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Making Driverless Cars Safer
colinneagle writes "Several autonomous cars have been developed elsewhere, most famously by Google, and they are generally capable of identifying objects in the road directly ahead of or behind them. The challenge undertaken by MIT researchers is making these cars aware of dangers lurking around corners and behind buildings. MIT PhD student Swarun Kumar showed a video of a test run by the MIT researchers in which an autonomous golf cart running the technology, called CarSpeak (PDF), encountered a pedestrian walking from the entrance of a building to a crosswalk. The golf cart stopped roughly five yards ahead of the crosswalk and waited long enough for the pedestrian to walk to the other side of the road. The vehicle then continued driving automatically. The solution Kumar presented is based on a method of communications that is intended to expand the vehicle's field of view. This can be accomplished by compressing and sharing the data that autonomous vehicles generate while they're in motion, which Kumar says can amount to gigabits per second. In a comparison test, a car using CarSpeak's MAC-based communications was able to stop with a maximum average delay of 0.45 seconds, compared to the minimum average delay time of 2.14 seconds for a car running 802.11, the report noted."
... thus the notion of MAC still applies?
Just curious...
Paul B.
How do these things perform in weather? ex. Blizzards
I'd hate to wind up in a snow drift in the middle of the road rather than backing up and finding an alt. route... or going home.
Even with faster stopping, there will be those who deliberately jump in front of cars in order to get hit, hopefully to score a big jury verdict.
The solution -- a camera that turns on and records encounters with pedestrians, bicyclists, etc, with a timer in place. That way, if there is a wreck, there is documented proof that the other party jaywalked or violated traffic laws.
Of course, if it is the car's fault, it will be documented as well, but assuming a fully automatic vehicle which obeys all traffic signals, it likely won't be the vehicle that caused the collision.
So in other words, instead of slowing to what would be a reasonable and appropriate speed, the cars are able to maintain high speeds without sacrificing safety by informing each other of hidden hazards.
It's an interesting solution, but it could actually sacrifice overall safety by showing a bad example to human drivers.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"Several autonomous cars have been developed elsewhere"
Elsewhere? Elsewhere from where?
Do not want. It's obvious at this point that the real deal with all these innovations is to retain more and more control over what people do and where they go. They entice us with convenience as they remove the control. I realize this article is about technical minutiae, but I have no desire to help this project along.. Until society matures such that those in charge don't have insatiable desires to micromanage individual choice as much as possible, I'd rather deal with driving my own vehicles around, thanks. Besides, with the right fit, driving a car is enjoyable.
So if the driverless car stops in the road for a perceived pedestrian that may-or-may not be crossing the street will it give me the electronic finger when I lean on the horn?
Seriously, I see a lot of people standing close to the edge of the sidewalk that I think might be going to cross. Usually it turns out they are just chatting and aren't going anywhere. I suspect there will be a lot of false positives resulting in the driverless car slowing or stopping in traffic for someone who isn't actually crossing the street.
I can also anticipate kids having fun with this by "faking out" the autonomous vehicles for a laugh.
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*What the bloody fucking fuck* is this about? If you run wifi you cannot brake in time? What how why is this correlated to brakes?
Yes, and this communication is not authenticated... which means you now have up to seven tons of machinery barreling around a corner... and if it's told that the way is clear, instead of blocked, instead of a gentle deceleration and safe crossing you get human hamburger. Up next on CSI... hacking GPS signals and inter-car communication to create the perfect murder: No forensic evidence, looks just like an accident.
I do not like the idea of autonomous cars depending on or accepting unauthenticated inputs, or having two-way communication abilities while in operation. We already have a pile of broken nuclear facilities in Iran caused entirely by malicious digital communications, the source of which can't be proven. Most systems rely on GPS and network communication for route planning, which is problematic enough but can probably be made reasonably secure... but when you start processing realtime data from unauthenticated sources to make operating decisions, not just navigation decisions, I just don't see it as being possible to secure because of the wide number of variables which could be influenced independently or collectively to create an unsafe condition.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
How does these systems react to small animals suchs as cats, dogs, squirrels, racoons? Do they over react to small animals versus say something bigger?
How does a system react to dear and/or moose jumping out in front of a car? These are common events in many parts of Canada and at times are very lethal to the occupants of the car.
What happens when a major solar flair or power outage affects the in-road sensors?
These are things to consider.
gerry from gta
Considering driverless cars already don't have the most dangerous component, the moron between the seat and the steering wheel, I believe it's already much safer.
I'd like to see some more information about the technical challenges behind driverless cars. Can anyone point me (and hopefully other Slashdot readers) to something more than a press release? Its seems that driverless cars will need several different ways to interact with the road, pedestrians, and other cars. I'd really love to hear about how some of these different communication networks are being conceived.
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When people mention how autonomous vehicles can share information with each other, they implicitly assume that the vehicles and other entities within the environment will play fair and honest.
What happens if any of those systems are hacked either for nefarious reasons or just so that the driver of the hacked car can gain some advantage by sharing misinformation. ?
In this setup of autonomous vehicles, they become essentially computers on wheels. The issues that are faced in network security can manifest themselves with autonomous vehicles.
If I have a driver less car in which I am the passenger, will I still require car insurance? If so, shouldn't rates be static for all driver less cars? I mean, theoretically you should never crash, and if you do it would be the cars fault...?
I can only presume that Waldo has been found and is now in prison. I can't think of anywhere else where a guy might wash another guy, who is already washing another. Sausage, anybody?
I have been a captive in America my entire life. Everybody and everything uses customary units instead of metric.
Do not want. It's obvious at this point that the real deal with all these innovations is to retain more and more control over what people do and where they go.
The savings in time will result in everyone else in society being more productive and more successful than you. Good luck competing in that scenario:
(This will put a lot of people out of work, but it's work that humans find tedious and don't like doing anyway. We'll need a new economic model, but that's a separate issue from self-driving cars being more efficient.)
Cat fur hides edges. It keeps heat in, as generally only the eyes, ears, and a little of a cat paw is warm on IR. Cat fur helps absorb Radar. I probably soaks up ultrasonic sound as well. What more can you ask for in stealth?
Darpa wants driverless cars so we can comb the desert looking for adversaries. What Darpa wants, Darpa gets, but who wants to be the first lucky person to be killed by a driverless car. Do you want your kids to die, just so we have the capability to go into another country and kill their kids?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
...by removing the most unsafe element of a car already.
Why do we need driverless cars?
The largest use of automobiles is to transport the driver (the sole occupant) around a city, or between cities.
So if you take the driver out of the vehicle, why does it need to go anywhere?
4. Order online and have the grocery store's automated delivery vehicle bring you your groceries, complete with refridgerator and freezer compartments.
If they're reasonably busy that would allow them to make a stop or five in addition to your delivery while still delivering faster, reducing overall miles traveled per delivery. It gets loads more efficient if you're willing to wait until the next day. Remember, if you send your car it has to go there first, it's your fuel that's being burned, you don't normally have a freezer compartment, the store has to worry about non-standard vehicle sizes/configuration/stuff left in the trunk/other compartments.
This applies to more than just groceries - what about UPS/Fedex, or the pizza delivery truck. How neat would you find a delivery vehicle with a pizza oven inside, so your pizza is finishing baking as it pulls up?
I don't read AC A human right
That robot cars will be required to be a million times safer than people thereby negating any practical benefit. A robot that can do as well as 70% of the stupid rednecks, 90 year olds, soccer moms, illegal Mexican, drunks, teenagers, women yakking on the phone etc is way way way ahead of the game.
sensors on the car can become dirty and then what do you hot shot??
remember coming to a dead stop can be unsafe or it can block up traffic.
Go to a fail safe speed?? can be very unsafe on some high speed roads and even a slow speed can do some big damage if it hits something.
Food truck laws may get in the way pizza oven inside maybe fire laws as well.
Also what about fuel for the oven???
You make a good point - that would be an even more efficient way to deliver goods.
I don't see online ordering for things like fresh vegetables - people still want to squeeze the tomatoes and pick the best from the lot. Despite this, most of what comes from a supermarket could be auto-delivered.
One problem with this scheme (yours and mine) is that someone or something has to be home to receive the delivery. If the supermarket scheduler delays by a day for greater efficiency, it may not be convenient for the recipient. I can't see an automated home system dealing with frozen/refrigerated items either.
Perhaps a fixed schedule would work - like we have now for trash pickup or US mail. Groceries are always delivered once a week at a specified time, and the system will leave bags on your doorstep.
If your solution to moving object and in-motion safety is analyzing gigabits of data per second, you're already incorrect. It already won't work. It already won't be secure, it won't be safe, and it'll only work at STP. Safety has never been about longer checklists and more data. It's always been about learning which few of those billion bits are the important ones, learning to identify them, recognize them, and act upon them, in spite of the enormous amount of data surrounding them.
That's not a processing limitation. That's a logic rule. It's about eliminating ambiguity and about nearly eliminating any chance of mis-understanding.
Tens of thousands of people die in the US alone each year in car accidents. Many more are injured. Many more than that suffer some financial loss (even with zero insurance deductible, you will be paying a higher rate going forward). To improve on the status quo, you don't need cars to see through or around solid objects, nor do they need the intellect of an attentive human. We need cars whose drivers never fail to pay attention, don't act like they own the road, don't speed, don't get road rage, don't drink and drive, etc... Autonomous cars can do all of those things. People keep acting like autonomous cars need to be as good or better than the best human drivers, but they don't. They need to be better than the average human driver, and let's be honest: they're not going to have much problem with that requirement. I'm not sure what sort of automobile mecca some Slashdotters are living in, but where I live I don't go a day without seeing someone doing something stupid in a car. The nice thing about intelligent systems? They know their limitations. If the onboard systems cannot determine the appropriate action to take with very high certainty, they can alert the human in the cockpit and request that the human overrides the computer (pulling over in a safe spot or sending out an SOS if that override doesn't happen...such as might happen if the human has died). Someone earlier asked what might happen to an autonomous car in a blizzard. Was that seriously the best scenario you could think of? How about this: if the earth is blanketed in snow, an autonomous car won't drive through it. That's so stupid only a human would try it. I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are still a lot of issues to resolve, and a whole lot of testing to be done, before we're ready for autonomous cars to fill the roadways. However, I have a real hard time seeing how these issues somehow outweigh the current cost of crappy drivers in terms of lives, pain and suffering, time, or money. Autonomous cars make a ton of sense. It is only a matter of time before they hit the roadway on a limited basis (beyond the minor testing already going on in Nevada), and unless they suck, people will realize the world hasn't ended, the autonomous cars have not attacked them, and their daily commute is monotonous and annoying and thus not worth hanging on to, and sales will explode. If you hate the idea of autonomous cars, you are simply out of luck. Your best bet is to lobby for enabling legislation that stipulates a human-operated mode as mandatory, forbids two-way communication during driving (seriously, if this doesn't scare you, this must be the first story you've ever seen on Slashdot), and requires automakers to allow users to opt-out of features that would require sending their location data back to the automaker.
Pardon, I don't live in an area with crazy amounts of regulation about businesses, so 'food truck laws' are mostly the same as 'food establishment laws'.
As for the fire rules - wouldn't the engine/gas tank be bigger? I'm not thinking of just jamming one in there. As for fuel I was thinking mostly electric, though a vehicle completely powered by natural gas might be interesting. Heck, you can even power the thing via gasoline, though that might cost a touch more money.
Worst case a 20# propane tank will provide power to the oven for quite a while - it's a oven, should be mostly sealed.
Ironically, the thing would probably come under vending machine rules more than food service establishment rules.
I don't read AC A human right
everything's bigger. I've never seen as much snow as I saw in Mammoth Lakes, CA. I'm from Finland, where schools and offices have never been closed because of snow.
well its true, whats the need?
arsenalfannews.weebly.com
I have just realised the major problem with the driverless car !! People knowing their behaviour and hacking it. In other words the cars are being developed to emulate how humans drive responding to normally expected behaviour of other humans. The problem that humans will treat driverless cars differently. For example a human realising that it is a driverless car will cut in front of it knowing it will handle it. A pedestrian will step right in front of it and then step back, or will pretend to walk to the edge of the pavement ... and stop. This is what I can think of now. "Hackers" will understand how driverless cars will behave to external inputs and exploit that behaviour much like hackers exploit computer systems everywhere. It may take much longer to deal with that than it is to develop a safe driverless car in "normally predictable" scenarios.
That kind of thing has been around for a while for your non-driverless car.
Around here the food trucks complained about having to obey the "establishment" laws on grill temperature and working area around the grill and stuff so they got special rules.
Now they complain about not being allowed to park in streets and clog up traffic.
Of course its not just them, there's also whiney busybodies (probably the establishments) complaining about their use of lots they bought for parking.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Let's see, you quote grill temperature and working area. For our theoretical pizza delivery car, there's not going to be a grill, there's going to be an oven. If the oven isn't at the proper temperature, the pizza won't cook property, so I don't think that's going to be an issue.
As for working area, "what working area"? The pizza would be made at the store as it usually is, then loaded, uncooked, into the oven of the car, from the outside. Well, it might be precooked and the oven more of a 'finisher'. You might need to have it be able to remove the pizza from the actual oven and into a 'keep warm' area if the deliveries take too long. I'm sure actual implementation would get complicated - you have to bake a deep dish for far longer at a lower temperature than a thin crust.
Like I said, the thing would be more like a vending machine - there exist ones that will cook the food you just selected before dispensing it to you. It's not as common in the USA, but I've seen ones that will do cotton candy, hot dogs, hot chocolate, various coffee drinks, TV dinner type trays, soup, even burgers and french fries. Most are just microwave ovens, but certainly not all.
As for parking - it's in motion while cooking, stops and delivers just like ordinary pizza delivery. Well, it's more likely to call your phone 'waiting outside for you to pick up', but such is the cost of progress.
There's been attended versions, though my search for links turned up mostly food trucks that are designed to assemble even as they cook.
I don't read AC A human right
> 0.45 seconds
Should be 0.45 second.
NERF makes everything safer...