Robocones

Anonymous Meoward writes "Researchers at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln have come up with robotic traffic barrels ('bollards', for our British readers) that can be repositioned by remote control, thus minimizing a road worker's time in harm's way. Apparently, the barrels can be grouped and positioned by an autonomous 'shepherd' unit, that is also smart enough to also remove an errant barrel from its herd. The barrels themselves are about as intelligent as.. well, orange barrels. Okay, let's cue the more obvious jokes..." Reader zombieflesheater submitted this previous attempt to mobilize road furniture.

Comments

Practical or somebody's thesis?

[grub]

"Deploying and retrieving highway markers on open roads is hazardous so the robots will reduce risks for workmen," researcher Shane Farritor said."

Are there statistics anywhere on how many workers are killed or injured while moving cones every year?
The article mentions risk without refering to hard data so it seems like a solution in search of a problem. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just want to know how they qualify the risk they mention or if it's a neat university project solely for the sake of being a neat university project.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Woogiemonger]

Are there statistics anywhere on how many workers are killed or injured while moving cones every year? The article mentions risk without refering to hard data so it seems like a solution in search of a problem. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just want to know how they qualify the risk they mention or if it's a neat university project solely for the sake of being a neat university project.

See, here's the disconnect between book smarts and street smarts, literally. Have you ever tried to cross the New Jersey Turnpike when dense traffic is going as high as 90mph? Ever play frogger? Having a way to move cones without risk is an obviously good idea. The only thing that worries me is a driver getting distracted from looking at the new technology.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Re-Pawn]

From the CDC (1998):
Among the 492 work zone fatalities, the leading occupations were construction laborer (42%), truck driver (9%), construction trades supervisor (8%), and operating engineer (8%). The most common primary sources of injury were trucks (45%), road grading and surfacing machinery (15%), and cars (15%). Seventy-four percent of the work zone fatality victims were employed privately, the remainder by state or local governments (13% each). In 318 of the 465 vehicle and equipment-related fatalities within work zones, a worker on foot was struck by a vehicle. Victims of these events were as likely to be struck by a construction vehicle (154 fatalities) as by a passing traffic vehicle (152 fatalities). Incidents involving backing vehicles were prominent among the 154 worker-on-foot fatalities that occurred within the confines of the work zone (51%).

Definitely not an epidemic, though it appears that the workers themselves cause about half of the accidents.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Trailwalker]

There is no exageration about the deadliness of hightway work site accidents. Open and closing lanes is very dangerous - there is a small number of motorists who think that flaggers are there just to annoy them.

Some observations from a former flagger.

Every female with a drooling brat in school believes that nothing should stop her from picking up little Damien and taking him home to torture the new cat.

A coworker pointed out that our signs have words on them. This confuses motorists.

Most localities seem to have a tax on turn signal usage. Therefore, most motorists never use them. If they do use them, they are going straight anyway.

Elderly people have tunnel vision. They will never see the flagger at the side of the road.

From personal observation: An 80,000 lb haulers rig will stop a motorist who runs past a flagger station. So will any large yellow machine with CAT printed on its side.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[74nova]

The only thing that worries me is a driver getting distracted from looking at the new technology.

i agree that this might be a problem, but i think a bigger problem would be the workers driving this things around trying to play frogger with them, hehe. i would.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Sapwatso]

What would really be helpful is construction zone signs that could be switched on and off remotely when people were actually working. At least in upstate NY, the work zone signs usually seem to be indicating that work may at some point have happened, or will happen eventually, so why don't you slow down just in case.

Not that speeding in work zones is justified, but I'm sure more people would slow down if they knew the signs actually meant something.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[SEWilco]

From personal observation: An 80,000 lb haulers rig will stop a motorist who runs past a flagger station. So will any large yellow machine with CAT printed on its side.

So traffic barrels should be yellow, with CAT printed on the side, and with an 80,000 lb weight inside. Did you put that in the suggestion box?

Avoiding Cars...

[LostCluster]

This seems like a great idea for spreading out cones in a lane that's already closed, but what's there to warn drivers that a usually-stationary cone is about to move when there's no orange-vested human picking them up?

Re:Avoiding Cars...

[Dr Caleb]

And what happens when you stop in the closed lane - then they suddenly have you surrounded because some worker has a really twisted sense of humour? :)

Uhhh...

[Paulrothrock]

I for one welcome our new robo-bollard overlords.

Self Healing Minefield

[SmackCrackandPot]

All you have to do now is replace these cones with mines, add some pattern recognising AI, and you have the Self Healing Minefield.

Re:Self Healing Minefield

[Araneas]

Combine both. Self healing traffic cone array with a serious deterrant against not obeying the lane closure signs.

Flocking Road Cones

[pararox]

Personally, I'd be more interested in seeing the development of flocking road cones. But that's just me :)

-pararox-

Original Article

[moon_monkey]

The original article can be found here.

EU legislation to follow?

[NevDull]

Will there be a requirement for half the barrels to be standing around doing nothing, as per union rules?

If they're deployed in France, how long until they go on strike?

Important feature?

[Mononoke]

Have they worked out a way to have one cone doing its job while 5 other cones gather around and watch?

This should just be the start

[Deag]

From the bbc article the bollards move slowly. And I think if they worked well, it's a good idea.

But it should just be the start. I want to see whole roads like this. Lots of traffic going to A? well we'll just move some of the roads going to C. I see lots of them like big snakes swirling around the sky relaying themselves so that our road networks are alot more efficent. We could all end up alot more lost, but what harm?

"shepherd unit"

[TubeSteak]

That would suggest to me that it works wirelessly... Maybe someone will bring new meaning to the phrase "War Driving".

How long until a bunch of bored slash-nerds g out and round up enough cones to spell PENIS on the highway?

Lawsuits

[DaHat]

I can see the lawsuits now! Either one of these cones feels suicidal and it moves it's self into traffic only to get hit at high speed... or someone realizes that they are able to move and runs into one on purpose, in either case, instant profit for who ever hits em.

It is similar to the old Q of if we had cars which could drive themselves... who is to blame when two computer driven cars get into an accident with each other.

Drunk in charge of a bollard?

[Zerbey]

I can just see it now... a bunch of highly intoxicated students riding around on these and getting themsleves arrested. Sounds like fun!

"Sir, is that your bollard?"
"Um... no shir"
"Are you a student?"
"Yesh shir"
"*sigh* Put it back will you?"
"OK shir, thanksh you"

(I had carried the thing for 3 miles by this point)

Robots ?

[mirko]

Why use robots when TOYS did it so well ?

What about the physical characteristic changes?

[idontgno]

Normal road cones weigh about nothing. (A couple of pounds of soft plastic. Designed to fly out of the way or crush down when struck by a vehicle.)

Does adding an RF receiver and motors add weight and rigid bulk to the cone, making it more damaging to hit?

It's bad enough if you hit one of the road cones with the battery-powered flashers on the top, but that weighs very little. I hope the folks designing these keep impact-safety factors in mind.

Next step

[boatboy]

The obvious next step now will be for college students to steal them and make robotic traffic cone dorm tables.

Correction...

[D-Cypell]

('bollards', for our British readers)

The correct terminology is 'bollocks'. Also given the nature of the text it would be more correctly expressed using 'to' rather than 'for'. Also, as the US language is obviously derivitive of true english this terminology should also be valid in the US.

So thats is...

"Bollocks to our British readers"

to which the clear and obvious response is..

"Bollocks to you too..."

Re:Correction...

[REBloomfield]

Who in the hell modded this informative?!?!?!?!?

hilarious maybe, although from reading it, the correct British term would be 'traffic cone', but that's nowhere near as funny....

Perfect!

[Tenebrious1]

Steal a few of these, set them up in the street in front of my apartment to save my parking spot. When my car approaches, a RF sensor will tell the cones to part to allow my car to slide into the spot. Fantastic!

I swear!

[Nuclear Elephant]

Officer, I swear those cones jumped right out in front of me!

Bright-orange witch hats

[AtariAmarok]

"In Australia we refer to them as "cones" too. In some parts they are still known as "Witches Hats"."

They are known by this name in northern Minnesota, too. In parts of the country where deer hunting is a real big deal, there were problems with witches being shot out of the sky by accident during Halloween, which occurs during bow-hunting season. The state government forced all witches to wear bright hunter's-orange hats.

The witches got angry about this, just like the Amish who objected to having orange triangles on their buggies. In fact, in 1999, one angry witch known to most as "Bemidji Bertha" passed a curse on St. Paul. It is believed that the election of Jesse Ventura was a fulfillment of the curse.

Slashdot, May 2008

[argent]

I can imagine the stories in Slashdot in a few years after someone breaks the security on these babies...

"We uploaded a modified Linux kernel to the bollards over their radio link..."

"With this patch, you can use any construction site as a Wifi access point..."

"This patch makes the bollards engage in autonomous 'wild dog' car-chasing behaviour..."

In other news...

[jafiwam]

University of Nebraska graduate students reported that running up stairs was an effective way to get away from the defective traffic barrels, which chased after the students yelling "EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!" even though they original design did not call for speakers or any noise making capability in the robots.

I wonder

[be951]

I wonder if this might also reduce the time that lanes are blocked when no work is being done. Seems like much of time when a lane is blocked by orange barrels (significantly slowing traffic), little or no work is being done. But (I suppose) it is not practical or safe for workers to repeatedly deploy and retrieve barrels unless a work stoppage will be for an extended time. But if the process is automated, it seems that it could be done much quicker. So instead of blocking a lane for six miles before getting to any actual roadwork because "we'll be working there eventually", they can adjust the area as needed.

Solutions From Statistics

[SEWilco]

From the CDC (1998): Among the 492 work zone fatalities, the leading occupations were construction laborer (42%), truck driver (9%), construction trades supervisor (8%), and operating engineer (8%). The most common primary sources of injury were trucks (45%), road grading and surfacing machinery (15%), and cars (15%). Seventy-four percent of the work zone fatality victims were employed privately, the remainder by state or local governments (13% each). In 318 of the 465 vehicle and equipment-related fatalities within work zones, a worker on foot was struck by a vehicle. Victims of these events were as likely to be struck by a construction vehicle (154 fatalities) as by a passing traffic vehicle (152 fatalities). Incidents involving backing vehicles were prominent among the 154 worker-on-foot fatalities that occurred within the confines of the work zone (51%).

Executive Summary:

• Leading occupation: construction laborers 42%: Laborers should not be hired for construction tasks.
• Primary source of injury: trucks 45%: Ban trucks from construction areas.
• Employer: private employer 74%: All work should be done by state or local government workers.
• Worker on foot struck by a vehicle 68%: As these are vehicle-related, being on foot is more hazardous than being in a vehicle, thus workers should not be on foot.
  However, data is not given to distinguish between the possibilities:
  • Worker on foot struck by a vehicle, worker on foot dies.
  • Worker on foot struck by a vehicle, worker in vehicle dies.
  • Worker on foot struck by a vehicle, non-worker in vehicle dies.
• Workers as likely to be struck by construction vehicle as by a passing traffic vehicle: Either all vehicles should be banned or all vehicles should be construction or traffic vehicles.
• Backing vehicles 51%: A vehicle can go either forward or backward, so there is a 50% chance of either. The additional 1% is insignificant.
• Worker on foot struck by another worker on foot: No data.
• Worker on foot striking another worker on foot: No data.

Construction Zone Safety Solutions Are Obvious:

1. Do not hire laborers.
2. Prohibit trucks.
3. Require State or Local Government Workers.
   • The numerous supply of clerks and supervisors is the obvious labor pool.
4. Workers should be in vehicles.
5. All vehicles should be passing traffic vehicles.
   • Passing traffic vehicles are slightly less dangerous than construction vehicles.
   • Workers are more dangerous than non-workers.

Thus, government clerks and supervisors should do construction work in automobiles. Non-workers are less dangerous than workers, thus the automobiles should be those of passerby. Non-workers on foot are not a problem. As eliminating backing vehicles removes 51% of the problem, workers should get in to vehicles of passerby, drive those vehicles forward while completing tasks, then return the vehicle to the non-worker who has walked through construction zone.