2014-11-08

November 08, 2014Newsletter archive →

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

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 October 23, 2014 "Draft Guidance Is Available for Review: The FHWA plans to produce deployment guidance in 2015 on connected vehicles for transportation infrastructure owners/operators.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 Interested parties may provide comments on the initial draft guidance through November 14, 2014....Review source materials and provide comments at: http://www.its.dot.gov/meetings/v2i_feedback.htm, by Friday, November 14, 2014.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

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

November 5, 2014 Conference Presentations Alain's Presentation "Efforts to Advance SmartDrivingCars in New Jersey"

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

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 (

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December 15 -16, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.. "

2014-11-08

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

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October 31, 2014