Author Topic: Automomous cars?  (Read 975 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline TwoTired

  • Really Old Timer ...
  • *******
  • Posts: 21,805
Automomous cars?
« on: June 19, 2012, 10:17:31 AM »
I'm thinking the Autonomous car will be a good thing for Motorcyclist survival.  At least, injuries will be largely self inflicted. ;)

And to think it all began with a self starter system in 1912. 

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_autonomouscars/all/1
Lloyd... (SOHC4 #11 Original Mail List)
72 500, 74 550, 75 550K, 75 550F, 76 550F, 77 550F X2, 78 550K, 77 750F X2, 78 750F, 79CX500, 85 700SC, GL1100

Those that learn from history are doomed to repeat it by those that don't learn from history.

BrockSamson

  • Guest
Re: Automomous cars?
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2012, 10:51:02 AM »
It is just hard to wrap my head around totally autonomous road vehicles given the current infrastructure of roads and highways.  There will have to be a fundamental change.  I understand these vehicles are making the best of road signs, lane markers and signal lights designed to be taken in by the human eye and processed by the brain but it seems it would be more effective to have specifically designed unfailing cues for autonomous cars to process.  I am not sure if these cars able to process when a signal is out, a sign is missing or if a police officer is directing traffic.  Just so much dependence on human decision making and processing.

I think we will see commercial autonomy in vehicles within 15 years.  I think it will be in the form of Leader/Follower.  Where one vehicle is led by a human professional driver and some number of follower vehicles behind it.  It just seems the most viable and a good starting point. 

Either way google and those other companies are making great progress.  Each time I read about it I am ultra impressed.

Offline TwoTired

  • Really Old Timer ...
  • *******
  • Posts: 21,805
Re: Automomous cars?
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2012, 11:02:38 AM »
Did you follow the link?

"The last time I was in a self-driving car—Stanford University’s “Junior,” at the 2008 World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems—the VW Passat went 25 miles per hour down two closed-off blocks. Its signal achievement seemed to be stopping for a stop sign at an otherwise unoccupied intersection. Now, just a few years later, we are driving close to 70 mph with no human involvement on a busy public highway—a stunning demonstration of just how quickly, and dramatically, the horizon of possibility is expanding. “This car can do 75 mph,” Urmson says. “It can track pedestrians and cyclists. It understands traffic lights. It can merge at highway speeds.” In short, after almost a hundred years in which driving has remained essentially unchanged, it has been completely transformed in just the past half decade."
....
"As we drive the Google car—or are driven by it—I watch the action unfold on the computer monitor mounted on the passenger side of the dashboard. It shows how the car is interpreting the world: lanes, signs, cars, speeds, distances, vectors. The rendering is nothing special—a lot of blocky wireframe that puts me in mind of Atari’s classic Battlezone. (The display is just one of a host of geeky details—to change lanes, for instance, the driver presses buttons marked Shift and Left on a keyboard near the monitor.) Yet it is absolutely fascinating, almost illicitly thrilling, to watch as the car not only plots and calculates the myriad movements of neighboring vehicles in the moment but also predicts where they will be in the future, like high-speed, mobile chess. Onscreen, the car is constantly “acquiring” targets, surrounding them in red boxes, tracing raster lines to and fro, a freeway version of John Madden’s Telestrator. “We’re analyzing and predicting the world 20 times a second,” Levandowski says."
Lloyd... (SOHC4 #11 Original Mail List)
72 500, 74 550, 75 550K, 75 550F, 76 550F, 77 550F X2, 78 550K, 77 750F X2, 78 750F, 79CX500, 85 700SC, GL1100

Those that learn from history are doomed to repeat it by those that don't learn from history.

BrockSamson

  • Guest
Re: Automomous cars?
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2012, 11:45:10 AM »
Yep I read the first two or three pages which included those sections you posted.  I am confused about what you are pointing out or if you maybe misinterpreted something I said. 

I was saying that I understand that they are able to process the road signs/signals/etc but those are designed with humans in mind and I was trying to get discussion going about the shortcomings of introducing computer autonomy into a playing field designed for human processing.

For some reason what keeps coming to mind is when I go to visit my current girlfriend her apartment complex has black and white stop signs.  Every time I see it I have to do a double take.  I am able to process that it is an octagon, it says stop and there is a white strip on the ground in front of it.  What I realized is that I am always looking for that red first and just that one change in many unique identifiers threw me off.  I am not saying a computer wouldn't beat me to recognize that it was a stop sign, but because of the unconventional decision to use B&W I could see how a program would fail to identify the sign appropriately.  I think what I am getting at is as far as real time processing of data I think humans are still king and with a task that includes so many different variables safe autonomy is hard to imagine on US roadways.

I guess it is more about me and what "driving close to 70 mph with no human involvement on a busy public highway" does for me.  Right now I wouldn't trust it without being directly behind the wheel and brake pedals and being the backup safety system.  I do not consider that true autonomy.  I see human leader based autonomy as a more viable future despite the proof of concepts that are happening in California.

In regard to your comment about it being safer for motorcyclists I am generally going to agree.  I bet the systems to identify, avoid and react to moving objects around it are far better than any human using mirrors.  In my example of the black and white stop sign... or lets say on a public road some tree grew and is now blocking the stop sign entirely to an intersection and the white paint denoting the stopping area has faded (we all know you can't trust the government to keep up with public road maintenance regardless of how much we give them in taxes) I wonder if the autonomous vehicle would be able to identify that it needs to stop at the intersection or if it will be able process an incoming motorcycle in time to prevent it from rolling right through and causing an accident.  Would it be more or less often than a human driver?  I don't know.

Haha, I am realizing that I am just spewing thought diarrhea.  So feel free to disregard if I am not making any sense.

Offline TwoTired

  • Really Old Timer ...
  • *******
  • Posts: 21,805
Re: Automomous cars?
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2012, 02:10:40 PM »
Those signs are probably black and white because they aren't official signs and had/have no authority to put up red ones or enforce the B&W ones they have now. 
Check your DMV to see if B&W stop signs are approved signage.  At any rate, sign shape and letters regardless of colors can easily be added to the computer database.  I seem to recall seeing yellow stop signs somewhere, too.
OCR is quite sophisticated these days.  I think they can even read tattoos.  ;D

An obstructed sign is just as hazardous to humans as they are computers.  You can contest citations if you show the judge it wasn't possible to read traffic signage.  I forsee a "black box" included with automaton cars, which would keep a record of all data prior to any incident.   Anyway, the automatons actually processes more information than is humanly possible, and certainly have better situational awareness and response time than 75% of the human operators.

The article mentions that many auto manufacturers are predicting that auto drive will be standard equipment on 2020 models.
I'm thinking there are going to be a lot of taxi drivers looking for other jobs.  ;D

What I want to see is a test drive of an automaton car in India.  If that doesn't reduce the computer "brain" to a lump of molten silicon nothing will, as there are no rules of the road being complied with by other drivers.  I imagine the car would simply stop going anywhere, as there would always be something in it's way and it would be too polite to barge ahead like everybody else.  Then there is the concept of what defines a "road".  ;D

Cheers,
Lloyd... (SOHC4 #11 Original Mail List)
72 500, 74 550, 75 550K, 75 550F, 76 550F, 77 550F X2, 78 550K, 77 750F X2, 78 750F, 79CX500, 85 700SC, GL1100

Those that learn from history are doomed to repeat it by those that don't learn from history.

Offline ofreen

  • Old Timer
  • ******
  • Posts: 4,059
Re: Automomous cars?
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2012, 07:35:00 PM »
This reminds me of the movie "Idioacracy."  The movie has its moments and is worth checking out.  There are a couple of scenes where the idea of this type of car is explored.  Civil libertarians will not be thrilled by the idea.
Greg
'75 CB750F

"I would rather have questions I cannot answer than answers I cannot question." - Dr. Wei-Hock Soon

Offline Bob Wessner

  • "Carbs Suck!"
  • Really Old Timer ...
  • *******
  • Posts: 10,079
Re: Automomous cars?
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2012, 08:07:15 AM »
Technically, pretty interesting stuff. I suspect the lawyers are going to love this development. More deep pockets to pick; car maker, software firms, etc... the list goes on.
We'll all be someone else's PO some day.