2017-01-13

January 13, 2017Newsletter archive →

News, Jan 10, "...U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. "I'm proud to announce this new automation committee, and look forward to seeing its members advance life-saving innovations while boosting our economy and making our transportation network more fair, reliable, and efficient."... Read more

K. Marocchini'18, Jan. 11, "...The goal of the model presented is to generate the precise origin, destination, and arrival/departure time for every trip made by every individual on a typical workday when school is in session. More generally, the model provides the spatial and temporal distribution for every citizen in the United States. Every individual simulation produces a unique trip file that contains an individualized, probabilistic record of every person-trip on an average weekday, which is expected to total to just over 1 billion trips. Each record includes every trip the person makes including spatial coordinates of the origins and destinations as well as the exact departure and arrival times in seconds after midnight. Files also contain pointers that indicate individual characteristics about a given person, including income, household location, familial status, etc...." Read more

J. Mannes, Jan 11, "...One of the biggest advantages of training off of a virtual environment is that its primed for harvesting labeled data. Objects in GTA V, whether traffic signs or cyclists, can easily be bounded and analyzed... One Princeton student, Artur Filipowicz'17, specifically made use of this to collect 1.4 million images of stop signs in a variety of conditions to predict the chance a given intersection will have a sign present and to estimate the distance to the given sign.... Read more

W. Knight, Jan 12, "The computers that control self-driving cars are gaining valuable knowledge about the real world in some surprising ways—including browsing online maps and playing video games.

Researchers at Princeton University recently developed a computer vision and mapping system that gathered useful information about the physical properties of roads by studying Google Street View and comparing the scenes to the information provided in open-source mapping data. This allowed it to, for example, learn where the edges of an intersection should be based on images captured by Google's mapping cars.

In separate work revealed Wednesday, researchers at Open-air, a nonprofit focused on fundamental AI research, created a way to have software agents learn driving strategy by experimenting in the video game Grand Theft Auto V, through a platform known as Universe. ..." Read more

Mary E. Peters, former USDoT Secretary, Jan 7. "...But holding back technology until we are absolutely sure everything is 110 percent safe isn't going to reduce traffic fatalities. It is going to encourage them. That's because while we wait years for regulators to catch up to innovators, tens of thousands of Americans will continue to die in their cars, the victims of human-caused traffic crashes... " Read more

Mike Jellen, President, Velodyne, Jan 7. "Velodyne LiDAR" Read more

D. Etherington, Jan 8, "...How Nvidia won: Of the two, Nvidia had a much more direct presence; the GPU-maker's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang had the opening keynote, and packed a lot of news into the three-part presentation. Nvidia also had its own showfloor presences, including a self-driving car demonstration featuring BB8, its own test car, and an Audi Q7 equipped with the same software and hardware that could also drive itself, with no human behind the wheel...." Read more

H. Tabuchim Jan 12, "The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Fiat Chrysler of installing secret software that allowed more than 100,000 of its diesel vehicles to emit pollutants above legal levels.

The case has echoes of one against Volkswagen, which on Wednesday pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy as part of a widespread emissions-cheating scheme. In both cases, the government focused on software in vehicles that can adjust emissions levels.... Ms. Giles stopped short of describing the software as a so-called defeat device of the sort used by Volkswagen to cheat on diesel emissions tests. But she said there was no doubt that Fiat Chrysler's software "is contributing to illegal pollution.".....

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Fiat Chrysler, mounted an impassioned defense, denying that the company had intentionally broken the law. "There's not a guy" at the automaker "who would try something as stupid" as cheating on emissions tests, he said on a call with reporters. "We don't belong to a class of criminals," Mr. Marchionne said. "We have done, in our view, nothing that is illegal." Read more

Jan 13, Navya and Keolis join forces to create NAVLY, the very first public transport service operated by an autonomous electric vehicle. See Video

A. Webb, Jan 3, "Faraday Future staked its claim to the world's fastest electric car with its FF91 production model, showing footage of it outracing Tesla Motors Inc.'s Model S in a glitzy event in Las Vegas.

The startup electric-car maker backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting is counting on its debut offering to drum up support from investors, many of whom had been invited to the Las Vegas presentation. The FF91 can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 2.39 seconds, according to the company. That compares with 2.5 seconds for Tesla's Model S P100D in its fastest 'Ludicrous' mode..." Read more

K. Korosec, Jan 7, "Mercedes-Benz says it will roll out a production vehicle in the next 12 months powered by Nvidia's artificial intelligence computer, just days after the U.S. chipmaker announced a partnership German Audi to use the same platform.

Both announcements were made during CES, the annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. However, the end products will likely be very different. Audi says it will use the Nvidia AI computer to bring autonomous vehicles to the road by 2020...." Read more

T. Guarriello, Jan 5 Episode 26 Podcast

thoughts that deserve your attention

P. McCarthy, Jan 10, "More bad news for the drone industry as French-based manufacturer Parrot is laying off a third of their drone division. Following a massive drop in fourth-quarter earnings, Parrot said they missed their target by about 100 million euros (~105,000 USD) with their drone revenue generating about 60 million euros between commercial and consumer.

These distressed sales come as a surprise after the healthy reports that drone sales more than doubled since the beginning of 2015. However, even holiday sales couldn't help the Parrot overcome the 50% market stranglehold DJI holds on U.S. sales...." Read more

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

probably doesn't deserve your time

S. Lehto, Jan 11, "... I'm skeptical. Not just because I remember all those promises of jet packs and flying cars, but because I'm a lawyer. And I can sense impending litigation the way a retired NFL lineman can sense a coming thunderstorm from the pain in his knees..." Read more

folks didn't get/read the memo)

of Upcoming Events:

Orf467F16 Final Project Symposium

10:00am -> 2:00pm

Saturday, January 14, 2017

101 Sherrerd Hall

Princeton University

January 8, 2017

Data Encryption:

Tuesday, Jan 10, 2:15 - 3:15 Marriott Marquis, Marquis Ballroom Salon 15 (M2) (Panel Discussion)

What Apple's Attempt to Keep the "Back Door" Locked Means for Transportation

January 4, 2017

M. Sena, Jan. 5, "In This Issue:

Report from Dispatch Central 1 "...While the 12 million people in the EU who earn their livings directly from the automotive industry are delighted by the news that car sales figures for Novem-ber were up significantly, and it looks like 2016 will be another banner year, there are people in governments doing everything in their power to make both building and owning motorized vehicles economically unviable..." Read more

Autonomous Driving News Apple's Letter to NHTSA 1 "...The Vehicle Safety Act requires companies to certify vehicles to the FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) before first sale. But this law applies to new motor vehicles intended for sale to the public, and by implication, by companies that make and sell cars, not companies like Apple that may or may not intend to sell cars. Further, FAST Act2 specifically allows car makers, but not non-car makers, to test on public roads without requiring ex-emptions from FMVSS...Read more "

What Car Companies Are Doing 2 "...So Uber must have made Volvo a pretty sweet offer when it gets rid of all the drivers with their own cars and has its own fleet of driverless cars...Read more"

Reurbanization or Spreading the Sprawl 3 "...Where do you want to go? My chart below has two opposing scenarios. In the top scenario, we keep doing what we have been doing. In the bottom sce-nario, we try to match policies with desired results. You choose...Read more"

traffic information is useless..Read more"

Musings of a Dispatcher – Civilis cogitationes 6 "...I did not see a lot of people cycling to their jobs when I was in Västerås in the early autumn of this year. Like most places in Europe

and the U.S., when cars became affordable for people with even modest incomes—starting in the 50s in the U.S. and in the 60s in Europe—it was a delight for workers to get out of the rain and snow and into their own car. It's the same today in emerging markets, especially China,.." Read more

December 24, 2016

J. Golson, Dec 19, "Chrysler has completed the 100 autonomous Pacifica minivans that will join the Waymo (née Google) fleet in early 2017. The vans, which are plug-in hybrid variants with Waymo's self-driving hardware and software built in, are part of a partnership between Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and Waymo that was announced earlier this year.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik said last week that his company is not interested in "making better cars." Instead, it wants to make "better drivers."..."

December 18, 2016

J. Bhuiyah, Dec 14, "...In a letter addressed to Anthony Levandowski, the co-founder of Otto and now head of Uber's self-driving unit, the California DMV demanded that the ride-hail company stop operating its fleet of self-driving cars..." Read more

December 14, 2016

A. Hawkins, Dec 13, "Today, Google announced that it would be spinning off its six-year-old self-driving project into a standalone business called Waymo, which stands for "a new way forward in mobility," according to John Krafcik, the CEO of the new company.

It was previously reported that Google would be dropping its plan to build its own vehicle without steering wheels and pedals, instead focusing on creating the self-driving technology that can be installed in third-party vehicles. Krafcik didn't provide much clarity there, but did state definitively that the new company was still fully committed to fully autonomous vehicle technology.

"We are all in, 100 percent, on Level Four and Level Five fully driverless solutions," he said.

Krafcik didn't comment on a report in Bloomberg that Google would be starting its own ride-sharing service in partnership with Fiat Chrysler using the Italian car maker's Pacifica minivans as its fleet of self-driving taxis. Google and FCA announced their collaboration earlier this year. Krafcik did confirm that the self-driving Pacificas were still in the build phase, but would hopefully be on the road for testing very soon.

It may be too soon to say that Google is abandoning its plans to build it's own fleet of driverless cars, without steering wheels and pedals. That said, Krafcik made it clear that Waymo "is not a car company, there's been some confusion on that point. We're not in business of making better cars, we're in the business of making better drivers."...Read more

R. Mitchell, Dec 6, "Silicon Valley voted heavily for Hillary Clinton, but companies working on driverless cars seem overjoyed with President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Transportation secretary, Elaine Chao. Chao will wield great power over how driverless cars and other automated vehicles will be regulated — or not....Industry insiders say they don't want Chao to ignore driverless car policy....

Instead, they hope to avoid a patchwork of differing and conflicting rules across the 50 states. "This should be centralized," said Alain L. Kornhauser, director of the transportation program at Princeton University and an autonomous vehicle expert, "but that doesn't mean the states don't play a part. It would be better if we had a common understanding...." Read more

November 20, 2016

J, Yoshida, Nov 15, "...Qualcomm's pending takeover of NXP Semiconductors isn't making the path to V2X any clearer.

NXP remains a staunch advocate for DSRC-based V2X (as demonstrated via truck platooning on Munich roads last week during Electronica). Qualcomm, a leading voice and force behind the progress of the cellular standards, is sticking to its cellular radio technology-based V2X evolution...We see this as a continued cellular revolution with new elements coming in... " Read more

October 27, 2016

B. Grush, Oct. 2016, "Two contradictory stories about our transportation infrastructure are currently in circulation. One is that Ontario's aging, inadequate and congested infrastructure is perennially unable to catch up with a growing and sprawling GTHA. The other is that vehicle automation will soon dramatically multiply current road capacity by enabling narrower lanes, shorter headways and coordinated streams of connected vehicles to pass through intersections without traffic signals to impede flow.

Since the premature forecast of peak car in 2008 and now the hype surrounding the automated vehicle, we are often told that we have enough road capacity; that shared robotic taxis will optimize our trips, reduce congestion, and largely eliminate the need for parking. This advice implies we need wait only a few short years to experience relief from our current infrastructure problems given by decades of under-investment in transportation infrastructure.

This is wishful thinking. Vehicle automation will give rise to two different emerging markets: semi-automated vehicles for household consumption and fully automated vehicles for public service such as robo-taxi and robo-transit. These two vehicle types will develop in parallel to serve different social markets. They will compete for both riders and infrastructure. The purpose of this report is to look at why and how government agencies and public interest groups can and should influence the preferred types and deployment of automated vehicles and the implication of related factors for planning..." Read more

October 7, 2016

D. Victor, Oct. 5, "Traffic deaths in the United States rose 10.4 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2015, maintaining a steady climb....

The numbers were released on Wednesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which noted that Americans drove about 50.5 billion more miles in the first six months of 2016 than in the first half of 2015, an increase of 3.3 percent....Officials have not identified a specific cause for the most recent increase... " Read more

September 2016, "Executive Summary...For DOT, the excitement around highly automated vehicles (HAVs) starts with safety. (p5)

...The development of advanced automated vehicle safety technologies, including fully self-driving cars, may prove to be the greatest personal transportation revolution since the popularization of the personal automobile nearly a century ago. (p5)

...The benefits don't stop with safety. Innovations have the potential to transform personal mobility and open doors to people and communities. (p5)

...The remarkable speed with which increasingly complex HAVs are evolving challenges DOT to take new approaches that ensure these technologies are safely introduced (i.e., do not introduce significant new safety risks), provide safety benefits today, and achieve their full safety potential in the future. (p6)

"...we divide the task of facilitating the safe introduction and deployment (...defines "deployment" as the operation of an HAV by members of the public who are not the employees or agents of the designer, developer, or manufacturer of that HAV.) of HAVs into four sections:(p6)

"...1. Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles (p6)..."

"...2. Model State Policy (p7) The Model State Policy confirms that States retain their traditional responsibilities...but... The shared objective is to ensure the establishment of a consistent national framework rather than a patchwork of incompatible laws..."

"...3. NHTSA Current Regulatory Tools (p7) ... This document provides instructions, practical guidance, and assistance to entities seeking to employ those tools. Furthermore, NHTSA has streamlined its review process and is committing to..."

"...4. New Tools and Authorities (p7)...The speed with which HAVs are advancing, combined with the complexity and novelty of these innovations, threatens to outpace the Agency's conventional regulatory processes and capabilities. This challenge requires DOT to examine whether the way DOT has addressed safety for the last 50 years should be expanded to realize the safety potential of automated vehicles over the next 50 years. Therefore, this section identifies potential new tools, authorities and regulatory structures that could aid the safe and appropriately expeditious deployment of new technologies by enabling the Agency to be more nimble and flexible (p8)..."

"...Note on "Levels of Automation" There are multiple definitions for various levels of automation and for some time there has been need for standardization to aid clarity and consistency. Therefore, this Policy adopts the SAE International (SAE) definitions for levels of automation. )

August 19, 2016

N. Boudette, Aug 16, "In the race to develop driverless cars, several automakers and technology companies are already testing vehicles that pilot themselves on public roads. And others have outlined plans to expand their development fleets over the next few years. At a news conference on Tuesday at the company's research center in Palo Alto, Calif., Mark Fields, Ford's chief executive, said the company planned to mass produce driverless cars and have them in commercial operation in a ride-hailing service by 2021....

"That means there's going to be no steering wheel. There's going to be no gas pedal. There's going to be no brake pedal,'' he said. ...." Read more

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

March 23

2015

This list is maintained by Alain Kornhauser and hosted by the Princeton University LISTSERV.

Unsubscribe |Re-subscribe

This list is maintained by Alain Kornhauser and hosted by the Princeton University LISTSERV.

2017-01-13

Self-Driving Leadership Summit

Some other

Half-baked stuff that

C'mon Man!(These

Calendar

Recent Highlights of: