Senate panel paves way for self-driving cars

Matt Friedman Oct 27 “…The bill (S734), which was approved by the state Senate Transportation Committee 5-0, would require the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission to establish a program to allow people to obtain endorsements on their driver’s licenses to operate and test “autonomous vehicles,” which aren’t on the consumer market yet but have been under research and development by tech companies and institutions for years.

“This legislation sends a strong message to innovators and job creators that New Jersey is not afraid of being the home to new thinking and the way of the future,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Union), said in a statement. “…this legislation is essential to attract and retain new jobs, innovation and entrepreneurship in New Jersey, as driverless vehicle efforts here continue to progress.”..” Read more…and my lead testimony, that of Michael Scrudato of Munich Re, Newsworks and CBS.com video interview.

Progress! (only negative testimony came from Honda which was so bad it ended up helping. C’mon Honda!) Alain October 22, 2014

Request for Comment on Automotive Electronic Control Systems Safety and Security

Volume 79, Number 194 (Tuesday, October 7, 2014); FR Doc No: 2014-23805: ACTION: Request for comments:

SUMMARY: This notice presents the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s research program on vehicle electronics and our progress on examining the need for safety standards with regard to electronic systems in passenger motor vehicles. The agency undertook this examination pursuant to the requirements of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) Division C, Title I, Subtitle D, Section 31402, Subsection (a). In addition, and in accordance with MAP-21, we are seeking comment (through this document) on various components of our examination of the need for safety standards in this area. As MAP-21 also requires this agency to report to Congress on our findings pursuant to this examination, we intend to submit a report to Congress based in part on our findings from this examination and public comments received in response to this document.

DATES:

You should submit your comments early enough to ensure that Docket Management receives them no later than December 8, 2014. Read more October 10, 2014

Inaugural Automated Vehicle Summit @ Fort Monmouth

Press release. Oct 9, 2014 Princeton, NJ “New Jersey’s first summit meeting on creation of a center for research, certification, and commercialization of automated vehicle technology took place on October 3 at former Army base Fort Monmouth in Oceanport. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together stakeholders with a vested interest and the wherewithal to place New Jersey at the forefront of research into potentially life-saving technology.

More than 60 invited participants to the summit included representatives of: the insurance industry, automakers, wireless communications industry, motor vehicle regulators, public transit industry, and universities. State Senators Jennifer Beck, Thomas H. Kean, Jr., Joseph M. Kyrillos, Jr., and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Jr. represented New Jersey’s legislative bodies…” Read more Hmmm..Progress!

Alain October 1, 2014

Mercedes-Benz sends autonomous automobiles onto the USA’s most extensive testing ground

Sunnyvale, Calif., Oct. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – “As one of the first automobile manufacturers permitted to do so, Mercedes-Benz has been testing autonomously driving automobiles on public roads in the US state of California since September. In addition, the company will from now on also use Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS), the largest test bed site in the US, for further testing of its future technology.

“We can use the test site in Concord, California, to run simulation tests with self-driving vehicles in a secure way, including specific hazardous situations”, explained Dr Axel Gern, head of autonomous driving at Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Inc. (MBRDNA). “Taken in conjunction with the results of our test drives on public roads, these tests will help us with the ongoing development of our autonomous cars.” The focus of research nevertheless continues to lie on the tests undertaken in a real-life environment, he emphasized….” Read more Hmmm

I’m learning that the concept of using “Fort Monmouth” to test automated vehicles is a common concept. Alain October 1, 2014

Self-driving cars: California regulators probe insurance questions

Patrick Hoge Sep 15, 2014 “Self-driving cars are bearing down on California’s future, and state Department of Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones wants insurers and regulators to prepare now for their eventual arrival.

To that end, Jones hosted a public hearing at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose Monday morning to gather data about what automated vehicle technology will look like. …

A variety of legal and insurance experts testified, as well as a consumer rights advocate. Alain Kornhauser, a Princeton University professor of operations research and financial engineering, was enthusiastic about the potential for automated driving technologies to improve safety, unburden drivers and lower insurance costs.

Varying levels of the technology will be applied in different settings, he said. Commercial fleets, for example, could be more amenable for fully automated uses, while average drivers might use some sort of hybrid, that allows drivers to assume control when needed, he said.

Kornhauser pointed out that some automated technologies are already in widespread use, notably anti-locking brakes and stability controls that prevent drivers from turning too rapidly.

“What’s important is that these systems take over automatically and counter what I am doing wrong,” Kornhauser said. “They don’t warn. They don’t ask for permission. I can’t turn them off. They just do it.”…” Read more

Hmmm…

It was a really good session: Video of hearing; hearing’s agenda; background paper; my 5-minute prepared remarks; extended remarks by Prof. Robert Peterson. Alain September 8, 2014

The New Commute

Mark Svenvold “…Tomorrow’s transportation solutions will be about learning to share…

“Cars arrived and waited for riders,” Minett wrote of the Oakland commuters he observed. “Riders came and got into their cars, usually two per car on a first-come first-served basis. I saw partners arrive with partners, kiss, and part. Some waited to make sure that their partners got off safely; others left without a backward glance.” He noted that more than half of the people commuting that morning were female. Two women were walking their dogs. “One got a ride, the other carried on with the dogs.” The scene he was describing, in other words, was completely quotidian: “I saw an original VW Beetle, and a lady who got into it with a huge suitcase, and they still took a second passenger.” Later on, in a coffee shop, Minett was able to conjure his quarry in greater relief. “I’d witnessed,” he says in a YouTube video about that moment, “a community of unconnected people who share a solution to their real need and are not afraid to share their trip with a different driver or rider each day.” It was, he says memorably, “a silent transit system that is based on trust.”… Read more

Hmmm…

Our studies at Princeton suggest that autonomous Taxis will empower high-quality demand-responsive service at a very low price to exist everywhere by facilitating the sharing of rides when and to where there exists a natural concentration of demand; else, lonesome, solitary service will be available to places, at times, when there simply isn’t anyone else around that wants to make that trip. Much like elevator service today, except horizontally from many places to essentially anywhere else. In our studies of spatial and temporal distributions of trip demand as exists today in New Jersey, such systems can double the productivity of today’s cars, yet offer essentially the same (or in the view of some, a better) level of service. This means that energy consumption is halved, as is pollution. Congestion is essentially eliminated. Alain August 25, 2014

C’Mon Man!

(These folks didn’t get/read the memo):

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards: Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communications

“This document initiates rulemaking that would propose to create a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS), FMVSS No. 150, to require vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication capability for light vehicles (passenger cars and light truck vehicles (LTVs)) and to create minimum performance requirements for V2V devices and messages.. “

Hmmm…

Fundamental problem is for V2V to have any chance of working of avoiding a crash between two vehicles is for both to have the communications. The probability that both vehicles have V2V doesn’t become greater than chance (0.5) until the technology is installed and working in greater than 70% of all vehicles. That level of market penetration will take at least 10 years after this is mandated for every new car that rolls off the assembly line. Moreover, even if both cars are equipped, the regulations require only that there be a warning given to the drivers. As if the drivers will know what to do if the warning is given soon enough. To give the warning soon enough, will invariably increase the false alarm rate, which in itself is likely to cause some accidents that would not have occurred and irritate some drivers to clip the wires as some have done with installed theft alarms. Furthermore, NHTSA recognizes that these systems will not be effective if drivers are impaired (page 266).

Given that 32% of driving fatalities involve alcohol-impaired driving, none of these will be saved.

So after more than 10 years of the mandate we will be at <68% non-impaired of the <50% of market penetration of the <??% that haven’t clipped their wires of the <???% that are properly working of the ????% drivers that perform the correct collision avoidance maneuver minus the number of additional accidents that have been caused by false alarms. This number may not even yet be above zero! I agree… NHTSA believes that V2V capability will not develop absent regulation, because there would not be any immediate safety benefits for consumers who are early adopters of V2V”.

Yet, if NHTSA instead “mandated” or encouraged/focused-on automated collision avoidance and automated lane keeping systems, then each of these systems would deliver some immediate safety benefits to each consumer, irrespective of any other vehicle having the system. Some benefit would also be delivered if the driver became impaired. Moreover, insurance may be willing and able to pay for much of this technology. Seems that this is the low hanging fruit. What am I missing here? Why is the sunk investment in V2V seemingly all that is steering the NHTSA ship? Alain

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