Self-operating shuttle bus crashes after Las Vegas launch (All Things Self Driving)

guest · Feb 13, 2019

Apple ramps up self-driving program as Waymo says its tech improves
February 13, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...as-waymo-says-its-tech-improves-idUSKCN1Q22F6

Apple Inc has sharply increased its efforts to test self-driving cars on public roads but lags far behind market leader Waymo on a key safety metric, according to data released on Wednesday by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

The data was part of California regulators’ annual so-called “disengagement reports,” which track how often a human safety driver must intervene to take control from a self-driving system during testing on public roads.
In the complex world of self-driving technology where road-test data is a closely guarded secret, the number of miles between disengagements has become a key metric for industry watchers to indicate how far any player’s technology has progressed.

Apple, by contrast, came in dead last, logging just over one mile per disengagement. In a letter to regulators, Apple said its approach to reporting disengagements had been “conservative” and that its report was “over-inclusive.”
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guest · Feb 13, 2019

Queensland preps for driverless cars by sending QUT on roadtrip
February 13, 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/quee...erless-cars-by-sending-qut-on-roadtrip-519260

The Queensland government is starting to prepare for a future of driverless vehicles by sending researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on a three-month, 1,200 km road trip.

“As researchers drive the car across Queensland, onboard sensors will build a virtual map to help refine AI-equipped vehicles to drive safely on our roads,” Bailey added.
Professor Michael Milford from QUT’s Australian Centre for Robotic Vision said engineers will feed data from LIDAR sensors and “state-of-the-art” cameras into an AI platform to help automated vehicles make decisions and drive as well as people.

“Past studies, along with initial experiments conducted by QUT, show how automated cars have difficulties on rural roads which can lack lane markings.”
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guest · Feb 13, 2019

In 2017, the feds said Tesla Autopilot cut crashes 40%—that was bogus
Small firm gets Tesla crash data after 2-year legal battle with NHTSA, finds flawed study
February 13, 2019
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/0...esla-autopilot-cut-crashes-40-that-was-bogus/

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has egg on its face after a small research and consulting firm called Quality Control Systems produced a devastating critique of a 2017 agency report finding that Tesla's Autopilot reduced crashes by 40 percent.

The new analysis is coming out now—almost two years after the original report—because QCS had to sue NHTSA under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the data underlying the agency's findings. In its report, QCS highlights flaws in NHTSA's methodology that are serious enough to completely discredit the 40 percent figure, which Tesla has cited multiple times over the last two years.

NHTSA undertook its study of Autopilot safety in the wake of the fatal crash of Tesla owner Josh Brown in 2016. Autopilot—more specifically Tesla's lane-keeping function called Autosteer—was active at the time of the crash, and Brown ignored multiple warnings to put his hands back on the wheel.
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ronjor · Feb 14, 2019

A New Robo-Car Report Card Isn't Quite What It Seems

Alex Davies and Aarian Marshall 02.13.19
The latest batch of autonomous vehicle developer disengagement reports—the closest thing we’ve got to a robo-report card—has just been published by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
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ronjor · Feb 14, 2019

Australian miner Fortescue says two driverless trucks involved in low-speed incident

February 14 Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell
“This was not the result of any failure of the autonomous system,” Fortescue Chief Executive Elizabeth Gaines said in the statement. The miner is conducting a full investigation into the incident.
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guest · Feb 15, 2019

mood said: ↑

Apple ramps up self-driving program as Waymo says its tech improves
February 13, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...as-waymo-says-its-tech-improves-idUSKCN1Q22F6
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Autonomous cars are not ready for public deployment
February 15, 2019
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/autonomous-cars-are-not-ready-for-public-deployment/

Required reports by the California Department of Motor Vehicles from companies testing out autonomous vehicles on California's public roads show major deficiencies in self-driving automobile functionality, according to calculations by Consumer Watchdog.

Along with necessary human intervention, California's state reports revealed an increase in crashes involving self-driving cars. Companies reported 75 collisions to the DMV in 2018, according to Consumer Watchdog
"These reports show that robot cars aren't close to being ready for public deployment," said Adam Scow, senior advocate for Consumer Watchdog, in a press release. "While some companies are improving, others are sputtering out in the parking lot."

California is the only state that requires robot car companies to publicly report disengagement and crash reports, the report said, which means nobody really knows how dangerous autonomous cars actually are.
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guest · Feb 15, 2019

mood said: ↑

Investors pour $940 million into low-speed driverless delivery startup
February 11, 2019
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/driverless-delivery-startup-nuro-raises-almost-1-billion/
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A Self-Driving Fix for a Population Problem
February 15, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...ngestion-population-issues?srnd=technology-vp

Should Nuro’s robotic vehicles make their way to Asia, they’ll find immensely different landscapes in scope, scale and opportunity.

It’s important to note, though, for Nuro and other companies that plan to offer similar delivery services, that Singapore’s inner-city traffic speed is only 15 miles per hour.
Rather than needing vehicles designed for every speed from a crawl to a highway commute, these cities can and should deploy only smaller, lighter-weight vehicles designed to operate at low speeds for lots of human engagement as people retrieve their deliveries.

But if these trends continue — and if there isn’t an expansion of the working-age population or immigration to counteract an inherently shrinking workforce — robots on the streets may become not just convenient, but also essential.
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guest · Feb 15, 2019

BlackBerry teams with Canadian government to invest $350 million into autonomous vehicle tech
February 15, 2019
https://www.techspot.com/news/78782...government-invest-350-million-autonomous.html

What just happened? The Canadian federal government is partnering with former handset maker BlackBerry to collectively invest $350 million in the advancement of autonomous vehicle technology. According to experts, Canada's harsh weather means driving systems developed in the US may not be suitable up north.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the government contributed $40 million from its Strategic Innovation Fund to help develop what Trudeau described as software that’ll serve as the “central nervous system” of future self-driving vehicles.
The publication said BlackBerry committed $310.5 million of its own money which will help to create 800 new jobs and maintain 300 further positions over the next decade.

Richard Yu, a professor at Carleton University's school of information technology who has been collaborating with BlackBerry to develop and test self-driving autonomous vehicles, said Canada’s harsh weather has to be accounted for.
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guest · Feb 16, 2019

When will self-driving cars earn our trust?
February 16, 2019
https://www.techradar.com/news/when-will-self-driving-cars-earn-our-trust

When it comes to safety, we hold machines and humans to very different standards. In 2016, there were 34,439 fatal road crashes in the US, but we regard driving alongside other humans as ‘safe enough’. Accidents are tragic, but they happen.
Building trust
Automakers including Ford and Jaguar Land Rover are working on various ways to help human road users feel comfortable sharing the streets with autonomous vehicles.

He cites an example from Draper’s work with another client, where humans worked in ‘teams’ with robots – each playing to their own strengths.
When the robot’s behaviour was predictable, the human-robot team was stronger than the sum of its parts. However, doing something unexpected rapidly eroded the human teammate’s trust.
Preparing for the future
“In this transition period we're going to have a period of lots of human-driven cars on the road and some self-driving cars, and then over time the self-driving car population will increase the human-driven car population will decrease,” he says.
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guest · Feb 16, 2019

Vision system for autonomous vehicles watches not just where pedestrians walk, but how
February 16, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/16/v...ches-not-just-where-pedestrians-walk-but-how/

The University of Michigan, well known for its efforts in self-driving car tech, has been working on an improved algorithm for predicting the movements of pedestrians that takes into account not just what they’re doing, but how they’re doing it. This body language could be critical to predicting what a person does next.

UM’s new system uses the lidar and stereo camera systems to estimate not just a person’s trajectory, but their pose and gait. Pose can indicate whether a person is looking towards or away from the car, or using a cane, or stooped over a phone; gait indicates not just speed but also intention.
This additional data helps a system predict motion and makes for a more complete set of navigation plans and contingencies.

You can read the full paper describing the new system in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters or at Arxiv (PDF).
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Paper (PDF - 2.11 MB): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.03705.pdf

ronjor · Feb 19, 2019

Uber and GM Cruise are making their respective AV ‘visualization’ tools open source

By Andrew J. Hawkins@andyjayhawk Feb 19, 2019
‘See’ the world of a self-driving car with these free web portals
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ronjor · Feb 19, 2019

Elon Musk: Tesla will have all its self-driving car features by the end of the year

Robert Ferris | @RobertoFerris 19 Feb 2019
CEO Elon Musk said Tesla cars should have all the features needed to pick up passengers and drive them autonomously by the end of the year.
Musk made the comment on a podcast with Cathie Wood and Tasha Keeney of ARK Invest, which has holdings in Tesla.
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guest · Feb 20, 2019

Someday Your Self-Driving Car Will Pull Over for Police
February 20, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-will-pull-over-for-police?srnd=technology-vp

Every Tesla is equipped with hardware that the automaker says will enable its vehicles to be capable of driving themselves on entire trips, from parking space to parking space, with no input from the driver.
The system is smart enough, it seems, to keep the Tesla driving safely even with a seemingly incapacitated driver, but not yet smart enough to obey police sirens and pull over.

Teaching autonomous cars to pull to the right is a relatively straightforward task. The point of the lights and sirens, after all, is to be noticed from far away.

In theory, when Trooper Monroe gets out of his patrol car on the expressway in Michigan, he could, with a couple of taps on a handheld device, instruct all AVs in the area to steer clear. These kinds of solutions, while technologically elegant, present a host of logistic and legal hurdles.
Cars that could detect their sirens from miles away and reliably follow the rules would be a welcome change.
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hawki · Feb 20, 2019

"A Navy Ship Sailed to Hawaii and Back With No One on Board

A 132-foot-long self-driving ship made history by traveling from San Diego to Hawaii's Pearl Harbor and back again without sailors aboard to guide its way.
The Sea Hunter, an autonomous trimaran developed for submarine hunting and counter-mine missions, traveled thousands of miles between San Diego and Pearl Harbor last month..."

https://www.military.com/defensetech/2019/02/15/navy-ship-sailed-hawaii-and-back-no-one-board.html

guest · Feb 21, 2019

Apple sets a high bar for operators of its self-driving car
February 20, 2019
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/apple-self-driving-car-testing-report-nhtsa/

After a less than stellar showing in California's mandatory annual disengagement report, Apple released a white paper (PDF) on Wednesday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration outlining its testing procedures for its self-driving car program.

While most of the document reads like boilerplate for anyone testing a self-driving car, the part that we find most interesting is the section that outlines Apple's requirements for its test vehicle's human safety driver.

To qualify as a safety driver for Apple's self-driving car program, you need to have a driving record free of serious accidents, DUI convictions, suspensions or revocations for at least the last 10 years. Once these requirements are met, prospective drivers need to pass a drug screen and a background check.
Drivers are also given regular anonymous surveys to determine the mental and physical impact that their work has on them.
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White paper: "Our Approach to Automated Driving System Safety - February 2019" (PDF - 177 KB): https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/apple_ads-safety-tag.pdf

ronjor · Feb 21, 2019

Apple car may be an electric van

February 21, 2019 Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Tom Sims; Editing by Alexandra Hudson
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A long-speculated vehicle to be developed by Apple may turn out to be an electric van rather than a car, a German magazine reported on Thursday.
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guest · Feb 21, 2019

Autonomous Trains Could Talk to Each Other for Cooperative Cruise Control
February 21, 2019
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk...-to-each-other-for-cooperative-cruise-control

In a study published 12 February in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Zongli Lin at the University of Virginia and his colleagues have proposed an algorithmic framework for cooperative cruise control among trains, as well as in between individual cars of a single train.

A major issue in any proposed train-to-train communication system is the range and reliability of wireless communication between the trains, which may not be consistent.

Their framework ensures that the distances between adjacent trains, referred to as the tracking intervals, are optimal. Too small a tracking interval increases the chance of collision, while too large a tracking interval leads to underutilization of the railroad.
Down the road, your commute might not only involve autonomous vehicles but also high speed trains that have a “mind” of their own.
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guest · Feb 22, 2019

Watch a Self-Driving Car Obey Police Hand Signals
Waymo's autonomous vehicles can be waved through a broken traffic light
February 21, 2019
https://futurism.com/self-driving-car-obey-police-hand-signals

To get around the problem of a missing green light, self-driving car company Waymo trained its vehicles’ artificial intelligence to detect and respond to the arm movements of a traffic cop as they wave traffic through an intersection, according to CNET — and you can watch it on YouTube.
Long Time Coming
Waymo first claimed that its autonomous vehicles could respond to hand signals from nearby cyclists back in 2016. That particular research treated cyclists, from the vehicle’s perspective, as obstacles to track and avoid.

A new video published by Waymo on Wednesday is the first that shows its vehicles responding to gesture commands — especially in the absence of the traffic lights on which it would normally rely — and obeying police orders.
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ronjor · Feb 22, 2019

Daimler and BMW announce $1.1 billion partnership in a bid to take on Uber

David Reid | @cnbcdavy 22 Feb 2019
Two German auto makers are attempting to link up transport using autonomous cars and app-based services.
Daimler and BMW are to invest $1.13 billion across five different divisions.
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hawki · Feb 24, 2019

"The Navy Just Ordered the 'Orca,' an Extra-Large Unmanned Submarine by Boeing

The Orca unmanned autonomous submersible will be capable of crossing entire oceans and fulfilling a variety of missions, from hunting mines to sinking submarines.

The U.S. Navy has awarded a contract to Boeing for four Extra-Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (XLUUVs). In other words: giant drone subs.

The unmanned submarines, called Orcas, will be able to undertake missions from scouting to sinking ships at very long ranges. Drone ships like the Orca will revolutionize war at sea, providing inexpensive, semi-disposable weapon systems that can fill the gaps in the front line—or simply go where it’s too dangerous for manned ships to go.

It has a range of 6,500 nautical miles and can run completely alone for months at a time. It measures 51 by 8.5 by 8.5 feet and has a weight “in the air” of 50 tons..."

The sub features an inertial navigation system, depth sensors, and can surface to get a fix on its position via GPS. It uses satellite communications to “phone home” and report information or receive new orders. Echo Voyager can dive to a maximum depth of 11,000 feet and has a top speed of eight knots...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mi.../navy-extra-large-unmanned-submarines-boeing/

guest · Feb 24, 2019

A Self-Driving Car Company Bets on Mall Shuttles and Monster Trucks
Perrone Robotics began by automating consumer cars. Now it’s focusing on niche applications instead
February 22, 2019
https://spectrum.ieee.org/transport...pany-bets-on-mall-shuttles-and-monster-trucks

One such example is Perrone Robotics, a small Virginia company that has developed a self-driving package that it says can be quickly adapted to any vehicle. This Swiss Army knife of an AI can give smarts to an existing car, shuttle bus, or truck—even the gargantuan trucks used in mining.

“What we’re doing, certainly Waymo and GM Cruise could do, but they are focused on their own agenda. This is our niche, and we are going where we can add real value,” says David Hofert, the chief marketing officer at Perrone Robotics.

Closer to home, Perrone will also launch a pilot shuttle service in March in the shopping area of Crozet. Though the driverless shuttle is fully certified by Virginia’s road-safety regulators, for now it will hew to downtown Crozet’s speed limit of 40 kilometers per hour (25 miles per hour).
Perrone is betting it’s got a niche inside this niche—it alone can take someone else’s shuttles and give them eyes, that they might see, and actuators, that they might steer.
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guest · Feb 25, 2019

Qualcomm’s new 4G, 5G platforms to bring improved telecommunication to vehicles
February 25, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/q...bring-improved-telecommunication-to-vehicles/

Qualcomm today announced new 4g and 5g chipsets for connected vehicles. The chip maker sees the advanced communication platforms powering the next wave of in-vehicle experiences and telematics features including advanced automotive safety features and self-driving cars. Qualcomm says vehicles equipped with these chipsets are planned for production in 2021.

Along with improved positioning, vehicles equipped with these Snapdragon platforms gain vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.

Qualcomm says it intends to give automakers the ability to test the platforms with a reference design kit in the second half of 2019.
It’s through chipsets like these that vehicles will gain autonomous driving capabilities. Without advanced, reliable connectivity, vehicles will not have access to the data needed to navigate across the ever-evolving urban landscape.
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hawki · Feb 25, 2019

Tesla in Fla crashes into tree and burst into flames killing driver -- Police unable to save driver cuz they could't open door BECAUSE THE CAR DOOR HAS NO HANDLE.

https://twitter.com/TRussellCBS4/status/1099838677839167489/photo/1

ronjor · Feb 26, 2019

Paywall.

VW to Invest Nearly $2 Billion in Ford Self-Driving Car Venture

By William Boston and Mike Colias Updated Feb. 26, 2019 11:27 a.m. ET
Move comes as auto makers seek to share the huge costs of developing self-driving cars
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ronjor · Feb 27, 2019

FedEx partners with Walmart, Pizza Hut to test last-mile delivery robot

Lisa Baertlein February 27, 2019
(Reuters) - FedEx Corp this summer plans to begin testing a robot to handle home deliveries for partners ranging from Walmart Inc to Pizza Hut.
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