2016-05-15

May 15, 2016Newsletter archive →

Chenyi Chen
PhD Dissertation, "...the key part of the thesis, a direct perception approach is proposed to drive a car in a highway environment. In this approach, an input image is mapped to a small number of key perception indicators that directly relate to the affordance of a road/traffic state for driving....." Read more

D. Morris, May 14 "In a preview of a type of dispute that is certain to become much more common, two drivers of Tesla's Model S this week blamed the car's self-driving features for accidents. In both cases, the company refuted those claims, pointing out onboard data that conflicted with the drivers' stories, and citing clear warnings about how self-driving features should be used...

But again, Tesla responded with data showing Simpson had tapped her brake pedal before the crash, deactivating autopilot features." Read more

D. Wakabayashi, May 14, "Apple Inc.'s $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing Technology Co. reflects an intensifying battle over the future of driving and highlights emerging alliances among auto makers, technology firms and ride-sharing companies. The competition to build and provide autonomous vehicles promises to pit the world's two most valuable companies, Apple and Google parent Alphabet Inc., among others, against one another and against the world's most valuable private venture-capital-backed company, Didi rival Uber Technologies Inc..." Read more

May 4, "HERE has mapped London for autonomous cars, ... have used LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology to provide comprehensive data that can be used by driverless cars to understand the world around them....Using its fleet of "HERE True" collection vehicles, the company is able to record 700,000 3D data sections per second, allowing it to pinpoint curbs, trees and road furniture to a 10cm accuracy....driverless vehicles ... will need to have a full understanding of the world around them... vehicles must have access to extremely precise, continuously updated maps, such as HD Live Map. This information is also crucial to the success of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), such as traffic jam assist and lane keeping..." Read more

M. Ramsey, May 12, "... Mobileye NV, has secured agreements with two auto makers to provide systems for fully autonomous cars in 2019, deals that give a clearer timetable for when auto makers believe they can start producing vehicles entirely capable of driving themselves..." Read more

M. Ramsey, May 5, "General Motors Co. and Lyft Inc. within a year will begin testing a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis on public roads, a move central to the companies' joint efforts to challenge Silicon Valley giants in the battle to reshape the auto industry..."

But again, Tesla responded with data showing Simpson had tapped her brake pedal before the crash, deactivating autopilot features." Read more

J. Golson, May 6 "German railway giant Deutsche Bahn is working on adding autonomous cars to its transport network as a way of getting riders to and from the train station — the last mile, so to speak. It's even looking at competing with companies like Uber in getting travelers around urban areas where a train might not be practical. Speaking in an interview with German newspaper Wirtshafts Woche, Deutsche Bahn chief Rüdiger Grube said the railway "will, with certainty, operate driverless cars in the future."...

And the company is working on more than just self-driving cars. It also plans to automate the operation of the trains themselves..." Read more

S. Hanley, May 4, "Babcock Ranch is a new community near the shores of the Coloosahatchie River east of Fort Meyers, Florida. It is being designed to be as sustainable as possible and to accommodate autonomous cars. In fact, the developer expects self-driving cars to serve as the town's public transportation system. "We're really looking closely at parking, the size of the streets, what ultimately that's going to look like when you have driverless cars within the community,"..." Read more

M. Dean, May 12 "April 25, "...Microsoft has also joined their ranks and showed off its first smart car...." Read more

http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/

G. Paton, May 16 "An investigation has been launched into the health effects of driverless cars amid concerns that magnetic fields generated by the vehicles may pose risks to motorists.

The United Nations has set up a task force to assess electromagnetic radiation levels in the cars, which are packed with hi-tech equipment. Sources said that it could lead to new regulations to limit the strength of gadgets such as radar, lane sensors, sat-navs and entertainment systems..." Read more

S. Roberts, May 9, "...The truck is fitted with GPS technology and LiDAR sensors, which continuously scan its surroundings. ...." Read more

M. Wall, May 10, "...The better we know where everything is, the better we can manage traffic flows and optimize routes, avoiding congestion, accidents and natural hazards, the argument goes...." Read more

M. Martinez, May 10 "...The United States Patent and Trademark Office published a Ford patent application for a drone deployment system that would work with autonomous vehicles to serve as the car's "eyes" by flying ahead and mapping its surroundings. Passengers would use the car's infotainment or navigation systems to control the drone as an aerial sensor...The drone device is introduced to the vehicle system in order to extend the range at which the vehicle is about to obtain information on its surroundings beyond the range of any one or more sensors, visual systems and/or communications interfaces that may be onboard the vehicle," the patent says."..." Read more

May 11, "..The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) has announced that the Connected Vehicle Reference Implementation Architecture (CVRIA) and the Systems Engineering Tool for Intelligent Transportation (SET-IT) have been updated to Version 2.2 and are now available at the CVRIA website...The SET-IT software provides a single software tool that integrates drawing and database tools with the CVRIA, so that users can develop project architectures for pilots, test beds, and early deployments.... Read more

A State Perspective

The National Transportation Center, University of Maryland

May 18, 2016

Preliminary Program

M. Walker April 15, "The Beverly Hills City Council voted unanimously this week to adopt a resolution to develop driverless vehicles that will provide public transportation throughout the city.

The program is part of Beverly Hills mayor John Mirisch's plan for a municipally owned fleet of autonomous vehicles that would function as an on-demand car shuttle service to and from any address in the city. .." Read more

K. Shea, April 19, "...The Robbinsville High School student who was driving the car that struck and killed the district's superintendent Tuesday morning was late for a school trip when the crash occurred, according to two sources involved in the investigation...." Read more

April 8,"At this meeting, NHTSA sought input on planned operational guidelines for the safe deployment of automated vehicles (AV). Of high importance to the agency is information on the roadway scenarios and operational environments that highly automated vehicles will need to address, and the associated design and evaluation processes and methods needed to ensure that AV systems are able to detect and appropriately react to these scenarios" Read more

March 23

Reuters, Mar 19, "Ride-hailing service Uber [UBER.UL] has sounded out car companies about placing a large order for self-driving cars, an auto industry source said on Friday. "They wanted autonomous cars," the source, who declined to be named, said. "It seemed like they were shopping around." Loss-making Uber would make drastic savings on its biggest cost -- drivers -- if it were able to incorporate self-driving cars into its fleet....Earlier on Friday, Germany's Manager Magazin reported that Uber had placed an order for at least 100,000 Mercedes S-Class cars, citing sources at both companies....

The top-flight limousine, around 100,000 of which Mercedes-Benz sold last year, does not yet have fully autonomous driving functionality.." Read more

Press Release, Mar 17, NHTSA & IIHS "announced today a historic commitment by 20 automakers representing more than 99 percent of the U.S. auto market to make automatic emergency braking a standard feature on virtually all new cars no later than NHTSA's 2022 reporting year, which begins Sept 1, 2022. Automakers making the commitment are Audi, BMW, FCA US LLC, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia, Maserati, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, Porsche, Subaru, Tesla Motors Inc., Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo Car USA. The unprecedented commitment means that this important safety technology will be available to more consumers more quickly than would be possible through the regulatory process...The commitment takes into account the evolution of AEB technology. It requires a level of functionality that is in line with research and crash data demonstrating that such systems are substantially reducing crashes, but does not stand in the way of improved capabilities that are just beginning to emerge. The performance measures are based on real world data showing that vehicles with this level of capability are avoiding crashes.. Watch NHTSA video on AEB Download AEB video from IIHS Read more

D. Patrick Mar 11,"General Motors GM 1.43% this morning announced that it will acquire Cruise Automation, a San Francisco-based developer of autonomous vehicle technology. No financial terms were disclosed, but Fortune has learned from a source close to the situation that the deal is valued at "north of $1 billion," in a combination of cash and stock.

Talks between the two companies originally related to a strategic investment by GM in Cruise, which was planning to raise a new round of venture capital funding. But that quickly morphed into an acquisition discussion with the entire agreement getting hashed out in less than six weeks. Read more

A. Robertson, Feb 10, Feb. "...Half a century after its heyday, the Alden StaRRcar clearly wasn't made for its world. It looks like a white flatiron with wheels or a sleek, plastic bullet, dwarfed by the regal sedans of 1960s Detroit. It belongs in one of Buckminster Fuller's domed cities, a vehicle for traveling under the geodesics of a bubble-topped Manhattan. Its future wasn't one of highways, but of narrow cement tracks looping gracefully between city and suburb, connecting increasingly alienated parts of the American landscape...

Once considered a key to solving urban blight, the StaRRcar was part of a public transit revolution that never was — but one that would help launch one of the weirdest and most politicized public infrastructure experiments of the 20th century. It's an old idea that today, in an age of self-driving cars, seems by turns impractically retro and remarkably prescient...

PRT's invention is attributed to a transportation expert named Donn Fichter, but the central idea was conceived, remixed, and adapted by many in the 1950s and 1960s. While the details varied, the prototypical PRT system was a network of narrow guideways populated by small passenger pods. When commuters arrived, they would hit a button to select a destination, calling one of the pods like a taxi. Then, instead of running on a set line, the pod would use guideways like a freeway system, routing around stations in order to take passengers directly to their final stop.

The system was designed to be everything that existing public transportation wasn't. Pods would carry only as many people as an average car, guaranteeing a nearly private ride. Riders wouldn't need to follow a timetable or wait for other people to enter and exit the system. Because the pods would only be dispatched on demand, cities could run service to many low-traffic areas without worrying about waste. There were no drivers to train or pay, and the pods could run quietly on electrical power instead of with fossil fuels...

Multiple plans for personal rapid transit fell through, whether because of budget problems, logistical issues, or political power struggles....

And as in the '60s, we're talking about whether self-driving vehicles could spell the end of private cars...." Read more

Vancouver councillor wants city to prepare for driverless cars T. Fletcher, Feb 18 "Driverless cars might seem like a futuristic dream, but a city councillor doesn't want Vancouver to take a hands-off approach to the emerging technology. Coun. Geoff Meggs is steering a motion slated for next Tuesday's council meeting asking city staff to look into the impact of self-driving vehicles and how to maximize the benefits of the technology for Vancouver and the city's economy.

Although the city's transportation 2040 plan, which outlines a strategy for how people and goods will move in and around Vancouver for the next 30 years, was adopted only four years ago, Meggs said it fails to address driverless technology.... "It may be a powerful tool or there may be problems with it, but at the moment, it's an empty category in a lot of our thinking," Meggs told Metro. "We don't want our (transportation) plan, which we just did, to be obsolete before it even starts."..." Read more

Press Release Feb 16 "With continued lower gasoline prices and an improving economy resulting in an estimated 3.5% increase in motor-vehicle mileage, the number of motor-vehicle deaths in 2015 totaled 38,300, up 8% from 2014.

The 2015 estimate is provisional and may be revised when more data are available. The total for 2015 was up 8% from the 2013 figure. The annual total for 2014 was 35,398, a less than 0.5% increase from 2013. The 2013 figure was 3% lower than 2012. The estimated annual population death rate is 11.87 deaths per 100,000 population, an increase of 7% from the 2014 rate. The estimated annual mileage death rate is 1.22 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, an increase of 5% from the 2014 rate. Read more

Feb. 9, "...(3) Accelerate the integration of autonomous vehicles, low-carbon technologies, and intelligent transportation systems into our infrastructure....

Providing almost $400 million on average per year in funding over the next 10 years for the deployment of self-driving vehicles. Investments would help develop connected infrastructure and smart sensors that can communicate with autonomous vehicles, support R&D to ensure these vehicles are safe and road ready, and expand at-scale deployment projects to provide "proving grounds" for autonomous self-driving and connected vehicles in urban and highway settings.

The consortium behind the trial has decided to adapt electric passenger shuttles that are currently in service at Heathrow Airport for use in Greenwich. Unlike the Heathrow pods, they will not need dedicated tracks.

The Greenwich trial is one of four in the UK to test driverless technology and public reaction to it..."This vehicle has millions of miles under its belt and now we have to take it outside of the track and modify it for use on pavements," he added. The so-called UltraPODs currently in service at Heathrow carry passengers between the car park and Terminal 5. In the five years they have been in use, they have carried 1.5 million passengers and traveled three million kilometers (1.8 million miles)...." Read more

M. Bergen, Jan 14 "The Obama Administration has seen the self-driving future, and it's jumping aboard. At the Detroit auto show on Thursday morning, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will unveil a plan to develop a national blueprint for autonomous driving technology within the next six months. He will also announce that President Obama is planning to insert $4 billion into the 2017 budget for a 10-year plan to support and "accelerate" vehicle automation projects.

"We are on the cusp of a new era in automotive technology with enormous potential to save lives, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and transform mobility for the American people," Secretary Foxx said in a statement. ...But here's the part of Foxx's talk that really matters for Google: These national rules will allow fully driverless cars..." Read More

J. Hyde & S. Carty, Dec. 21 "Google and Ford will create a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles with Google's technology, a huge step by both companies toward a new business of automated ride sharing, ...According to three sources familiar with the plans, the partnership is set to be announced by Ford at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. By pairing with Google, Ford gets a massive boost in self-driving software development; while the automaker has been experimenting with its own systems for years, it only revealed plans this month to begin testing on public streets in California....

Google already has several links to Ford; the head of the self-driving car project, John Krafcik, worked for 14 years at Ford, including a stint as head of truck engineering, and several other ex-Ford employees work in the unit as well. Former Ford chief executive Alan Mulally joined Google's board last year.

And Ford executives have been clear for years that the company was ready to embrace a future where cars were sold as on-demand services. Ford CEO Mark Fields has repeatedly said Ford was thinking of itself "as a mobility company," and what that would mean for its business" Read more

2016-05-15

Some other thoughts that deserve your attention

Recompiled Old News & Smiles:

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

C'mon Man! (These folks didn't get/read the memo)

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Recent Highlights of:

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: How we found (and lost) the dream of Personal Rapid Transit