D. Hall, Apr 17, "In the race to the
autonomous revolution, developers have
realized there aren’t enough hours in a day to
clock the real-world miles needed to teach
cars how to drive themselves. Which is why
Grand Theft Auto V is in the mix.
The blockbuster video game is one of the
simulation platforms researchers and engineers
increasingly rely on to test and train the
machines being primed to take control of the
family sedan. Companies from Ford Motor Co. to
Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo may boast about putting
no-hands models on the market in three years,
but there’s a lot still to learn about
drilling algorithms in how to respond when,
say, a mattress falls off a truck on the
freeway....The idea isn’t that the highways
and byways of the fictional city of Los Santos
would ever be a substitute for bona fide
asphalt. But the game “is the richest virtual
environment that we could extract data from,”
said Alain Kornhauser..." Read
More Hmmmm...
Well...we have a slightly different
view of history wrt to GTA5. The 'Alain
view' is that Chenyi Chen*16 independently
started investigating the use of virtual
environments as a source of Image -
Affordances data sets to use as the
training sets in a 'Direct Perception'
approach to creating a self-driving
algorithm. Images of the road ahead are
converted into the instantaneous geometry
that is implied by those image. An
optimal controller then determines the the
steering, brake and throttle values to
best drive the car. The critical element
in that process are the Image
- Affordances data sets which need to
be pristine. Chenyi demonstrated in
his PhD
dissertation , summarized in the
ICCV2015
paper, that by using the
pristine Image - Affordances data sets
from an open-source game TORCS
one could have a virtual car drive a
virtual race course without crashing.
More importantly, when tested on
images from real driving situations,
the computed affordances were close to
correct.
This encouraged us to
look for more appropriate virtual
environments. For many reasons,
including: "wouldn't it be amazing if
'Grand Theft Auto 5' actually
generated some positive 'redeeming
social value' by contributing to the
development of algorithms that
actually made cars safer; saving
grief, injuries and lives".
Consequently, in the Fall of 2015,
Artur Filipowicz'17 began to
investigate using GTA5 to train
Convolutional Neural Networks to
perform some of the Direct
Perception aspects of automated
driving.
With
Jeremiah Liu, he continued his
efforts in this direction last summer
which were
presented
at TRB in January. Yesterday, he
and Nyan
Bhat'17 turned in their Senior
Theses focused on this topic.
Indeed, GTA5 is a
rich virtual environment that begins
to efficiently and effective address
the data needs of Deep Learning
approaches to safe driving.
Alain
V. Goel, Apr 14, "Apple plans to start
testing self-driving cars on California roads,
the clearest signal yet that the world’s most
valuable technology company wants to design or
build autonomous vehicle technology. On
Friday, the California Department of Motor
Vehicles granted Apple an official test permit
that the agency said would allow the company
to test autonomous driving technology in three
2015 Lexus RX 450h luxury hybrid sport utility
vehicles. The permit authorizes six people to
take control of the vehicles if necessary....
Read
More Hmmmm...
Not much else to read. What's
substantive is: Apple may actually have
something that they want to put out on
California roads. :-) Alain
A. Khanna, Apr 11, "...In combination with the sharing economy, driverless vehicles are likely to be deployed in fleets, benefiting higher utilization in urban settings. This portends a dual-track future. While sharing and driverless will converge for the 1.7 billion population living in sizable cities, the remainder of the population will also benefit, but largely from the safety advantages of self-driving cars that they will own..." Read more Hmmmm... Some of these questions are hard questions but they have been around for a while. I do applaud the strong distinction between Self-driving and Driverless; however, fleet-managed will be able to penetrate lower density communities so that sharing and driverless mobility potential is more far-reaching. Also, much of the existing public transportation infrastructure can become even more relevant because it can be fed (solves the "first and last 1-> '10' miles" problem). Also, existing public transportation serves only 2% of the daily trips in the US so it really can't become much more irrelevant. Finally, 'connected vehicles' (beyond what cell phones can and will do) have few embraceable opportunities. Alain
http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/
F. Bruneteau, Apr 2017 "....Yet, despite their potential to reduce accidents, these features have been mostly ignored by insurers so far and have had little effect on premiums (p9)...." Read more Hmmmm... This report is not free so I can't link it but this statement suggests that it may be very worthwhile. Alain
Intel’s deal for Mobileye seems
to be a recognition that chip-making rivals
like Nvidia and Qualcomm have moved slightly
ahead in the race to provide the computing
power needed for autonomous cars... Intel said
it would continue investing in the
autonomous-driving industry, a sector that it
said would be worth about $70 billion by
2030..." Read
more Hmmm...
The hits keep coming! Friday..the California
Regs welcoming
Driverless;
Monday... this. Tomorrow... nVIDIA????
Alain
E. Gurdus, Feb 27, "The
self-driving car business could become a major
threat to insurance companies when the
technology hits the market, billionaire
investor Warren Buffett told CNBC's "Squawk
Box" on Monday.
If autonomous vehicles prove to be safer than
regular cars, insurance costs will plummet,
and by the time roads are filled with
self-driving cars insurers like Geico will
have taken a serious hit, Buffett said...
"If I had to take the over and
under [bet] ten years from now on whether 10
percent of the cars on the road would be
self-driving, I would take the under, but I
could very easily be wrong," he said...." Read
more Hmmm...Really
shouldn't go against Buffet; however, he's
going to be smiling all the way to the
bank. I just don't see how the premise
implies Geico takes a serious hit. I tell
everyone that I don't understand
insurance. I guess I just don't
understand insurance. :-(
I suspect that by cars he means cars + light trucks for which there are about 250M currently registered in the US with 38% being greater than 10 years old. Assuming these basic numbers remain roughly constant: of the 155M vehicles sold in the next 10 years, 25M or 16% would need to be 'Self-driving'. Since we are starting from a zero base with zero production, we are going to need to be upwards of a 30% adoption rate in the 10th year in order to have populated 16% of the fleet through that year. So, I agree with Warren wrt 'Self-driving'": "I would take the under, but I could very easily be wrong" Wrt 'Safe-driving, I would take the over, because the early numbers are attainable, especially if Insurance comes on board. Wrt 'Diverless': No way unless they are manufactured by a non-traditional entity that is totally disruptive in years 8, 9 and 10. Alain
A. Kornhauser, Jan 14, "Orf467F16 Final Project Symposium quantifying implications of such a Nation-wide mobility system on Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO), energy, environment and congestion, including estimates of fleet size, needed empty vehicle repositioning, and ridership implications on existing rail transit systems (west, east, NYC) and Amtrak of a system that would efficiently and effectively perform their '1st mile'/'last-mile' mobility needs. Read more Hmmm... Now linked are 1st Drafts of the chapters and the powerPoint summaries of these elements. Final Report should be available by early February. The major finding is, nationwide there exists sufficient casual ridesharing potential that a well--managed Nationwide Fleet of about 30M aTaxis (in conjunction with the existing air, Amtrak and Urban fixed-rail systems) could serve the vehicular mobility needs of the whole nation with VMT 40% less than today's automobiles while providing a Level-of-Service (LoS) largely equivalent and in many ways superior than is delivered by the personal automobile today. Also interesting are the findings as to the substantial increased patronage opportunities available to Amtrak and each of the fixed rail transit systems around the country because the aTaxis solve the '1st and last mile' problem. While all of this is extremely good news, the challenging news is that since all of these fixed rail systems currently lose money on each passenger served, the additional patronage would likely mean that they'll lose even more money in the future. :-( Alain
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 Hmmm...Bravo! The Key Findings & Recommendations are excellent. This is an excellent report (but it largely misses goods movement.) Especially 5.1 (read 'semi-autonomous' as 'Self-driving' and 'full-automation' as 'Driverless'. My view: Driverless may well be at the heals of Self-driving because it is a business play rather than a consumer play. Driverless will be ordered by the hundreds or thousands rather than individually.) and, of course Ch 10: Ownership (the business model) is more important than technology. Alain
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) Hmmm...Fantastic statements and I appreciate that the fundamental basis and motivator is SAFETY. We all have recognized safety as a necessary condition that must be satisfied if this technology is to be successful. (unfortunately it is not a sufficient condition, (in a pure math context)). This policy statement appropriately reaffirms this necessary condition. Alain
"...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) Hmmm...Perfect! Alain
"...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..." Hmmm...
Well done. Alain
"...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..." Hmmm... Excellent. Alain
"...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)..." Hmmm... Yes. Alain
"...I. Vehicle
Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles
(p11) A. Guidance: if a vehicle is compliant
within the existing FMVSS regulatory framework
and maintains a conventional vehicle design,
there is currently no specific federal legal
barrier to an HAV being offered for
sale.(footnote 7) However,
manufacturers and other entities designing new
automated vehicle systems
are subject to NHTSA’s defects, recall and
enforcement authority. (footnote 8) . and the "15
Cross-cutting Areas of Guidance"
p17)
In sum
this is a very good document and displays
just how far DoT policy has come from
promoting v2v, DSRC and centralized
control, "connected", focus to creating
an environment focused on individual
vehicles that responsibly take care of
themselves. Kudos to Secretary Foxx for
this 180 degree policy turn focused on
safety. Once done correctly, the HAV
will yield the early safety benefits that
will stimulate continued improvements
that, in turn, will yield the great
mobility, environmental and
quality-of-life benefits afforded by
driverless mobility.
What are not addressed are commercial trucking and buses/mass transit. NHTSA is auto focused, so maybe FMCSA is preparing similar guidelines. FTA (Federal Transit Administration) seems nowhere in sight. Alain
Hmmm...What we know now (and don't know):