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Researchers Test Drive Bus With Automated Steering
An anonymous reader tips us to news that researchers at University of California, Berkeley, have successfully test driven a 60-foot bus that controlled its own steering. Sensors on the bus detected magnets that had been embedded in a San Leandro road, and it was able to reach stops within one centimeter of its desired position. Acceleration and braking during the test were controlled by a human operator, but the system is capable of handling those as well, and has done so on test courses.
"... sensors mounted under the bus measured the magnetic fields created from the roadway magnets, which were placed beneath the pavement surface 1 meter apart along the center of the lane. The information was translated into the bus's lateral and longitudinal position by an on-board computer, which then directed the vehicle to move accordingly. For a vehicle traveling 60 miles per hour, data from 27 meters (88 feet) of roadway can be read and processed in 1 second. Zhang added that the system is robust enough to withstand a wide range of operating conditions, including rain or snow, a significant improvement to other vehicle guidance systems based upon optics."
who gets sued in the event of a crash?
The 19th century called....they want their trams back.
But can it survive intentional sabotage?
Placing magnets on the surface of the pavement would not be hard to do.
That can be a couple of hours here in Metro Atlanta.
Was it able to travel through traffic, though?
I would've liked to have been on a Robobus back in July. An idiot driver in an SUV cut our bus off, and the driver firewalled the brake to avoid hitting him. My 3 year old daughter planted her face in the fiberglass seat ahead of us, I was in a side-facing seat and almost went through the windshield and my wife got thrown into a stairwell.
My guess is that Robobus would've kept going right into the SUV. Would've served him right.
(No, he didn't stop and we didn't get the plate number. He took off into the night.)
Hey SUV driver; if you cut a bus off at 100th St. in Ocean City, MD on August 2nd, you're a bastard.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Nice, but does it drive in random directions if someone has set loose a bag of magnetic marbles on the road? I'd have a hard time trusting this.
--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
Ah hem! Press releases are not news.
I can release a press release that say, "ButterOldGuy has invented a process of vetting the most perfect VP and how any geek can get laid by a super model or better yet, a porn star."
The problem with buses is not that they can't stop within a centimeter of a specific target. It's simply that they are unreliable and prone to delay due to traffic.
They are large, smoke-belching monstrosities that should be kept off the road. (Buses, not Americans in general)
If more people would simply live closer to their workplaces (or telecommute) and ride bikes to work, we wouldn't have to worry about these hulking masses lumbering down the road.
did they say *meter*? Somebody is using the metric system in the United States? Maybe there's hope yet!
A magnetic steering system is probably *easier* to do accurately then an optical one, but other then that it's worse. Mostly because it can't leave the path, and it can't see anything in its way. An optical guidance system could potentially detect and avoid obstacles. And if it's less accurate then the magnetic system? Well, I personally steer my car based on an optical system and I seem to do fine, so it's obviously possible to do optics as accurately as is required. It's just not easy.
Of course, there's nothing stopping us from using combination systems. But the main problem with magnetic is that I can't imagine it'd be easy to bury magnets under all the paved road in the world. Optics doesn't require additional infrastructure.
wow, i'm almost impressed except we have those already for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phileas_(public_transport) They were supposed to be driverless, but dutch laws reuires a driver to be behind the wheel of a vehicle... Don't know where they got that idea ;-)
See link to the following on wikipedia (in Dutch)
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phileas_(OV)
Sure it can navigate an empty road, but what about once there are other cars on it or pot holes or what if the bus service needs a temporary detour?
Cool from a technology perspective, but I doubt it will ever be applied to actual street driving. Most likely it will end up with some alternative use like controlling the office mail cart or something.
Why would anybody investigate this goofy plan? [ An oversupply of government and foundation grants from brain-dead administrators? ]
Why would we automate the driving of vehicles when there is a serious unemployment problem? Automating the driving would greatly reduce the jobs for drivers. Isn't the Teamsters Union rather strong?
What does putting hundreds of thousands of expensive magnets in the road systems do to solve the problem of oil depletion?(which leads to fuel costs that exceed the value of the goods being shipped?)
How does putting hundreds of thousands of expensive magnets in the road systems lead to the massive increase in transportation efficiency needed to offset the increase in fuel costs arising from peak oil depletion in the coming decades?
The oil-based system of single isolated vehicles worked when there was (or seemed to be) an endless supply of cheap oil and raw materials. But the 20th century is over. And so is the era of isolated vehicles endlessly blasting up and down ribbons of highways.
What we need is a system of advanced high speed railways criss-crossing the North American continent. Instead of having thousands of trucks carrying goods from LA to Phoenix, we need to be able to have a big diesel 'rig' truck be able to be loaded in Long Beach from ship containers, drive to the rail terminal, and drive right onto the high speed train car and be secured. Then the train will carry the entire truck to Phoenix rail central. The truck will then be driven off the train (by a local driver) and the contents be delivered to their local destinations.
A vast and efficient 21st century rail system is the only way that we are going to be able to get the order-of-magnitude efficiency increases needed to keep our transportation system operating in the coming decades of massive transformation due to peak oil shocks and fossil-fuel depletion.
Not by some stupid idea of putting thousands of magnets in the roadways and having robots do steering.
What's wrong with these people? What are they thinking?
When something is hailed as new and interesting, and it's already been done for 15 years in a different country, it should at least be mentioned. It would be interesting to hear experiences Eindhoven have with their system.
A system based on a sensor and a road which has magnets strategically placed to trigger those sensors rather than trying to essentially process video and make decisions based on the video in realtime is more reliable?
No f*cking kidding. Trying to turn a single image into something which a computer can make decisions on is hard. Trying to turn a sequence of images in realtime at 60mph is fantastically hard. However, when you're dealing with something much simpler like a magnetic sensor, you've already had most of the processing essentially done for you. The only reason it hasn't taken off is that nobody really likes the idea of fitting every mile of road with magnets (or whatever they ultimately use to trigger the sensors).
1995 Called... San Diego Anyone?
The Carpool lanes in San Diego I15 had magnets put in them over 10 years ago and fully autonomous GM cars navigated the roads effortlessly.
This was almost 15 freaking yeats ago...
Anyone so NOT impressed by this?
Yeah, but can its new-fangled computer brain defy the laws of physics and jump the bus over an incomplete highway overpass at 70 mph? I didn't think so. Until we can make an artificial replacement for Keanu Reeves, I won't trust it. It's gotta be able to say, "I know kung-fu" too.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
Yes, that's the first thing I was thinking too.
We have had these for a while and were recently taken back into service after a crash (which was unfortunately caused by an operator forcing an override)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoPmKiDw-y0
... when they pull into a Bus Stop they hang their ass into the lane they just came from blocking the traffic.
Until then, this ain't a real bus
Whats the point!
Don't we want to be there to help each other and see people treated well. Another cold cold automation and a lost link between people in our society.
Ya! the company transfers what it would have spent on a person to what it pays for hardware and upkeep. There is one less witness for a late night drive and the machine won't stop and call the police if it sees an accident or the bus is full of predators.
I'm not a luddite but this seems like an all around bad idea.
S
I've travelled on this from Eindhoven airport to the centre a few times since 2005 or so. It provides a very efficient service.
All the details here seem to be the same. The Eindhoven bus even does the thing of getting incredibly close to the stops.
Having automated buses and solving oil dependency are orthogonal to each other. I don't know what's wrong with you, or what you're thinking, but not every single technological advance has to solve the oil depletion problem.
Besides, they made no mention that the buses have to be gasoline powered in order for the automation to work. Actually in my neck of the woods we have electric and natural gas buses, and I've heard about hydrogen powered buses as well.
Also, an efficient 21st century rail system is a great idea but I doubt they're going to lay track from my block to my downtown. Buses will have their place for a long time, if not to just be the "last mile" of mass transit from a hub to your block.
I really think its wonderful what they're doing, road sensor based tracking is probably going to be the technology that wins, not optical recognition. Especially for things like buses with set routes. And as for you saying
Why would we automate the driving of vehicles when there is a serious unemployment problem? Automating the driving would greatly reduce the jobs for drivers. Isn't the Teamsters Union rather strong?
That's ridiculous. Automation is the cornerstone of our civilization. FREEING ourselves from needing bus drivers means we have more utility to do other things. Even if it does immediately put people out of a job, In the long run it will be ultimately beneficial.
Why would we automate the driving of vehicles when there is a serious unemployment problem?
The economy will see no lost jobs. Saving the cost of "busdriver" jobs will allow for the creation of other jobs elsewhere. The money normally spent on drivers will go toward increasing demand for other goods or services. That increased demand will create more jobs, and because inefficiency was removed the jobs that replace "busdriver" jobs will be more numerous and better paying. So, if unemployment is a problem, making bus drivers obsolete is a good choice.
What does putting hundreds of thousands of expensive magnets in the road systems do to solve the problem of oil depletion?
For one, making buses cheaper (no driver) will allow more public transport, and by that, less people will have to rely on public vehicles. If normal suburban roads can double as LRT 'tracks' suburbs just became screamingly efficient.
What we need is a system of advanced high speed railways
Well, this system will allow normal roads to double as light rail, which is not quite 'crisscrossing North America', but making city transportation more efficient is a good first step.
Should read: "less people will have to rely on private vehicles"
You didn't FTFA.
The Europeans may have had these for ages, but this was the first time FOR AMERICA.
While this tech. alone won't be of much use I could see it being part of a more sophisticated automated driving system. Car makers already have automatic cruise control, colision avoidance systems, radar etc either available or in developement so I think a system combining these technologies might not be that far into the future.
Imagine a HOV type lane that allowed drivers of compatible vehicles to travel at 100+ mph within a foot or two of each other. The fuel savings due to the aerodynamic advantages of drafting as well as the lack of stop and go driving could be substantial and if it allowed cities to put off adding additional lanes of traffic it might actually pay for itself.
I barely trust human drivers (well, I don't trust them, but I'm willing to somewhat put up with them) and now you want to put Automated drivers on the road?!? Yeah no. I refuse to be driven by one of these.... I mean, what happens when all of the buses start talking together... calling their network "Skynet"?
For a vehicle traveling 60 miles per hour, data from 27 meters (88 feet) of roadway can be read and processed in 1 second.
Well I would hope so, since 88 feet is the distance it travels in 1 second at 60 MPH. Otherwise it would be processing the roadway behind it. Perhaps they should say ... data from 27 meters (88 feet) of roadway must be read and processed in 1 second.
...a car with anti-lock brakes still rear-ends someone?
"Cars that drive themselves" won't arrive as a new option in model year 20XX. They'll encroach bit by bit, following in the footsteps of automatic spark advance, electric starters, power steering, power brakes, automatic transmission, cruise control, electronic fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, traction control, collision avoidance, self-parking...
When you finally do get a car that can "drive itself", you'll probably be too busy talking on your cell phone and using your extended navigation/information center to notice.
The embedded magnets make this a non-event. Vehivles guided by ground embedded markes have been in uuse for decades.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It will not take long for someone to lay down enough magnets to move the bus to where they want it to go — such as a neighbor's pool...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
+1
In aviation, planes have had autopilots for years (and recently, autoland systems), yet there is no giant puzzle as to who is responsible if the AP-equipped plane crashes: from the US aviation regulations, "The pilot in command is responsible at all times for the safe operation of the aircraft". Maybe a similar principle for cars is needed.
--- You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad- Neal (not Cowboy) Boortz
Been done already -- Intermodal Transportation
I readily admit that between certain cities this makes sense and is done, although with freight rail rather than high speed and with containers rather than trailers. This is done since just about anywhere in the continental US can be reached from any other in a 4 day trip averaging 30 mph and since it makes little sense to transport the frames and axles when it is not needed. The problem with replacing trucks is that rail is impractical for trucks transporting products to individual stores. For coal or steel to large factories rail is the perfect solution, but as can be seen in the rust belt more and more industry is smaller scale, where a truck based infrastructure makes much more sense (even more so if they are able to somehow make a diesel-electric version of a semi (essentially the current hybrid craze applied to the diesel engine instead of the ICE.
An aircraft autopilot is also ready to be disengaged at any moment by the pilot if he thinks he needs to. Indeed, there has been at least one serious airliner accident caused by the pilot inadvertently disengaging the autopilot but not realizing it until it was too late.
An automated car which can drive fully independently will be a total game-changer. An automated car which requires the driver to still pay attention and be ready to take over control at all times is much less interesting.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Apart from guiding the bus, the system will also stop your change from rolling too far..
Insert
First, this is basically Demo '97 technology. The CALTRANS PATH people have been fooling around with this for years. I saw this around 1990 or so up at the CALTRANS Richmond test facility. Automated lane following was demonstrated in 1959 by General Motors with Firebird III.
About the only justification for this is to improve stop accuracy at bus stops so the bus can get close to the curb without scraping the tires. A bit of automated parking assistance there might be helpful. A neat trick would be to use rear wheel steering so that when the bus pulls up to the curb, the bus ends up parallel to the curb. Let the driver drive the front end, and put the back end on autopilot. This would be a big help for articulated buses, which tend to stop with the trailer hanging out in an adjacent lane, and might allow for smaller bus stop zones.
This is far more primitive than DARPA Grand Challenge technologies.
Isolate them from people. Remove the unpredictable.
http://www.ultraprt.com/heathrow.htm
Deleted
The human driver performs many critical tasks other than steering. Braking for vehicles or pedestrians moving into its path, making judgments about pulling over to the curb among illegally parked vehicles, arguing with fare cheats, crackheads and the homeless, etc.
Its not likely that these other requirements for a driver's presence will be eliminated any time soon. Meanwhile, keeping the driver in charge of steering keeps him paying attention to road conditions. Note how many pilots take naps while on autopilot (both at the same time, sadly).
The systems in which an automated steering system could work safely are essentially identical to elevated railways, monorails, or subways. In other words, grade separated transit systems.
Have gnu, will travel.
Las Vegas has had an automated bus line for a few years now. It's called the MAX and it's actually on the way of becoming obsolete, being replaced with the ACE line, which is supposed to connect all the cities in Greater Las Vegas. (The RTC has removed their page on MAX already)
However, the MAX and ACE lines use optical technology, meaning they only need a painted line to operate. It's kinda cool, riding in a bus that follows a line just like those robot kits you give to kids.
(Here's to hoping we've PWNed Berkley!)
The GM Firebird III was doing this 50 years ago.
Once this is better than the **average** driver,
it will be required. (by law or to get insurance)
The death rate for idiots will definitely go down.
It's much less clear what will happen with skilled
drivers. They don't have to face the idiots, but
they can't avoid road problems either.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now female drivers can a) safely put on their makeup and b) significantly lower their car insurance
Agreed, and if there were no provisions to manually disengage the auto-drive system, then there could be liability on the manufacturer - hopefully they will put in a mechanism similar to the cruise control auto-disconnecting when you tap the brakes.
--- You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad- Neal (not Cowboy) Boortz
... when somebody parks in front of the bus stop? Is the bus smart enough not to collide with an illegally-parked car?
the system is robust enough to withstand a wide range of operating conditions, including rain or snow
So....magnets placed in the road and sensors in the bus are sensitive enough to compensate for an 8" difference in vertical distance? Riiiight.
Not saying this is totally useless, but test in a northeast winter before you spout off about 'snow'.
Yeah, but can its new-fangled computer brain defy the laws of physics and jump the bus over an incomplete highway overpass at 70 mph? I didn't think so. Until we can make an artificial replacement for Keanu Reeves, I won't trust it. It's gotta be able to say, "I know kung-fu" too.
I thought Keanu Reeves was the artificial replacement?
Probably some marketing drone that didn't understand the difference.
could an inexpensive concrete median be put in place to isolate the bus lane from non-bus traffic, obviating the need for the driver (according to Dutch law, if not a good idea)?
I've told people for years that if the same level of licensing and regulation was applied to automobiles that is applied to aviation, accidents would be uncommon enough to be newsworthy when they happened.
Of course it would accomplish this by keeping 90% of current drivers and 90% of current vehicles off the road entirely.
the best we can ever hope for is automated freeway driving no pc can handle in town driving theirs just to much stuff to factor in then. for a full system to work it needs to be a mix of gps moton sensing cams and other stuff.
Personally, I'd leave it to a coackroach (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/03/0426258) to park my car/bus/van.
Not many people bringing up the main problem with this system!!! It doesn't see people!! This system has the same problem as automated warehouse systems. The robots do a good job as long as nothing goes wrong and no people have to enter the system to fix the problem! Effectively a death penalty for jaywalking!! I can also see a problem with the car that died in the driving lane being punted halfway to the city by this oblivious behemoth!!
Forget buses with automated steering. Let's work on an immediate need -- trains with automated braking!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phileas_(public_transport)
This feels like old news, to me. We've had cars which could drive themselves, including driving safely in traffic, so long as said traffic and roads had appropriately placed magnets. We're not going to have a breakthrough in self-driven vehicles if everyone else on the road has to strap magnets to their cars, and the roads all need a magnet placed every six feet. Call me when they figure out how to make cars use GPS and accurate road-maps to navigate without the magnets, then use distancing optics to keep the car from colliding with things. Even then, the lack of liability and our natural distrust of technology will keep them off the roads. Besides, I really enjoy driving; if you get bored, just contemplate the fact that you're controlling two tons of steel propelled by explosions! (hooray straight shift)
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
"Instead of having thousands of trucks carrying goods from LA to Phoenix, we need to be able to have a big diesel 'rig' truck be able to be loaded in Long Beach from ship containers, drive to the rail terminal, and drive right onto the high speed train car and be secured. Then the train will carry the entire truck to Phoenix rail central. The truck will then be driven off the train (by a local driver) and the contents be delivered to their local destinations."
You just described a bad version of a good old idea called Intermodal Freight.
Transporting a truck for every trailer is a huge waste, which is why we don't do it. Transporting the wheels and landing gear under the trailer also uses up valuable cargo space.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
...didn't the bus test drive the researchers?
The system can process 27 meters in 1 second? Not good enough!! 60 miles per hour IS 27 meters per second. A robust real time control system needs to be at least twice as fast as this.
"Cars that drive themselves" won't arrive as a new option in model year 20XX.
Besides, by that time we'll have to worry about Dr. Wily and fighting robots.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
"For a vehicle traveling 60 miles per hour, data from 27 meters (88 feet) of roadway can be read and processed in 1 second."
Um... 60 miles per hour is more than 88 feet per second. This means that the bus will not be able to process data fast enough when driving at 60 miles per hour; by the time the processing is complete, it already has passed that swath of road. I don't see how that statistic can possible be a bragging point.
your kid's blood.
Hat tip: Moe Howard.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Does it run Linux?
No one said that having ABS would stop you from rear ending someone. Merely that it would stop you faster if you hit the brakes too hard and started to slide. If you're still rear ending people *with* ABS, then you need to think about one of two things. Firstly, driving further away from the guy in front of you. Or secondly inventing a system like this one that does the driving far enough away automatically.
Sensors in the road is *so* twentieth century. ;)
The better solution is to teach the vehicle to see and hear, though those words won't mean quite the same to a device that can access GPS, radio, and other forms of information not available to human senses.
Every time some *#!head cuts me off in traffic, changes lanes without signaling or generally acts like they're the only ones on the road, I make a little prayer that someday we'll be smart enough to let our cars drive for us. Not all the time; certainly "manual" will still have its uses, but at least in congested freeway settings it makes far more sense to get hot-headed, slow-reacting humans off the steering wheel.
Snow plows have used magnetic guidance such as this for years now: http://www.path.berkeley.edu/PATH/Research/snowplow/
CalTrans started using a lane marker system on I-80 over Donner Pass in 1998: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/29/MN172839.DTL
There's still an operator, but it's not the airport shuttle either. You probably want a person to operate the blade, and make other decisions that vary with the conditions created by each storm. Keeping the operator safe (and keeping an expensive asset out of the ditch) is worthwhile, especially when time is a factor.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
...welcome our new neodymium hackers overlords!
I was once on a school bus after a snowfall. The bus was travelling up a hill where it lost traction, and proceeded to "slide" in reverse toward the frigid Puget Sound in Washington state U.S.A. The driver had downshifted in response, but could not re-establish friction. He ordered the remaining children to pile on the seats over the rear wheels. I thought about bailing before the velocity of the bus increased to a speed that would be dangerous to jump out the doors, but I complied. The wheels pressed to the pavement, and the reverse direction slowed with the wheels rotating in the forward direction during the entire incident. The grip came and we proceeded up the hill. To automate such a scenerio would take a tremendous amount of forsight and aptitude on the programmers part!