5.33-Greenville-100617

FHWA Awards $4 Million Grant to South Carolina’s Greenville County for Automated Taxi Shuttles

Press Release, Oct 4, "Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) officials today awarded a $4 million Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment (ATCMTD) grant to South Carolina’s Greenville County for its automated taxis.

“Technology is the future of U.S. transportation,” said Acting Federal Highway Administrator Brandye L. Hendrickson. “These funds will help Greenville County lead the nation into a future with more driverless vehicles, which will improve mobility for some and reduce traffic congestion for all.”

County officials will use the funds to deploy an integrated system of “taxi-shuttles,” known locally as “A-Taxis,” on public roads. These are driverless taxis providing shuttle service to and from employment centers–expected to improve access to transportation for disadvantaged and mobility-impaired residents…" Read more Hmmmm… Wow!! FHWA is actually going to fund aTaxis!!!  Congratulations, Fred Payne!  This is a non-trivial achievement.  Alain

  Changing driving laws to support automated vehicles: Discussion Paper

National Transport Commission, Oct 2017, "This discussion paper seeks feedback on how driving laws should provide for the public deployment of automated vehicles, new legal obligations that may be required, and the establishment of legal obligations for automated driving system entities. …" Read more Hmmmm… Very thoughtful Discussion Paper on a very important topic.  Many driving laws were written in a way so as to get people to behave appropriately.  Getting an algorithm to behave appropriately is, in many cases, very different.  For example, explicit speed limits will be adhered to a upper limits rather than lower bounds.  For people, there is a real expectation that they’ll "game’ or "cheat".  Similarly, a human may need to come to a complete stop at an intersection to be certain that there is no one else coming; whereas an algorithm with sensors may know no one is coming even before reaching the intersection.  There is no need for it to come to a complete stop.  It already knows that the coast is clear; etc.  We all need to join in on this discussion. Alain

National Transport Commission argue drivers of automated vehicles should be exempt for DUI laws

M. Dunn, Oct 6, "IMAGINE you have just finished a heavy session down at the local bar, you hop into your self-driving car and let it take you home.  You’re pulled up for a random breath test and even though you have consumed more drinks than a rooftop session with Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson, you are free to continue on your journey…But should owner’s of self-driving cars be excluded from traditional DUI laws for drugs and alcohol?…Read more Hmmmm…User’s of Self-driving cars should NOT be excluded from traditional DUI laws because Self-driving cars require a capable driver to be ‘at the ready’ to drive the Self-driving car should the need arise.  HOWEVER, User’s of Driverless cars SHOULD be excluded from traditional DUI laws because Driverless cars don’t foresee their operation by the rider/user, just as a bus rider isn’t expected to take over and drive the bus. If, after a binge, you take a bus home, you are not subject to traditional DUI laws.  Why should you be if you take an autonmousTaxi (aka Driverless car) home?!?! Alain

Work: What It Will Be and How We Will Get to It in the Future

M. Sena, Oct., ’17, "DRIVE—OR TAKE A TRAIN—out beyond the bubble that encapsulates any city, beyond the inner suburbs, beltway office parks and shopping malls. What do you see? Correct, farms and forests, mostly farms. Second question: Do you know personally a full-time farmer? If yes, maybe you have a great uncle who stayed on the family farm while your father or mother went off to college or found jobs in factories. Or maybe you grew up on a farm or in a farming community and have lots of friends who still make their livings plowing the land. When we lived in a farming village south of Gothenburg, there was one full-time farmer who owned lots of big equipment, and it was he who worked all of the farmland in the village. My point is that in spite of the fact there are farms everywhere we look outside our cities, there just aren’t that many farmers left to know. The number of individuals working in the farming industry in the EU has dropped between 2007 and 2013 by fully 19.8%. In the U.K. alone, the number of agricultural workers fell from 925,000 in 1925 to 190,000 in 2005…
…Truck, delivery and tractor driver was the number one job in 29 U.S. states in 2014. We are still eating, so farms have not disappeared.  Farm workers have been replaced by machines. We are still communicating by the written word and running businesses, so the work that secretaries once did has not vanished. It is being done by every worker with their own computer (i.e. by you and me). And everything that machine operators and factory works did forty years ago is still being done, but it is being done in places other than the U.S. or Europe (mostly Asia) or by other means (e.g. by robots, who aren’t included in jobs statistics)." Read more Hmmmm… Another very interesting issue with much food for thought and much with which to debate.  Cybersecurity being one. Alain

Senate Commerce Approves AV START Act, Other bills and nominations

Press Release, Oct 4, "The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today, by voice vote, approved S. 1885, The American Vision for Safer Transportation through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies (AV START) Act, which advances efforts to improve roadway safety through the deployment of self-driving vehicles…." Read more Hmmmm… A positive step forward even though it doesn’t encompass trucks.  The Teamsters & organized labor should jump on board because this technology overwhelmingly improves the longevity AND quality of the lives of their membership, Professional Drivers.  See also engadget Alain

Amazon Is Testing Its Own Delivery Service to Rival FedEx and UPS

S. Soper, Oct 5, "Amazon.com Inc. is experimenting with a new delivery service intended to make more products available for free two-day delivery and relieve overcrowding in its warehouses, according to two people familiar with the plan, which will push the online retailer deeper into functions handled by longtime partners United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp…UPS shares fell as much as 2.1 percent to $116.52, and were trading down 1.3 percent at 10:32 a.m. in New York. FedEx dipped as much as 1.6 percent to $217.77 before recovering somewhat to $220.09…." Read more Hmmmm… Can Driverless Amazon TT Delivery Trucks operating on otherwise unused roads in the wee hours of the morning be far behind?  An absolute No-Brainer!  Alain

These minor accidents were registered in California last month.

A. Padeanu, Oct. 6, "…GM told regulators that Chevy Bolt vehicles fitted with autonomous driving tech were involved in six minor crashes in September. Some were caused by human drivers in other cars, while in one of them an intoxicated cyclist was going the wrong way and crashed into a driverless Bolt. According to GM Cruise spokeswoman, Rebecca Mark, all 13 incidents that took place so far this year in California were actually caused by human drivers.

In one of the crashes, a Bolt waiting at the red light was rear-ended by a Ford Ranger whose driver was talking on his phone without paying attention to what was going on in front of him. What matters the most here is that no one was injured while the damages resulted from the collisions were light…. Read more Hmmmm… With everything equal, one would expect that half of the crashes in any fleet would have a member of that fleet being ‘at fault’.  Apparently, everything is NOT equal with this fleet.  One element that is NOT equal is that this fleet has collision avoidance technology.    Of course, it also has what is likely better-than-average human oversight. Advocates for Auto & Highway Safety: What do you think caused a bias from 50/50 to 0/100 ???  Alain

Uber’s Board Approves Changes to Reshape Company’s Power Balance

K.Benner, Oct 3, "Uber’s board of directors voted on Tuesday for governance changes that will reshape the balance of power at the ride-hailing service, paving the way for a stock sale to the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and for the company to go public by 2019…."  Read more Hmmmm… OK  Alain

Cadillac’s Super Cruise is the biggest challenger to Tesla’s Autopilot — and we took it on a road trip

M. DeBord, Oct 5, "Tesla’s semi-self-driving technology, Autopilot, got there first, but General Motors isn’t letting the upstart California carmaker steal all of Detroit’s thunder. GM has begun rolling out its own semi-autonomous system, Super Cruise, through its Cadillac luxury brand.  Unlike Autopilot, which can be used pretty much everywhere, Super Cruise was carefully designed to function in well-defined, separated highways that have been mapped. Autopilot also used a suite of cameras and sensors to operate, while Super Cruise relies on laser radar (Lidar), a more expensive but arguably more advanced technology, although it can’t operate as well in fog, rain, or snow as Autopilot.

Different philosophies, closely linked to GM’s and Tesla’s corporate cultures, have also guided the development and introduction of Autopilot and Super Cruise. Autopilot has benefitted from the Silicon Valley attitude that real-world beta testing is the best way to refine a technology, and so the tech has been out in the wild for years, gathering data and experience to improve itself.  Super Cruise’s introduction has been consistent with Detroit’s more conservative approach: test, test, and test some more. To a degree, Autopilot was designed to encounter challenges and learn from them, while Super Cruise is trying to avoid challenges that could lead to accidents. …" Read more Hmmmm… And look at slides.  Alain

For Electric Car Owners, ‘Range Anxiety’ Gives Way to ‘Charging Time Trauma’

E. Taub, Oct 5, "An oft-cited reason people don’t buy electric cars is “range anxiety” — if batteries struggle to take you as far as gas and charging stations are limited in number, the thinking goes, who would want one?  But there is another obstacle: charging time trauma. Compared with a five-minute pit stop at your local gas station, charging an electric vehicle is a glacially slow experience. Modern electric cars still often need an entire night to recharge at home, and even at a commercial fast charging station, a fill-up can take an hour or more. …" Read more Hmmmm… Nothing is easy     (no really a concern for fleets of electric aTaxis because peaking demand leaves long periods of less than full utilization which will enable intelligent fleet management algorithms to find recharging opportunities.  Alain

PodCasts

Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 6

F. Fishkin, Sept 30, " This edition: moves in Washington, coming innovation from Cadillac, Tesla moving to Intel, Uber out of London, Ford working with Lyft and James Dyson!" Listen Hmmmm… Nice.  Alain

Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 5

F. Fishkin, Sept 11,   "In this episode of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast, host Fred Fishkin chats with Princeton University Professor Alain Kornhauser and University of Texas Professor Kara Kockelman about the news from GM and Cruise Automation, progress in technology and in Washington D. C. and how much people are willing to pay for cars that can drive themselves…." Listen Hmmmm… Nice. Thank you Kara.  Alain

Some other thoughts that deserve your attention

SOVIET FIRES SATELLITE INTO SPACE: IT IS CIRCLING THE GLOBE AT 18,000 M.P.H.; SPHERE TRACKED IN 4 CROSSINGS OVER U.S.

W. Jordan, Oct. 5, 1957, "The Soviet Union announced this morning that it successfully launched a man-made earth satellite into space yesterday.  The Russians calculated the satellite’s orbit at a maximum of 560 miles above the earth and its speed at 18,000 miles an hour.

The official Soviet news agency Tass said the artificial moon, with a diameter of twenty- two inches and a weight of 184 pounds, was circling the earth once every hour and thirty- five minutes. This means more than fifteen times a day…." Read more  Hmmmm… 60 years ago this achievement had a profound influence on my opportunities, my future.  It transformed the teaching of science and inspired Advanced Placement courses in the average public school.  It opened my eyes.  I’m forever grateful.   Watch the next video.  The most practical approach that I’ve seen.  Maybe. after almost 50 years, we may have a realistic approach.  Alain

Elon Musk’s FULL Speech at the 2017 International Astronautical Congress

Sept 29, "This week at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia, SpaceX CEO and Lead Designer Elon Musk provided an update to his 2016 presentation regarding the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars." Watch Video  Hmmmm… Most interesting. Start watching 1:30 in. Update of his 2016 presentation @ IAC.  Alain

Space Council Chooses the Moon as Trump Administration Priority

K. Chang, Oct 5, "Standing before the space shuttle Discovery in a voluminous hangar outside of Washington, Vice President Mike Pence announced on Thursday a renewed focus on putting Americans in space and making a return to the moon….Read more  Hmmmm… 60 y

…She and Dennis A. Muilenburg, chief executive of Boeing, both said there was a need for consistent financing and steady commitment to achieve long-term objectives in space.   Officials from newer space companies, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeffrey P. Bezos’s Blue Origin, called for public-private partnerships rather than traditional government-run programs and called for streamlining the bureaucratic process of licensing launches…

…In a Wall Street Journal opinion article published on Wednesday where Mr. Pence addressed similar themes, he made zero mention of NASA…." Read more  Hmmmm… Which do you pick…Boeing & Lockheed or Musk & Bezos???  I guess you know where I stand.  Alain

On the More Technical Side

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

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn’t deserve your time

Where Driverless Cars Brake for Golf Carts

D. Wakabayashi, Oct 4, "…In the Villages, there are 15 miles of roads where autonomous vehicles can learn how to navigate other cars, pedestrians, golf carts, animals, roundabouts and many other obstacles.

The speed limit, just 25 miles an hour, helps reduce the risk if something goes wrong. And because it is private property, the company does not have to share ride information with regulators and it can try new ideas without as much red tape…
The driverless car would be far less risky than the drivers that we currently have,” said Bill Devincenzi, a former board president of the Villages whose term expired in June….
But what seemed like a done deal hit a roadblock this year. The agreement to offer self-driving car rides in the retirement community almost fell apart when negotiations hit an impasse over insurance. California requires autonomous vehicles to have $5 million of coverage, but the Villages insisted on 50 percent more coverage because it is a private community with more liability risk.  “We’d call the Geicos and Progressives of the world and asked them, ‘Do you do self-driving car insurance?’” said Oliver Cameron, Voyage’s 29-year-old chief executive. “The answer was no.”…Voyage delved into “exotic insurance” policies…The insurer, Munich Re…" Read more Hmmmm…This is some progress; HOWEVER, as is obvious by The Video and not mentioned in the article, there is an attendant on board!  So this NOT as good as Uber/Pittsburgh, Waymo/Phoenix, etc.  Thus, Half-baked!, unfortunately.  Alain 

Central Florida gets $12M grant to test self-driving cars, new tech

V. Brezina, Oct. 5, "Central Florida will get to test intelligent transportation system technologies aimed at enhancing pedestrian safety and easing congestion thanks to a nearly $12 million federal grant.  The Federal Highway Administration awarded $11.9 million to a team of experts from the Florida Department of Transportation, the University of Central Florida and MetroPlan Orlando to test several smart city transportation technologies locally and make recommendations, according to MetroPlan’s news release….

The grant includes four major technological systems: PedSafe:…, GreenWay:…, SmartCommunity:…, SunStore:…" Read more Hmmmm… Seems very light on Self-driving and non-existent on Driverless and heavy on Connected.  Alain

Automation in Everyday Life

A. Smith, Oct 4, "Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence have the potential to automate a wide range of human activities and to dramatically reshape the way that Americans live and work in the coming decades. A Pew Research Center survey of 4,135 U.S. adults conducted May 1-15, 2017, finds that many Americans anticipate significant impacts from various automation technologies in the course of their lifetimes – from the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles to the replacement of entire job categories with robot workers. Although they expect certain positive outcomes from these developments, their attitudes more frequently reflect worry and concern over the implications of these technologies for society as a whole. …

Americans are roughly twice as likely to express worry (72%) than enthusiasm (33%) about a future in which robots and computers are capable of doing many jobs that are currently done by humans.   Yet, surely all use elevators (which are automated, people movers at airports, fly in planes that are essentially automated, use phones without MaBell operators, and use Exel (which has probably replaced more MBA jobs than any automatic system)   Majorities of Americans are reluctant to use emerging automation technologies themselves and express concerns about removing the human element from important decisions  (From horses to horsepower: A rocky transition)…

The scenarios included: the development of autonomous vehicles that can operate without the aid of a human driver; …For instance, roughly seven-in-ten Americans who would not want to ride in a driverless vehicle mention a lack of trust, a fear of losing control and/or general safety concerns when asked why they would not want to use this technology….Americans who themselves would ride in a driverless vehicle express greater levels of enthusiasm and lower levels of worry about the ultimate impact of this technology compared with those who are more reticent, and they are more likely to say they would feel safe sharing the road with both autonomous cars and freight vehicles. Read more Hmmmm… We are still at the very beginning of this technology and few, if anyone, have a clue about it.  Pew should have known this result even before they conducted the survey.  AVs are unknown (and a real one has yet to be developed) and everyone fears the unknown.  Pew needed to do a survey??? Alain

Airbus on track to fly its electric aerial taxi in 2018

D. Ehterington, Oct 5, "Airbus is looking to put its flying taxi in the air next year, confirmed CityAirbus chief engineer Marius Bebesel this week. The schedule is on track after CityAirbus conducted successful ground tests of the electric power system it’s using to propel the vehicle through the air.  Airbus is looking to put its flying taxi in the air next year, confirmed CityAirbus chief engineer Marius Bebesel this week. The schedule is on track after CityAirbus conducted successful ground tests of the electric power system it’s using to propel the vehicle through the air…"  Read more Hmmmm…Do we really need these things cluttering the air above Manhattan ferrying the 0.5%ers between Wall Street / MidTown and Teterboro / Hamptons???

Mercedes-Benz Launches Campaign to Support Warner Bros. Pictures’ Upcoming Epic Action Adventure JUSTICE LEAGUE

Press Release, Oct 5, "This autumn, JUSTICE LEAGUE, one of the most anticipated superhero movies of all time, will hit U.S. theatres beginning November 17, 2017 from Warner Bros. Pictures – and Mercedes-Benz vehicles will join the League alongside Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash as they race to save the planet from an alien assault of catastrophic proportions…..With JUSTICE LEAGUE, we found the perfect partner to highlight our current vehicles as well as communicate the fascination of our brand.  Read more Hmmmm…Same Old, Same Old… And I thought that they were really committed to SmartDrivingCars.   Alain

 

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

  PRESS CALL AND MATERIALS ON SENATE AV BILL (S. 1885)

B. Bronrott, Oct.3, "Today, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) joined a coalition of leading safety and consumer advocates, and survivors and families of victims of dangerous and deadly vehicle defects to call for commonsense safety improvements to the American Vision for Safer Transportation through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies Act (AV START Act, S. 1885). Without changes, the AV START Act would allow hundreds of thousands of self-driving cars to get exemptions from critical federal motor vehicle safety standards and would keep consumers in the dark about the limitations and performance of autonomous vehicles (AVs)…"  Read more Hmmmm…Some reasonable points, especially about ‘Definitions‘, but overall misses the point that the only ‘Critical motor vehicle safety standards’ that would be exempted are ones that are mostly irrelevant to vehicles that crash way less often.  The problem today is that conventional vehicles kill ‘40,000’ every year and the whole purpose of the technology, in particular "Safe-Driving" (Level 1/2) technology, is that it will substantially reduce the probability of crashes for vehicles so equipped.  Therefore, these advocates should be all in favor of this legislation.  Moreover, stating that the NTSB "identified deadly failures … in the 2016 fatal crash" without stating that the truck cut off the Tesla leaving it no opportunity to avoid the crash, is being totally misleading and destroys any semblance of credibility.  How could any "Advocate for safety" be doing anything but putting out ‘welcome signs’ for this technology?  This technology focuses on avoiding the crash, in the first place; not being in denial that crashes even happen and the application of ‘band aides’ after a crashes happen, which has been NHTSA’s primary focus.   C’mon Man!  Get onboard. Alain

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Nov 8-10
Las Vegas, NV
Smart City, Smart Transit, Smart Energy

2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit
May 16 & 17, 2018
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
Save the Date

Recent Highlights of:

Friday, September 29, 2017

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Driver Errors, Overreliance on Automation, Lack of Safeguards, Led to Fatal Tesla Crash

Press Relaes, Sept 12, "The National Transportation Safety Board determined Tuesday that a truck driver’s failure to yield the right of way ( a fact )and a car driver’s inattention due to overreliance on vehicle automation (  a deduction among several others that can easily be made, including:  the failure to yield was so egregious that there was nothing that he could do about it except lift his arms to protect his head and he wasn’t inattentive.  What the truck was doing was so absurd, it wasn’t believable. ) are the probable cause of the fatal May 7, 2016, crash near Williston, Florida…" Read carefully as well as links below.  Hmmmm… Wow!  Seems as if NTSB has decided to use this crash as a platform to weigh-in on automation.  A fact and a questionable deduction are given equal weight in reaching ‘probable’ cause.  Interesting  Probability Theory going on here.  "… Findings in the NTSB’s report include:

• The Tesla’s automated vehicle control system was not designed to, and could not, identify the truck crossing the Tesla’s path or recognize the impending crash. Therefore, the system did not slow the car, the forward collision warning system did not provide an alert, and the automatic emergency braking did not activate. "   This is an enormously damaging finding that should motivate the NTSB to investigate ALL of the forward collision warning and emergency braking systems that are on the market today.  Are any of them designed and do any of them work in cutoff situations? 

• …, highway design … were not factors in the crash.   The turn lanes at this intersection have no traffic control devices, or signs (yield or stop) to discourage the running of the turn. This isn’t a design issue? Doesn’t seem as if the NTSB considered that maybe, because there was no traffic or ???, the truck driver ran the turn wide, crossing Brown’s lane at maybe even 590 ft/sec.

…The NTSB issued a total of seven safety recommendations based upon its findings, with one recommendation issued to the US Department of Transportation, three to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, two to the manufacturers of vehicles equipped with Level 2 vehicle automation systems, and one each to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Global Automakers. …
…Reiterated Recommendations
As a result of its investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board reiterates the following safety recommendations:
To the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Develop minimum performance standards for connected vehicle technology for all
highway vehicles. (H-13-30)
Once minimum performance standards for connected vehicle technology are developed,
require this technology to be installed on all newly manufactured highway vehicles. (H-
13-31)   What???  C’Mon Man!!!  Hasn’t the NTSB gotten the memo?  This has NOTHING to do with "Connected Vehicles" .
…"The abstract of the NTSB’s final report, that includes the findings, probable cause and safety recommendations is available online at https://go.usa.gov/xRMFc. The final report will be publicly released in the next several days.  The docket for this investigation is available at https://go.usa.gov/xNvaE. …. Alain

Friday, September 8, 2017

CONGRESS UNITES (GASP) TO SPREAD SELF-DRIVING CARS ACROSS AMERICA

A. Marshal, Sept 7, "ON WEDNESDAY, THE House of Representatives did something that’s woefully uncommon these days: It passed a bill with bipartisan support. The bill, called the SELF DRIVE (Safely Ensuring Lives, Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution) Act (H.R. 3388), lays out a basic federal framework for autonomous vehicle regulation, signaling that federal lawmakers are finally ready to think seriously about self-driving cars and what they mean for the future of the country…. Lawmakers, for their part, hope the legislation strikes a balance between allowing tech and car companies to test whatever, wherever, and giving them enough leeway to try stuff out, collect some data, and determine the best way to operate vehicles without a driver….
First, the legislation works out a way for the federal government’s rules to trump state laws and rules. It officially gives the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration power to regulate vehicle design, construction, and performance—the way it does with, well, normal cars. States still have authority over vehicle registration and licensing, but they’ll have a harder time making demands about what goes on inside the car….
Second, the legislation requires autonomous vehicle manufacturers be deliberate about the way they share their passengers’ data….
Finally, the legislation makes it a lot easier for self-driving cars to hit the road….
What’s Next?  Well, this is just the first half of this process. Now the Senate has to pass its own bill. Then both houses will work together to come up with compromise legislation that the president can sign…."  Read more Hmmmm… While not a high bar, this is likely to be the best thing Congress has done so far this year.  Putting the burden on NHTSA when it has so much to do with conventional cars may be just too much.  Since all of this, especially Driverless, is so radically new, it probably deserves a new ‘Administration’, a new entity, that has a clean sheet of paper with which to work this technology, much as trucks and airlines have with their own ‘Administration’.  Alain

Friday, September 1, 2017

Automated Vehicles: Are We Moving Too Fast or Too Slow?

M. Sena, Sept, ’17, "ARE WE MOVING too fast to get ‘No Humans Needed’ automated vehicles onto our roads, or are we dragging our feet? The Move Faster lobby says every day that passes without robots driving all our cars, close to a million people die needlessly in traffic accidents.  Here are the numbers, and they are grim:…

The Move Slower camp says that we don’t really know for sure that robots are better drivers than humans, we are not yet certain what changes will be required to the transport infrastructure to accommodate a mix of human and robot-driven vehicles and, perhaps most importantly, turning over our cars, trucks and buses to robots may be just another nail in the human race’s coffin….

… I am arguing in favor of caution…." Read more Hmmmm… First, as I have pointed out many times, the safety objective can be fully obtained with Safe-driving (automated collision avoidance and lane keeping) and doesn’t need Self-driving (automated with a ready and able driver just waiting to "save the day" and take control and drive conventionally)  or Driverless (no one is there to take control and/or there are no controls available to drive conventionally).  The mobility objective (leveling the mobility ‘playing field’ (affordable on-demand ubiquitous mobility) for everyone (including goods) requires Driverless (is not addressed by Safe- or Self-driving vehicles).  With respect to safety, there can be no support for anything more than politically-correct caution because there is no evidence to date that any of the automated collision avoidance systems and automated lane centering systems cause any crashes.  So it should be ‘ full steam ahead’!

With respect to our desire to address the mobility objective, which requires Driverless, extreme caution is where we are (we are still at ‘absolute zero’) and the enormity of the undertaking is so large that extreme caution is all that is possible.   To my knowledge, we have had only one ride (by Waymo) that was ‘Driverless in mixed traffic on an unaltered/unprepared public street’. (and that ride was likely (and appropriately) monitored remotely by an army of Waymo engineers ready to take over if anything bad or challenging was about to happen. So while we have logged ‘the first VMT (vehicle mile traveled)’,  we aren’t yet to even two decimal places of VMT (100th VMT).  Caution is what we have been doing and is the only thing that we can do.  But we must get on with it else we make zero dent in the mobility objective.  (Self-driving is all about enhancing the comfort and convenience of the conventional private automobile and enhancing the existing legacy auto industry.  While it claims, it doesn’t deserve, the safety kudos and it exacerbates rather than soothe the mobility gap between the haves and have-nots.).   See also the other articles in this issue of The Dispatcher.   Alain

Friday, August 25, 2017

Inside Waymo’s Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

A. Madrigal, aUG 23, " a corner of Alphabet’s campus, there is a team working on a piece of software that may be the key to self-driving cars. No journalist has ever seen it in action until now. They call it Carcraft, after the popular game World of Warcraft….Hmmmm…  Waymo’s naming should have been a play of GTA V such as "Maximus Furtum IV". Oh, but that’s our version of this.   🙂 Alain
 
…Scenarios like this form the base for the company’s powerful simulation apparatus. “The vast majority of work done—new feature work—is motivated by stuff seen in simulation,” Stout tells me. This is the tool that’s accelerated the development of autonomous vehicles at Waymo…
…Collectively, they now drive 8 million miles per day in the virtual world. In 2016, they logged 2.5 billion virtual miles…
…In that virtual space, they can unhitch from the limits of real life and create thousands of variations of any single scenario, and then run a digital car through all of them….
…Not surprisingly, the hardest thing to simulate is the behavior of the other people. It’s like the old parental saw: “I’m not worried about you driving. I’m worried about the other people on the road.”…
…They call it “fuzzing,” and in this case, there are 800 scenarios generated by this four-way stop. It creates a beautiful, lacy chart—and engineers can go in and see how different combinations of variables change the path that the car would decide to take….
…“That iteration cycle is tremendously important to us and all the work we’ve done on simulation allows us to shrink it dramatically,” Dolgov told me. “The cycle that would take us weeks in the early days of the program now is on the order of minutes.”…
…The power is that they mirror the real world in the ways that are significant to the self-driving car and allow it to get billions more miles than physical testing would allow. For the driving software running the simulation, it is not like making decisions out there in the real world. It is the same as making decisions out there in the real world…"  Read more Hmmmm… Excellent!! However, the description focuses on the ‘testing’ side.  What about the ‘training’ side?  Not much divulged here.   Alain

Monday, August 21, 2017

Driverless-Car Outlook Shifts as Intel Takes Over Mobileye

E. Boudette, Aug 8, "…Mobileye will remain based in Israel, and its co-founder Amnon Shashua will head all of Intel’s autonomous-vehicle efforts. The other founder, Ziv Aviram, is retiring from Mobileye to focus on another company he started, OrCam, which makes artificial-vision devices that allow the visually impaired to understand text and identify objects…" Read more Hmmmm…  Will Intel really not screw this up?   Alain

Monday, August 7, 2017

Cadillac’s Super Cruise ‘autopilot’ is ready for the expressway

M Burns, Aug 3, "Cadillac is about to start selling vehicles with an autonomous driving mode …Once the light bar on top of the steering wheel turns green, the driver can let go…

“Wait for the green light and let go,” the Cadillac engineer instructed. That’s it. The car was driving itself. I, the person behind the steering wheel, was no longer the driver. Cadillac’s Super Cruise system was driving.  The 2018 Cadillac CT6 sped along US-23 under the direction of Super Cruise. Traffic was light and the weather was perfect. The system held the Cadillac sedan in lane and responded appropriately to traffic. I spent an hour on the expressway and touched the steering wheel and pedals only a few times.  Super Cruise made the drive boring. I think that’s the point….

When active, Super Cruise controls the steering and speed, but again, only on an expressway. This is done through on board sensors and using GPS and mapping data. GM employed GeoDigital, a startup in GM Venture’s portfolio, to map 160,000 miles of expressways in the U.S. and Canada. The car company then used Super Cruise-equipped vehicles to test each mile.

Cadillac’s system also lacks several autonomous features found on Autopilot including the ability to pull the car out of a garage and change lanes by using the turn signals. Hmmmm…  fluff features with little value.

Super Cruise’s IR sensors tracks eye location and head movements. As long as the driver looks at the road every seven to 20 seconds, the system works as expected.  Hmmmm… Fantastic!

General Motors will have to rely on independently owned dealerships to correctly position this product and train buyers on its capabilities. Hmmmm… Yup!

For better or worse, Super Cruise is built into the CT6 like a standard system and not something a driver must use every time they’re on an expressway. This should help timid buyers.  Super Cruise feels like a feature ready for the masses. The system is deeply integrated into the vehicle and using it is akin to using cruise control or turning on the lights. There’s a button for Super Cruise on the steering wheel. Press the button when the system is available and it works. It’s that easy to turn a driver into a passenger. Read more Hmmmm…  Over the air updates?  See also Motor Trend’s view: "… a stand-alone option (as yet unpriced) on CT6 models with the premium luxury trim package and as standard equipment on top Platinum models (the price of which went up $500 for 2018, if that’s any indication)…."  Finally, I guess that I’ll have to go test drive one.  Alain