A. Kornhauser, Dec 30, Hmmmm...On
about December 2, I became ill with what I
thought was just a cold. I went through the
week teaching my classes, did PodCast, etc.
but finally, at the insistence of my wife
Elizabeth, I went to my doctor at 2 pm, Friday
Dec. 6. He immediately told me to go to the
emergency ward of the hospital. For the next
16 days a team of doctors, Elizabeth, her
father, Laura, Michelle, ... brought me back
to life. On 12/25 I was released to a rehab
facility to relearn how to walk, etc.
Unfortunately, on Dec. 28 my fever came back
and I was returned to the hospital where
they've gotten control of the fever.
Indications are that I'll be in the hospital
for a week or so while they track this down.
Just an obvious recommendation to all... Don't
mess with kidney failure, acute pneumonia,
and/or bacterium
Legionella. All the best for 2020.
Alain
M. Sena, Jan. 2020, "IN THIS ISSUE
Is Chasing Traffic Congestion a Fool’s Errand?
.................2
Should we not worry and just be happy?
.......................10
Rickshaws in Our Midst: Importing Intractability
...........12
Dispatch
Central..............................................................17
Paying a speeding fine with your time
...........................17
Uber has an inadequate safety culture
..........................18
GM sues FCA: More than a family
feud..........................18
Daimler reality check on driverless
cars.........................19
This is Tesla country, home on the
range.......................20
Nikola got the charging station memo
...........................21
Sometimes you need the almost human
touch..............22
A Dispatcher’s Musings: Where Robots Will
Roam........23"
Read more Hmmmm... Another great
issue. Enjoy reading. Alain
White Paper, Dec. 2019, "A revolution may be upon
us; a revolution that may transform the human
experience and reshape cities across the globe.
The early stages of the revolution may not look
like much. But, if the future of transportation is
even partially as it might be then we are about to
experience profound changes in the way we live.
The transportation
revolution could mean:
• Electric Vehicles replace gasoline powered
vehicles.
• Self-driving cars become a reality.
• Autonomous flying taxis begin serving customers.
• Autonomous transportation as a service could
mean many, if not most, will not own their
vehicles.
As we discuss later, several firms are stating
they will have this service in place by 2023.
Trial services are set to start in 2020.
In this report we lay out predictions and the
implications for a smart transportation
revolution... It is worth highlighting two
different companies that are taking two distinctly
different approaches to solving the autonomous
vehicle challenge: Waymo and Tesla..".
Read more Hmmmm... Nice that they
compared the Waymo v Tesla approaches, And,
of course, like their levels of autonomy on
page 5. "...What is
important about Kornhauser’s three levels is that
not only are they easier to understand but they
make it easier to appreciate the progress made and
still needed to be made. Where naysayers might say
that Level Five autonomy is impossible it is clear
that real progress has been made just in the added
safety of safe-driving cars...." Very
nice white paper. Alain
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> UNIFORM AUTOMATED OPERATION OF VEHICLES ACT
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF COMMISSIONERS ON UNIFORM STATE LAWS, Dec 3, "The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), also known as National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), now in its 128th year, provides states with non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law...
The Automated Operation of Vehicles Act addresses
a narrow but foundational set of the many legal
and policy issues raised by automated driving. It
is intended to explicitly accommodate and
specifically regulate the automated operation of
automated vehicles. Colloquially, these vehicles
may also be described as autonomous, driverless,
or self-driving. Under at least some
circumstances, they can steer, brake, accelerate,
and signal by themselves while monitoring the road
so that a human driver need not do so. This act
covers the deployment of these automated vehicles
on roads held open to the public. It does not
cover testing of aspirational automated vehicles
for the purposes of research and development,
which is the primary focus of many of the
automated driving laws that states have already
enacted. It does not cover remote driving, during
which a human drives a vehicle while outside of or
far from it. It also does not cover vehicle
features that merely assist a human driver; even
if these features brake, steer, and accelerate,
they are still designed with the expectation that
a human driver will monitor the road. What the act
does cover is still vast, for automated driving
encompasses a wide range often chronologies,
applications of those technologies, business
models for those applications, and participants in
those business models. See Bryant Walker Smith, How
Governments CanPromote Automated Driving, 47
N.M. L. Rev. 99 (2017), newly possible.org.
Read
more Hmmmm... Very interesting
and useful. Alain
C. Dewey, "... Driverless Ubers already cruise
Pittsburgh. A self-driving shuttle named Myla
circles Columbus. And in Buffalo, city officials
have announced, urban planners from across the
country will gather this February to plot how the
Queen City will look and feel when driverless
vehicles rule the roads.
The $40,000, weeklong workshop series — a
collaboration between the Buffalo Urban Renewal
Agency and the Congress for the New Urbanism, a
national nonprofit planning group — will seek to
future-proof the region as new technologies roll
out, said Brendan Mehaffy, Buffalo’s chief
planner. Attendees will tackle questions both
futuristic and banal, from "What will become of
all the parking ramps?" to "can a driverless car
take a freeze-thaw pothole?"..." Read
more
Hmmmm...
Well.. Drivered Driverless Ubers
....while that is an important detail, it is
very nice how Dr. Steve Still is progressing
in having Buffalo lead the Empire State with
this technology. Congratulations Steve.
Alain
S. Szymkowski, Dec 4, "Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo may have a new challenger that hails from China. AutoX, a startup with funding from Alibaba, has applied for a California permit to test autonomous cars in the state that do not feature a human backup driver, Reuters first reported on Wednesday.
Instead, the
permit would allow AutoX to test the vehicles with
a backup driver behind the scenes, so to speak,
via remote control. Only Waymo currently holds
this permit and has started to trial self-driven trips
without any human backup drivers.
AutoX, if granted permission, could quickly become
a challenger...." Read
more Hmmmm... I wonder what the
Donald thinks about Alibaba using California
streets, traveling public and residents
think about being used in tests? Why
haven't they perfected this technology on
China's streets? Also Ca DMV requires
a remote backup "driver" when testing
Driverless in California. Alain
M.Milller, Dec 3, "Advocates for creating federal
standards for autonomous vehicles rallied on
Tuesday to spur lawmakers to move quickly on
legislation to roll out and test the emerging
technology.
Representatives of automobile manufacturers and
stakeholder groups argued forcefully for the need
for federal rules to create standards around
autonomous vehicles at a forum on Capitol Hill.
The push comes as lawmakers are circulating draft
legislation on self-driving cars among
stakeholders after long delays but with no bills
formally introduced in Congress..." Read more
Hmmmm...
Way too early. Alain
Press release, Dec 4, "Aptiv PLC (NYSE: APTV), a
global technology company enabling the future of
mobility, announced today that its Pittsburgh
Technology Center will relocate to new offices at
Mill 19 in Hazelwood Green. The move provides
Aptiv's autonomous mobility team with the space
needed to grow as it furthers the development of a
safe and trusted autonomous driving platform for
robotaxi providers, fleet operators, and
automotive manufacturers.
Aptiv's local team of over 200 employees will
occupy three floors and 70,000 square feet in the
Mill 19 building. The company has hired some of
the world's leading autonomous driving talent to
join its Pittsburgh operations...." Read
more Hmmmm...OK. Lyft really
needs you. Alain
Too many to print...
StupidSummon is competing with cat videos as
common click-bait.
F. Fishkin, May 18,, "From the 3rd Annual Princeton Smart Driving Car Summit, join Professor Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. In this special edition, the summit's focus on mobility for all with guests Anil Lewis, Executive Director of Blindness Initiatives at the National Federation of the Blind and ITN America Founder Katherine Freund."
April 5, F. Fishkin, "The success of on demand transit company Via is proving that ride sharing systems can work. Public Policy head Andrei Greenawalt joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for a wide ranging discussion. Also: Uber, Tesla, Audi, Apple and Nuro are making headlines"
April 5, F. Fishkin, "Here comes congestion pricing in New York City...but what will it mean? Former city Taxi and Limousine Commission head and transportation expert Matthew Daus joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Also...Tesla, VW and even Brexit! All on Episode 98 of Smart Driving Cars."
March 28, F. Fishkin, "The Future Networked Car? From Sweden, The Dispatcher publisher, Michael Sena, joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for the latest edition of Smart Driving Cars. Plus ...the Boeing story has much to do with autonomous vehicles and more. Tune in and subscribe."
F. Fishkin, Sept 6, "The coming new world of driverless cars! In Episode 55 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast former GM VP and adviser to Waymo Larry Burns chats with Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and Fred Fishkin about his new book "Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car and How it Will Reshape Our World"
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="84" height="148">
autonomousTaxi (aTaxi) stop facilitating true ride-sharing to any destination within the autonomous transit system's Operational Design Domain. The first of what may well become a half million or so others. Each strategically located to be less that a 5 minute walk from essentially any of the billion or so person trip ends that are made on any typical day in the USA (outside of Manhattan (whose subway stations provide the comparable accessibility). Twenty million or so aTaxi vehicles could readily provide on-demand, share-ride mobility from these ~0.5M aTaxi stops. Provided would be essentially the same 24/7 on-demand level-of-service as we do for ourselves with our own conventional automobiles; however, this mobility would be affordably achieved using half the energy, creating half the pollution, eliminating essentially all the congestion, doubling conventional transit ridership and making such improved mobility available to those who today can't or wish not to drive a conventional automobile. This is a MAJOR 1st. Alain
R. Wile, Nov 22, "Sen. Jeff
Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) had just
finished serving in the Army, and was
looking to make a name for himself in
Tallahassee as a junior representative. He
came across a talk given by the founder of
Google’s driverless car project.
He quickly realized the potential of
self-driving cars to transform many
aspects of daily life. Ever since, he has
made it his mission to turn Florida into
what he calls “an angel investor” in
automation policy. “We want to have
policies in place for this technology to
flourish,” Brandes said in an interview at
the 7th Annual Florida Automated Vehicles
conference in Miami, which concluded
Friday.
A. Karpathy, Nov. 6, "Hear from Andrej Karpathy on how Tesla is using PyTorch to develop full self-driving capabilities for its vehicles, including AutoPilot and Smart Summon. ..." Read more Hmmmm... Worth watching the video, (except for the StupidSummon part) Alain
Elon, you sell cars to individuals at which point you relinquish control and responsibility, and thankfully, liability, for that car. Please do everything that you can to be certain that your cars are used responsibly at all times and that those individuals are alert and in control at all times; else, you'll re-acquire the responsibility and the liability. The burden of liability is not good for any business. Liability without control is TrainWreck. The regulators won't save you. Alain
- If you get matched with a fully driverless car, you'll see a notification in your Waymo app that confirms the car won't have a trained driver up front....
- you can enjoy having the car all to yourself....
R. Mitchell, Oct. 4, " Smart Summon
is for parking lot use. But drivers have other
ideas.
Tesla unleashed the latest twist in driverless car technology last week, raising more questions about whether autonomous vehicles are outracing public officials and safety regulators.
...Using a smartphone, a person can
now command a Tesla to turn itself on, back out of
a parking space and drive to the smartphone
holder's location - say at a curb in front of a
Costco store.." Read
more Hmmmm.... Russ, great
article. A must read!
Elon, please stop.
StupidSummon was a bad Valley-entitled
idea before you released it. Now that
it is out there it will ruin all that
is good about Tesla, AutoPilot and
Driverless cars. The shorters are
going to have a field day.
While you are at it
also remove all of the
DistractTainment add ons or limit
their use when AutoPilot is NOT on and
drivers are engaged in driving. Just
go back to V09! Along the way also
get the Automated Emergency Braking
(AEB) system to work properly (See NTSB
below). To do that, maybe you
should take a serious look at Velodyne's
new
Tesla LiDAR. It may be able to
tell you if the stationary object in
the lane ahead is high enough above
the road surface before your
AEB system decides to disregard it.
Then Tesla's may stop decapitating
drivers.
If you don't remove
StupidSummon then at least be sure to limit
its use to the Tesla owner's own private
property by responsible users. (You know
the GPS coordinates of where each owner
lives, so you can geofence it. You also
know each irresponsible use (You get the
videos). Irresponsible use (use in the
violation of the conditions spelled out in
the user's manual) should void its future
availability in that car unless proper amend
are made. If not, then insurance companies
should clearly state that insuring the use
of this feature requires a substantial
additional premium; else, you're not
covered. Courts should view that use of
this feature implies premeditated harm and
demonstrates an extreme indifference to
human life. Parking Lot owners should
install signs forbidding the use of this
feature on their property to protect
themselves from being dragged into the
claims process.
K. Korosec, Sept 16, "Waymo transported 6,299
passengers in self-driving ...drivered, not
driverless...Chrysler
Pacifica minivans in its first month participating
in a robotaxi pilot program in California, according
to a quarterly report the company filed with the
California Public Utilities Commission.
In all, the company completed 4,678 passenger trips
in July — plus another 12 trips for educational
purposes. It’s a noteworthy figure for an inaugural
effort that pencils out to an average of 156 trips
every day that month. And it demonstrates that
Waymo has the resources, staff and vehicles to
operate a self-driving vehicle pilot while
continuing to test its technology in multiple cities
and ramp up its Waymo One ride-hailing service in
Arizona...
The CPUC authorized in May 2018 two pilot programs
for transporting passengers in autonomous vehicles.
The first one, called the Drivered
Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service Pilot program,
allows companies to operate a ride-hailing service
using autonomous vehicles as long as they follow
specific rules. Companies are not allowed to charge
for rides, a human safety driver must be behind the
wheel and certain data must be reported quarterly.
The second CPUC pilot would allow driverless
passenger service — although no company has yet to
obtain that permit...."Read
more Hmmmm.... Be sure to look at
the Waymo
Quarterly Report and that of the other 3
companies: Zoox,
AutoX
and Pony.ai.
Those 4 companies reported respectively [ 4,678;
103; 9; 0] vehicleTrips;
[ 6,299; 134; 13; 0]
personTrips; [59,917;
352; ?; 0] vehicleMiles, and
[
55; 10; 1; 0] number
of unique vehicles used throughout
the quarter. Note Waymo only began
operating on July 2, the last
month of the quarter [May,
June, July]. Note: the CPUC
does not permit casual shared-ride
services (serving individuals or
groups of individuals who weren't
predisposed to travel together).
Go
figure??? Alain
Also note: This is
Drivered Service, meaning
there is an attendant/driver
inside each vehicle for each trip;
so this is actually conventional
ride-hailing, a la Lyft/Uber with
fancy schmancy vehicles. The CPUC
did NOT require "disengagement
reporting" so one has no idea as
to the extent of driver/attendant
involvement is the provision of
the Drivered service. It will be
interesting to learn if Waymo
considers this activity to be part
of its AV testing program and
includes the disengagement
performance of these vehicles in
its disengagement report to the CA
DMV at the end of the year. We'll be able to
infer if that the disengagement
performance is exemplary when
Waymo decides to begin Driverless
service (w/o an attendant, as
opposed to Drivered service).
- "Vehicle Data Recorder Specialist's Factual Findings": especially the charts of "Vehicle drive mode information": Figures 1 for the hour leading up to the crash and Figure 2, for just the 15 minutes prior. It is very interesting to have the precision and richness of data of the vehicle's behavior prior to the crash. Armed with this information, no wonder Elon wants to insure these cars. What is most interesting about these data is the chart of Lead Vehicle Distance (m). It shows that "lead vehicle distance" is not the instantaneous value obtained by the radar but some smoothed out value of { previous readings plus the latest radar value} (else, there would be some discrete jumps in the data when other cars either cut-in or cut-out of the Tesla's lane ahead.). Moreover, the appearance of a stationary object (approach speed = Tesla speed) in the lane ahead is disregarded (or very lightly weighted) in the determination of "lead vehicle distance". (it grew to its saturated value (that was much greater than the distance to the firetruck) once the lead SUV had changed lanes (whenever that was determined to have occurred). At some point (possibly 490msec before the crash, see below), the system decided that the stationary object detected ahead was not a "false reading" but actually a stationary object that should no longer be disregarded. Since it was being disregarded the Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) operated using a large value for "lead vehicle distance" so it began to accelerate to its desired cruise speed, as would be expected if "lead vehicle distance" is a large value. Yipe!!!!! If Elon hasn't already demanded, NTSB should require Tesla, and all other manufacturers, to: 1. The software/logic governing TACC's behavior during transitions involving a cut-out or a cut-in needs to be substantially improved!, and 2. The reliability in the identification of stationary objects in the lane ahead needs to be substantially improved so that they cease to be assumed to be false alarms.
- "Vehicle Automation Data Summary Report": especially:
1. Figure 4, The speed of the Tesla in the last 221 seconds before the crash showing that the Tesla was traveling rather slowly in the 100 seconds before the crash (under 20 mph), but then accelerated (as discussed above) in the 3 seconds just prior to the crash, beginning as soon as the lead SUV changed lanes,
2. Figure 5, the distance between the Tesla and its lead vehicle, showing that the TACC worked really well until the lead vehicle "disappeared" (changed lanes), and"... Data show that at about 490 msec before the crash, the system detected a stationary object in path of the Tesla. At that time, the forward collision warning was activated; the system presented a visual and auditory warning. Data also shows that the AEB did not engage and that there was no driver-applied braking of steering prior to the crash. According to Tesla, the AEB was active at the time of the crash, and considering that the stopped fire truck was detected about half a second before impact, there likely was not sufficient time to activate the AEB." ...This implies that the AEB and its functioning in collaboration with the TACC needs to be substantially re-evaluated/re-designed. Alain
3. Figure 6 which clearly depicts the movement of the Tesla relative to the lead vehicle and the Firetruck in the 15 seconds before the crash. The Tesla's radar and front facing camera mush have "seen' the firetruck 4 seconds before the crash and every sensing loop (1/10th of a second) during the last 4 seconds yet...
Friday, August 30, 2019
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="50" height="39"> Former Star Google and Uber Engineer Charged With Theft of Trade Secrets
Tesla, July 16, "At Tesla, we believe
that technology can help improve safety. That’s why
Tesla vehicles are engineered to be the safest cars in
the world. We believe the unique combination of
passive safety, active safety, and automated driver
assistance is crucial for keeping not just Tesla
drivers and passengers safe, but all drivers on the
road. It’s this notion that grounds every decision we
make – from the design of our cars, to the software we
introduce, to the features we offer every Tesla owner.
Model S, X and 3 have achieved the lowest probability
of injury of any vehicle ever tested by the U.S.
government’s New Car Assessment Program.
... In the 2nd quarter, we registered one accident for every 3.27 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.19 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 1.41 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 498,000 miles.... " Read more Hmmmm.... This summary uses "accident" for Teslas and "crash" for NHTSA. This may suggest that the Tesla and NHTSA are not comp[arable... Tesla is reporting about apples and NHTSA is referring to "oranges". That notes; however, it does seem that for Teslas with and without AutoPilot and the other active safety features, there is consistency in the measure. A more detailed question arises about the equivalence of the driving domain for each category as well as who is at fault in each of these situations. Even in light of these issues and details, the large variation in the rates: 3.27 v 2.18 v 1.41 is very significant among Teslas. Seems as if AutoPilot and Tesla's other active collision avoidance safety features are improving safety of Teslas. The spread from the 0.5 value for NHTSA is really astonishing making Teslas much safer than the average of all other cars. Unfortunately these numbers only scratch the surface and beg for more details. In the past I have called for an independent evaluation of the Tesla crash statistics and I do that again there today. I'll offer to do it. Tesla should encourage someone to do it. As it stands today, not enough people believe or trust Tesla (see below) Tesla. That's unfortunate because improved safety is THE major objective of SmartDrivingCar technology. Alain
Oct 16, Establishes
fully autonomous vehicle pilot program A4573
Sponsors: Zwicker (D16); Benson (D14)
Oct 16, Establishes
New
Jersey Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Task Force AJR164
Sponsors: Benson (D14); Zwicker (D16); Lampitt (D6)
May 24, "About 9:58 p.m., on Sunday,
March 18, 2018, an Uber Technologies, Inc. test
vehicle, based on a modified 2017 Volvo XC90 and
operating with a self-driving system in computer
control mode, struck a pedestrian on northbound Mill
Avenue, in Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona.
...The vehicle was factory equipped
with several advanced driver assistance functions by
Volvo Cars, the original manufacturer. The systems
included a collision avoidance function with
automatic emergency
braking, known as City Safety, as well as functions
for detecting driver alertness and road sign
information. All these Volvo functions are disabled
when the test vehicle is operated in computer
control..."
Read more Hmmmm....
Uber must believe that its systems are
better at avoiding Collisions and Automated
Emergency Braking than Volvo's. At least
this gets Volvo "off the hook".
"...According to data
obtained from the self-driving system, the
system first registered radar and LIDAR
observations of the pedestrian about 6 seconds
before impact, when the vehicle was traveling at
43 mph..." (= 63
feet/second) So the system started
"seeing an obstacle when it was 63 x 6 =
378 feet away... more than a football
field, including end zones!
"...As the vehicle and
pedestrian paths converged, the self-driving
system software classified the pedestrian as an
unknown object, as a vehicle, and then as a
bicycle with varying expectations of future
travel path..." (NTSB:
Please tell us precisely when it
classified this "object' as a vehicle
and be explicit about the expected "future
travel paths." Forget
the path, please just tell us the precise
velocity vector that Uber's system attached
to the "object", then the "vehicle". Why
didn't the the Uber system instruct the
Volvo to begin to slow down (or speed up) to
avoid a collision? If these paths (or
velocity vectors) were not accurate, then
why weren't they accurate? Why was the
object classified as a
"Vehicle" ?? When did
it finally classify the object as a "bicycle"? Why did it change
classifications? How often was the
classification of this object done. Please
divulge the time and the outcome of each
classification of this object. In the tests that
Uber has done, how often has the system
mis-classified an object as a "pedestrian"when the object was
actually an overpass, or an overhead
sign or overhead branches/leaves
that the car could safely pass
under, or was nothing at all??
(Basically, what are the false alarm
characteristics of Uber's
Self-driving sensor/software system
as a function of vehicle speed and
time-of-day?)
"...At 1.3 seconds before impact, (impact speed was 39mph = 57.2 ft/sec) the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision" (1.3 x 57.2 = 74.4 ft. which is about equal to the braking distance. So it still could have stopped short.
"...According to
Uber, emergency braking maneuvers
are not enabled while the
vehicle is under computer control,
to reduce (eradicate??)
the potential for erratic
vehicle behavior. ..."
NTSB: Please describe/define potential and erratic vehicle
behavior Also
please uncover
and divulge
the design
& decision
process that
Uber went
through to
decide that
this risk
(disabling the
AEB) was worth
the reward of
eradicating "
"erratic vehicle behavior". This
is
fundamentally
BAD design.
If the Uber
system's false
alarm rate is
so large that
the best way
to deal with
false alarms
is to turn off
the AEB, then
the system
should never
have been
permitted on
public
roadways.
"...The
vehicle operator
is relied on to
intervene and
take action. " Wow! If Uber's
system
fundamentally
relies on a
human to
intervene,
then Uber is
nowhere near
creating a
Driverless
vehicle.
Without its
own Driverless
vehicle Uber
is past "Peak
valuation".
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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