2016-08-08
August 8, 2016
Latest to Quit Google’s Self-Driving Car Unit: Top Roboticist
J. Markoff, Aug 5, “ A roboticist and crucial member of the team that created Google’s self-driving car is leaving the company, the latest in a string of departures by important technologists working on the autonomous car project.
Chris Urmson, a Carnegie Mellon
University research scientist,
joined Google in 2009 to help create
the then-secret effort. ...Mr.
Urmson has been unhappy with the
direction of the car project under
Mr. Krafcik's leadership and
quarreled privately several months
ago with Larry Page over where it
was headed, according to two former
Google employees....
Mr. Urmson said he had not decided
what he will do next. "If I can find
another project that turns into an
obsession and becomes something
more, I will consider myself twice
lucky," he wrote. [Read more](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/technology/alphabet-google-autonomous-car-chris-urmson.html)Hmmm...Very
unfortunate. What a great job
he has done. All the best. Alain
HERE appoints Ralf Herrtwich as Head of Automotive Business Group
Press Release, July 28, “HERE, the location cloud company, today announced that it has appointed Ralf Herrtwich to lead the company’s fast-growing Automotive Business Group.
In his role, Herrtwich will focus
on bringing the power of HERE's Open
Location Platform into vehicles as
well as accelerating the deployment
of location technologies to support
autonomous driving.
He will start at HERE in the
position of Senior Vice President
and member of the HERE leadership
team on October 1. [Read more](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/technology/alphabet-google-autonomous-car-chris-urmson.html)Hmmm...Very
unfortunate for Daimler. What a
great job he has done. All the
best at HERE. Alain
###
How $600 In Auto Safety Features Could Save Up To $202 Billion In Crash Costs
A. Ohnsman, July 20, “researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say widespread adoption of some of the building-block technologies needed for fully autonomous vehicles, short of the artificial intelligence, steering controls and advanced sensors they also use, can meaningfully and affordably reduce collisions and road fatalities.In particular, three partially automated crash avoidance features – blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning and forward collision-warning systems – can be particularly effective in reducing nearly a quarter of U.S. vehicle collisions annually, say the authors of the just-issued study. Read moreHmmm…Very
interesting. Also see read full
paper by [Harper & Hendrickson](http://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/PDFs/crash-paper-harper-hendrickson-samaras.pdf). This
is what is gained by just the
warning systems. What
additional savings can be gained
with Automated versions and when
will their costs go down such
that they will actually be
cheaper than the insurance LOSS
that they avoid? Alain
These programmers are trying to teach driverless cars to do what’s right
Washington Post, B. Fung, Aug. 2, “What policies should govern a self-driving car when it’s faced with an imminent crash — and should it prioritize the lives of the passengers sitting inside, or the many other people outside who may be affected by it?
It's a complex question, one that
people tend to answer differently
depending on the circumstance. But
some engineers are trying to
approach it by showcasing several
ways a driverless car could handle
an object in the road.
In a new video, Stanford University researchers show that by tweaking their driverless car’s algorithm, they can get it to respond to an obstacle using three distinct tactics….” Read more Hmmm…Yup,
especially, [see video](https://youtu.be/Ubdnxoob9AY). Alain
Comma.ai open-sources the data it used for its first successful driverless trips
D. Etherington Aug. 8 “Comma.ai, the startup that George Hotz (aka Geohotz) founded to show that making driverless vehicles could done relatively cheaply using off-the-shelf components and existing vehicles, has open-sourced a dataset of 7.25 hours of highway driving….Hotz emphasized that what comma.ai wants to do by open-sourcing data sets like this one is to enable the hobbyist community to accomplish more without having to do fairly basic, but time-consuming and resource-intensive work of collecting basic driving data for use in training machine learning systems. He points to DeepDrive, a self-driving car system which uses neural nets to drive virtual cars in Grand Theft Auto V as a prime example of the kinds of people they’re looking to help…” Read moreHmmm…Very
interesting. Alain
Driving Scene Datasets
“The Oxford Robotcar dataset contains over 100 repetitions of a consistent route through Oxford, UK, captured over a period of over a year. The dataset captures many different combinations of weather, traffic and pedestrians, along with longer term changes such as construction and roadworks.” Read more Hmmm…Very valuable. Alain
Pokemon Go Made $200 Million in First Month - Report
E. Makuch, Aug 8, “Pokemon Go has been available for a month now–and what a month it was. Now, a new report estimates that the free game has raked in more than $200 million from its microtransactions over its first 32 days…” Read moreHmmm…But
how many car crashes has it cost
society? Now even more driver
distractions. Alain
Pokémon Go player crashes his car
USA Today, July 14, “A driver was injured Tuesday night in Auburn after crashing while playing Pokémon Go Auburn Police responded to an accident around 10:45 p.m. ET to find a vehicle that had gone off the road and struck a tree. The driver admitted to actively playing the Pokémon Go game while driving, which caused him to be distracted…“ Read more Hmmmm…. Just stupid. Alain
Some other
thoughts that deserve your
attention
###
Even Uber Couldn’t Bridge the China Divide
F. Manjoo, Aug 1, “Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and chief executive of the ride-hailing giant Uber, often defended his eagerness to risk billions on winning the Chinese market with a simple question: If you have a chance to become Amazon and Alibaba at the same time, why not try?
The implication was simple. Over the
last couple of decades, Amazon,
Facebook, Google and other American
technology giants have each followed
a similar script for world
domination. Like an imperial armada
rolling out from North America's
West Coast, these companies would
try to establish beachheads on every
other continent.
But when American giants tried to
enter the waters of China, the
world's largest internet market, the
armada invariably ran aground.
Plagued by opaque and ever-shifting
regulations and a culturally
abstruse way of doing business,
American companies fell to a series
of local giants. Instead of Google,
Baidu. Instead of Facebook, WeChat,
owned by the giant Tencent. And
instead of Amazon, Alibaba.
That has left us with a divide:
Today, there is the Chinese
internet, and there is the internet
of the rest of the world. A network
seen in its early days as a tool to
foster financial and political unity
across a fragmented planet has
irrevocably cleaved into two
completely separate spheres...[Read more](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/technology/uber-china-internet.html?ref=business)Hmmm...Most
interesting. Also read [Uber to Sell to Rival Didi Chuxing and Create New Business in China](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/dealbook/china-uber-didi-chuxing.html?action=click&contentCollection=Technology&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article)Alain
Introducing the self-driving bicycle in the Netherlands
Google Netherlands”This spring, Google is introducing the self-driving bicycle in Amsterdam, the world’s premier cycling city. The Dutch cycle more than any other nation in the world, almost 900 kilometres per year per person, amounting to over 15 billion kilometres annually. The self-driving bicycle enables safe navigation through the city for Amsterdam residents, and furthers Google’s ambition to improve urban mobility with technology. Google Netherlands takes enormous pride in the fact that a Dutch team worked on this innovation that will have great impact in their home country. See Video Hmmm…Enjoy
every 1st of April. Alain
The Man Who Invented Intelligent Traffic Control a Century Too Early
L. Vinsel, July 21, “On a cool December day in 1925, Charles Adler Jr. stood beside Falls Road, a state highway on Baltimore’s north side. He was there to test his latest invention: an electromagnetic apparatus that would automatically slow cars traveling at unsafe speeds. Adler had embedded magnetic plates in the road where it led into a precarious curve, and he was now waiting for a specially prepared car to drive over the magnets. The magnets would activate a speed governor connected to the vehicle’s engine, slowing it to 24 kilometers per hour….” Read moreHmmm…Very
interesting. Alain
On the More Technical Side
http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/
Half-baked
stuff that probably doesn't
deserve your time:
China Has Actually Built an Elevated Bus That Straddles Traffic
“Earlier this year, a concept for a public transport bus that straddles traffic emerged. Named the Transit Elevated Bus or “TEB,” the futuristic vehicle debuted as a scale model at the Beijing International High-Tech Expo in May. Well now, a real-life functioning TEB has been built for trial purposes, with its first test run held on Tuesday in the northeastern city of Qinhuangdao, in the Hebei province…“Read moreHmmm…See video and sure hope a garbage truck doesn’t come along. Alain
Older
stuff that I had missed:
Videos
that I couldn't find last
issue:
Mercedes-Benz “Future Commercial”
Mercedes Vision Self Driving Car World Premiere
Take a look at the self-driving Mercedes E-Class in action
Mercedes-Benz Concept Car Powered by NVIDIA DRIVE at CES 2016
C’mon Man! (These folks didn’t get/read
the memo)
Autonomous Cars Could Boost Alcohol Industry By $100 Billion: Study
Aug 3, “…Business Insider notes that the researchers from Morgan Stanley believe that drivers could consume even more than one extra drink per week if they reside in cities where shared mobility is accessible. The circumstances would imply more self-driving cars on the roads, as well as the possibility of hailing self-driving ride-sharing services. According to Morgan Stanley researchers, autonomous vehicle technology will go through a significant leap beyond 2025, which will bring greater opportunities for the alcoholic beverage market…” Don’t read more Hmmm…This isn’t even C’mon Man. It’s just stupid. Alain
One man turned his Tesla into a giant ‘Pokémon GO’ machine
Tech Insider, D. Muoio, Aug 2, “The hack lets Jeff drive his Tesla to locations where Pokémon have been spotted and easily catch them on his giant screen. Except there is one minor problem: he can only catch the Pokémon when the car is in reverse since the only camera is in the back bumper. …” Don’t read more Hmmm…Just more stupid stuff. Please STOP! Alain
Calendar of
Upcoming Events:
Sept 15 & 16, 2016 Arlington, VA
Sept 19-21, 2016 Antwerp, Belgium
Recent
Highlights of:
#
###
August 1, 2016
Mobileye Ends Partnership With Tesla
M. Ramsey, July 26, “ A key supplier of semiautonomous car technology ended a supply agreement with Tesla Motors Inc. following a high-profile traffic fatality in May involving one of the Silicon Valley company’s electric vehicles.
Mobileye NV said it would no longer
provide its computer chips and
algorithms to Tesla after a current
contract ends due to disagreements
about how the technology was
deployed. Mobileye provides core
technology for Tesla's Autopilot
system, which allows cars to drive
themselves in limited conditions....[Read more](http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobileye-ends-partnership-with-tesla-1469544028)Hmmm....Very
interesting!! Alain
And in [Mobileye's Short Trip with Tesla](http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/07/26/mobileyes-short-trip-with-tesla/)
: D. Gallagher, July 26, "In the
emerging business of autonomous
driving, even the safer road isn't
free of potholes....In explaining
its move, Mobileye suggested that
protecting its reputation was at
least part of the rationale. Below
is what the company said on the
call:... [Read more](http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/07/26/mobileyes-short-trip-with-tesla/)Hmmm....And
why in all of this isn't there a
discussion of Automated
Emergency Braking (AEB)
technology/suppliers?? There
must be no consumer/regulatory
appeal to AEB? Alain
July 21, 2016
Master Plan, Part Deux
E. Musk, July 20 “…Integrate Energy Generation and Storage
Create a smoothly integrated and
beautiful solar-roof-with-battery
product that just works, empowering
the individual as their own utility,
and then scale that throughout the
world. One ordering experience, one
installation, one service contact,
one phone app....
Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport…
With the Model 3, a future compact
SUV and a new kind of pickup truck,
we plan to address most of the
consumer market. A lower cost
vehicle than the Model 3 is unlikely
to be necessary, because of the
third part of the plan described
below.
What really matters to accelerate a
sustainable future is being able to
scale up production volume as
quickly as possible. That is why
Tesla engineering has transitioned
to focus heavily on designing the
machine that makes the machine --
turning the factory itself into a
product....In addition to consumer
vehicles, there are two other types
of electric vehicle needed:
heavy-duty trucks and high
passenger-density urban transport.
Both are in the early stages of
development at Tesla...With the
advent of autonomy, it will probably
make sense to shrink the size of
buses and transition the role of bus
driver to that of fleet manager.
Traffic congestion would improve due
to increased passenger areal density
by eliminating the center aisle and
putting seats where there are
currently entryways, and matching
acceleration and braking to other
vehicles, thus avoiding the inertial
impedance to smooth traffic flow of
traditional heavy buses. It would
also take people all the way to
their destination. Fixed summon
buttons at existing bus stops would
serve those who don't have a phone.
Design accommodates wheelchairs,
strollers and bikes.
Autonomy
As the technology matures, all Tesla
vehicles will have the hardware
necessary to be fully self-driving
with fail-operational capability,
meaning that any given system in the
car could break and your car will
still drive itself safely. It is
important to emphasize that
refinement and validation of the
software will take much longer than
putting in place the cameras, radar,
sonar and computing hardware.
Even once the software is highly
refined and far better than the
average human driver, there will
still be a significant time gap,
varying widely by jurisdiction,
before true self-driving is approved
by regulators....I should add a note
here to explain why Tesla is
deploying partial autonomy now,
rather than waiting until some point
in the future. The most important
reason is that, when used correctly,
it is already significantly safer
than a person driving by themselves
and it would therefore be morally
reprehensible to delay release
simply for fear of bad press or some
mercantile calculation of legal
liability....It is also important to
explain why we refer to Autopilot as
"beta"....
Sharing
When true self-driving is approved
by regulators, it will mean that you
will be able to summon your Tesla
from pretty much anywhere. Once it
picks you up, you will be able to
sleep, read or do anything else
enroute to your destination. You
will also be able to add your car to
the Tesla shared fleet just by
tapping a button on... [Read more](https://www.tesla.com/en_HK/blog/master-plan-part-deux?redirect=no)Hmmm....This
is a chock-full vision that
sounds pretty good me (and
doesn't have a mention of DSRC,
V2V or V2x :-) ); except, do I
really want to invest to become
a "Tesla (AirBnB) Host" or
simply use the
"Mobility-on-Demand Transit
System" (MoDTS) that Tesla or
ALK or ???? (unfortunately NJ
Transit, the obvious MoDTS
operator, will pass.) Alain
July 14, 2016
Another Tesla crash blamed on car’s Autopilot system
S. Musil, July 12, “The most recent crash involved a Model X near the small town of Whitehall, Montana, on Sunday morning, according to the Detroit Free Press. Neither the driver nor the passenger was injured in the single-vehicle crash, the Montana Highway Patrol told the newspaper….The car failed to detect an obstacle in the road, according to a thread posted on the Tesla Motors Club forum by someone who said they’re a friend of the driver. The thread included photos showing the damage to the vehicle.
Tesla said Tuesday that it appears
the driver in the crash was using
the system improperly.
"The data suggests that the driver's
hands were not on the steering
wheel, as no force was detected on
the steering wheel for over 2
minutes after autosteer was engaged
(even a very small amount of force,
such as one hand resting on the
wheel, will be detected)," a Tesla
spokesman said in a statement. "This
is contrary to the terms of use that
are agreed to when enabling the
feature and the notification
presented in the instrument cluster
each time it is activated.
"As road conditions became
increasingly uncertain, the vehicle
again alerted the driver to put his
hands on the wheel. He did not do so
and shortly thereafter the vehicle
collided with a post on the edge of
the roadway," the spokesman said. He
added that the Autopilot feature was
being used on an undivided mountain
road despite being designed for use
on a divided highway in slow-moving
traffic....[Read more](http://www.cnet.com/au/news/another-tesla-crash-blamed-on-cars-autopilot-system/) Hmmm....Interesting
that Tesla didn't say that the
car began to slow down (as it is
supposed to if the driver does
not put his/her hand back on the
wheel!!!!???? (The
"lane-centering" should NOT turn
off if the driver does not
respond (I believe the Mercedes
"997 package" turns off
lane-centering if you don't
respond to the buzzer :-(
(However, since the lane
centering on my 2014
S-550 only works
if the lane is essentially
perfectly straight, and Mercedes
has never made an effort to
fix/update my software, I rarely
take my hands off the wheel.
The system is so poor that I
can't tell if lane-centering is
just not working or the buzzer
turned it off. :-( )) , What
should happen is that the car
should turn on its emergency
flashers, slow down at a rate
that is proportional to the
quality of the road conditions
and once it reaches a slow
enough speed have the capability to
determine if a
lane change to the right (in US
and ...) is safe or a clear
shoulder to the right is
available. If so, make the
lane change and come to a
complete stop, all the while
announcing to the driver what
the system is doing because
hands have not been put back on
the wheel. After stopping,
"AutoPilot" should then turned
off as should "AutoPilot"
privileges until a "Tesla"
representative resets the
system. If that doesn't
convince the driver to put
"hands-on-wheel", then the car
has just averted a possible
catastrophe associated with a
comatose driver. Alain
11, 2016
Lessons From the Tesla Crash
Editorial Board, July 11, "A recent
fatal crash in Florida involving a Tesla
Model S is an example of how a new
technology designed to make cars safer
could, in some cases, make them more
dangerous. These risks, however, could
be minimized with better testing (Hmmm....Yes!)
and regulations (Still
too early, we don't know enough,
yet)...Tesla's electric
cars are not self-driving, but when the
Autopilot system is engaged it can keep
the car in a lane, adjust its speed to
keep up with traffic and brake to avoid
collisions. Tesla says audio and visual
alerts warn drivers to keep their hands
on the steering wheel and watch the
road. If a driver is unresponsive to the
alerts, the car is programmed to slow
itself to a stop.
Such warnings aren't sufficient, though;
some Tesla drivers, as shown in videos
on YouTube, have even gotten into the
back seat while the car was moving. Such
reckless behavior threatens not just the
drivers but everyone else on the road,
too. (Absolutely!)...
If that system ([V2V](http://www.safercar.gov/v2v/index.html)) had
been in place, Mr. Brown might have
survived. (Sure,
but Mr Brown would have had to wait
more than his normal expected life
span before that system would have
been adopted by more than 70% of all
vehicles for it to have better than
a "coin flip" chance of helping him.
What would have helped Mr. Brown
is if the Automated Emergency
Braking system worked on his Tesla,
or if the truck driver had seen him
coming (not become
distracted) and had
not "failed to yield". )
Federal officials could take lessons
from the history of [airbags](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/01/automobiles/autos-on-friday-safety-when-air-bags-help-and-harm.html)
and the lack of strong regulations. (This is a VERY
appropriate and relevant lesson!)...
The agency does not yet have regulations
for driverless cars or cars that have
driver assistance systems. But when
officials do put rules in place, they
will have to update them regularly as
they learn about how the technology
works in practice. Automation should
save lives. But nobody should expect
these vehicles to be risk-free. (This is very
wise. They should also immediately
focus on Automated Emergency Braking
systems which are the foundation of
any Self-driving or Driverless
systems. ) [Read more](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/opinion/lessons-from-the-tesla-crash.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article)Hmmm....Comments in-line above.
Alain
5, 2016
May 7 Crash
Hmmm…What
we know now (and don't know):
1.
On May 7, 2016 at about 4:40pm
EDT, there was a crash between a
Tesla and a Class 8
Tractor-Trailer. The accident is
depicted in the [Diagram from the Police Report](http://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/TeslaCrash050716/PoliceReportDiagramTeslaCrash050716FrmNYT.JPG): HSMV
Crash Report # 85234095. [(1)](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tesla-fatal-crash-investigation.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FNational%20Highway%20Traffic%20Safety%20Administration&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0)
[Google Earth images from the site](http://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/TeslaCrash050716/CrashSceneGoogleEarth.pdf).
2.
The driver of the Tesla was [Joshua Brown](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ohio/obituary.aspx?pid=179994314). "No citations
have been issued, but the
initial accident report from
the FHP indicates the truck
driver "failed to yield
right-of-way."" [(2)](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-dvd-idUSKCN0ZH5BW) . Hmmm....No
Citations??? Did the truck have a
data recorder? Was the truck
impounded, if so, how is the truck
driver making a living since the
crash? Why was his truck not
equipped with sensors that can
warn him of collision risks at
intersections? As I've written,
driving is one of the most
dangerous occupations. Why isn't
OSHA concerned about improving the
environment of these workers? Why
doesn't ATRI (the American
Trucking Association's research
arm recognize the lack
availability/adoption of
"SmartDrivingTruck technology" as
one of its [Critical Issues](http://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/Reports&Speaches_External/ATRI-2015-Top-Industry-Issues-FINAL-10-2015.pdf)? Why didn't his
insurance agent encourage/convince
him to equip his truck with
collision risk sensors. If they
aren't commercially available, why
hasn't his insurance company
invested/promoted/lobbied for
their development? These
low-volume rural highway
intersections are very dangerous.
Technology could help.
“…(the truck driver)…said he saw the Tesla approaching in the left, eastbound lane. Then it crossed to the right lane and struck his trailer. “I don’t know why he went over to the slow lane when he had to have seen me,” he said….” (2) . Hmmm….If the driver saw the Tesla change lanes, why did he “failed to yield right-of-way”???
“…Meanwhile, the accident is stoking the debate on whether drivers are being lulled into a false sense of security by such technology. A man who lives on the property where Brown’s car came to rest some 900 feet from the intersection where the crash occurred said when he approached the wreckage 15 minutes after the crash, he could hear the DVD player. An FHP trooper on the scene told the property owner, Robert VanKavelaar, that a “Harry Potter” movie was showing on the DVD player, VanKavelaar told Reuters on Friday.
Another witness, Terence Mulligan,
said he arrived at the scene
before the first Florida state
trooper and found "there was no
movie playing." "There was no
music. I was at the car. Right at
the car," Mulligan told Reuters on
Friday.
Sergeant Kim Montes of the Florida
Highway Patrol said on Friday that
"there was a portable DVD player
in the vehicle," but wouldn't
elaborate further on it. She also
said there was no camera found,
mounted on the dash or of any
kind, in the wreckage....
…Mulligan said he was driving in the same westbound direction as the truck before it attempted to make a left turn across the eastbound lanes of U.S. Highway 27 Alternate when he spotted the Tesla traveling east. Mulligan said the Tesla did not appear to be speeding on the road, which has a speed limit of 65 miles per hour, according to the FHP….” (2) .
3.
"...the
vehicle was on a divided highway
with Autopilot engaged when a
tractor trailer drove across the
highway perpendicular to the Model
S. Neither Autopilot nor the
driver noticed the white side of
the tractor trailer against a
brightly lit sky, so the brake was
not applied. The high ride height
of the trailer combined with its
positioning across the road and
the extremely rare circumstances
of the impact caused the Model S
to pass under the trailer, with
the bottom of the trailer
impacting the windshield of the
Model S. Had the Model S impacted
the front or rear of the trailer,
even at high speed, its advanced
crash safety system would likely
have prevented serious injury as
it has in numerous other similar
incidents..." [(3)](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss).
Not sure how Tesla knows what
Joshua Brown saw or did not
see. Events prior to the
crash unfolded over many
seconds. Tesla must have
precise data on the car's
speed and steering angle,
video for those many seconds
prior to the crash, as well
as, what it was "seeing" from
MobilEye's cameras and
radar data.
At no time prior to the crash
did it see anything crossing
its intended travel lane?
More important, why didn't the
truck driver see the Tesla?
WHAT WAS HE DOING? What was
the truck doing. How slow was
it going? Hopefully there was
a data speed recorder on the
truck. Was the truck
impounded, if so, how is the truck
driver making a living since the
crash?
One
can also ask: Why was the truck
not equipped with sensors that can
warn the driver of collision risks
at intersections? As I've
written, driving is one of the
most dangerous occupations. Why
isn't OSHA concerned about
improving this workplace
environment? Why doesn't ATRI
(the American Trucking
Association's research arm)
recognize the lack
availability/adoption of
"SmartDrivingTruck technology" as
one of its [Critical Issues](http://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/Reports&Speaches_External/ATRI-2015-Top-Industry-Issues-FINAL-10-2015.pdf)? Why didn't the
driver's insurance agent
encourage/convince him to equip
his truck with collision risk
sensors. If they aren't
commercially available, why hasn't
his insurance company
invested/promoted/lobbied for
their development? These
low-volume rural highway
intersections are very dangerous.
Technology could help.
While the discussion is about AutoPilot, the Tesla also has Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) which is supposed to always be on. This seems more like an AEB failure rather than an AutoPilot failure. The Tesla didn’t just drive off the road, The discussion about “hands-on-wheels” is irrelevant. What was missing was “foot-on-brake” by the Tesla driver and “eyes-on-road” by, most importantly, the truck driver, since he initiated an action in violation to “rules of the road” that may have made a crash unavoidable.
3.
"Problem
Description: A fatal highway
crash involving a 2015 Tesla Model
S which, according to Tesla, was
operating with automated driving
systems ("Autopilot") engaged,
calls for an examination
of the design and performance of
any driving aids in use at the
time of the crash." [(4)](http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM530776/INOA-PE16007-7080.PDF).
Not to be picky, but the
initiator of the crash was the
failure to yield by the truck
driver. Why isn't this human
failure the most fundamental "Problem
Description"? If
"driving aids" were supposed
to "bail out" the truck
driver's failure to yield, why
isn't the AEB system's "design
and performance" being
examined. AutoPilot's
responsibility is to keep the
Tesla from steering off the
road (and, as a last resort,
yield to the AEB). The focus
should be on AEBs. How many
other Tesla drivers have
perished that didn't have
AutoPilot on, but had AEB?
How many drivers have perished
of other cars that have AEB?
Seems as if this crash was
more about an emergency
automated systems failing to
apply the brakes, rather than
a driver not having his
hands-on-wheel.
Unfortunately, it is likely
that we will eventually have a
fatality in which an
"AutoPilot" will fail to keep
a "Tesla" on the road (or in a
"correct" lane), but from what
is known so far, this does not
seem to be the crash.
4.
"What we
learn here is that Mobileye's
system in Tesla's Autopilot does
gather the information from the
vehicle's sensors, primarily the
front facing camera and radar, but
while it gathers the data,
Mobileye's tech can't (or not well
enough until 2018) recognize the
side of vehicles and therefore,
itcan't work in a situation where
braking is required to stop a
Tesla from hitting the side of
another vehicle.
Since Tesla pushed its 7.1 update
earlier this year, the automaker's
own system used the same data to
recognize anything, under adequate
conditions, that could obstruct
the path of the Tesla and if the
radar's reading is consistent with
the data from the camera, it will
apply the brakes.
Now that's something that was put
to the test by Model S owners
earlier in the week:" [(4)](http://electrek.co/2016/07/02/tesla-autopilot-mobileye-automatic-emergency-braking/).
See video, "In the last two
tests, the Autopilot appears to
detect an obstacle as evidenced by
the forward collision warning
alerts, but the automatic
emergency braking didn't activate,
which raised questions – not
unlike in the fatal crash.
Though as Tesla explained, the
trailer was not detected in the
fatal crash, the radar confused it
for an overhead sign, but in the
tests above, the forward collision
warning system sent out an alert –
though as evidenced by the fact
that the test subject wasn't hit,
the AEB didn't need to activate
and therefore it didn't. Tesla
explains:
"AEB does not engage when an
alternative collision avoidance
strategy (e.g., driver steering)
remains viable. Instead, when a
collision threat is detected,
forward collision warning alerts
the driver to encourage them to
take appropriate evasive action.
AEB is a fallback safety feature
that operates by design only at
high levels of severity and should
not be tested with live
subjects."..." [Read more](http://electrek.co/2016/07/02/tesla-autopilot-mobileye-automatic-emergency-braking/)(5) With
all of the expertise that
MobilEye has in image
processing, it is
surprising that it can't
recognize the side of a
tractor trailer or gets
confused with overhead
signs and tunnel
openings. If overhead
signs (and overpasses and
tree canopies) are really
the issue, then these can
be readily geocoded and
included in the digital
map database.)
5. It seems that all of the other stuff about DVD player, watching movies, previous postings on YouTube is noise. Automated Collision Avoidance Systems and their Automated Emergency Braking sub-system MUST be more robust a mitigating “failed
to yield right-of-way"
situations irrespective of
the "failure to yield"
derived from a human
action (as seems to have
occurred in this crash) or
an "autoPilot" (which
doesn't seem to be the
case in this crash).
Alain
(1) Self-Driving Tesla Was Involved in Fatal Crash, U.S. Says, June 30 NYT,
(2) DVD player found in Tesla car in fatal May crash, July 1, Reuters
(3)A Tragic Loss, June 30, Tesla Blog
(4) NHTSA ODI Resume PE 16-007 Automatic vehicle control system, June 28, 2016
(5) Tesla elaborates on Autopilot’s automatic emergency braking capacity over Mobileye’s system Electrek, July 2, 2016 See also: Understanding the fatal Tesla accident on Autopilot and the NHTSA probeJuly 2, 2016, Tesla Autopilot partner Mobileye comments on fatal crash, says tech isn’t meant to avoid this type of accident [Updated], 2016
Extracting Cognition out of Images for the Purpose of Autonomous Driving
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 Hmmm..FPO 10:00am, May 16 , 120 Sherrerd Hall, Establishing a foundation for image-based autonomous driving using DeepLearning Neural Networks trained in virtual environments. Very promising. Alain
March 25, 2016
Hearing focus of SF 2569 Autonomous vehicles task force establishment and demonstration project for people with disabilities
March 23 Hmmm… Watch the video of the Committee Meeting. The testimony is Excellent and very compelling! Also see Self-Driving Minnesota Alain
March 17, 2016
U.S. DOT and IIHS announce historic commitment of 20 automakers to make automatic emergency braking standard on new vehicles
February 18, 2016
Motor Vehicle Deaths Increase by Largest Percent in 50 Years
December 19, 2015
Adam Jonas’ View on Autonomous Cars
Video similar to part of Adam’s Luncheon talk @ 2015 Florida Automated Vehicle Symposium on Dec 1. Hmmm … Watch Video especially at the 13:12 mark. Compelling; especially after the 60 Minutes segment above! Also see his TipRanks.
Alain
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