51–60 of 129 posts
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> these kinds of applications. As in research projects, which this project expressly states that it is? What are those reasons? It seems like being able to test theories as quickly and cheaply as possible is the top priority. If Python, a general purpose OS, and a CAN-USB adapter is sufficient to conduct the research and satisfies those attributes, it seems like the perfectly logical way forward. I understand why you…
Why wouldn't you do the research on a platform that could actually be deployed? Build the core using the proper tools and techniques. Any bug in a system like this could be life threatening at worst. Wouldn't you want to use the research phase to help eliminate such bugs? Unless you're not planning on ever releasing then a platform like this makes sense for strictly research, but Comma AI did plan on releasing their…
> Wouldn't you want to use the research phase to help eliminate such bugs?
I wouldn't think so. Spending your time fixing bugs in something you realize could have been done better another way, which ends up getting thrown out, seems like a waste of time. The words research and development are often paired together because it is a two step process, where development comes after you have learned what can be done.
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The car would likely still be street legal. (IANAL) However, allowing this system to take control of your car on a public road would not. Another way to say this is, there's nothing dangerous about the hardware. You could be using it as a logging platform for the data on the CAN bus in your car. But letting the software send commands and take control from a driver is a different story.
> The car would likely still be street legal. (IANAL) However, allowing this system to take control of your car on a public road would not. IAANAL, but I don't think even that is true. I think it actually is legal to allow it to take control of your car, provided you are still sitting in the driver's seat and can take control back at any time.
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I'm not really following. If it works then why not use a control loop on top of Python? We are engineers, after all.
Because by "works" you mean "I tried it out a bunch of times and nothing bad happened, so must be production ready", because that's what you do when you build websites and desktop CRUD apps and nobody ever died cause the web server choked under load or the web page rendered a bit funny or the request took a full quarter second because the GC kicked off as a wave of requests came in. And then one day a one-in-ten-mill…
But I also feel like you're being a bit hasty. Obviously a Python script isn't going to turn into a Tesla overnight. But maybe it'll help you find a few bugs before you throw all that time and effort into building the real deal. When I look at a Github repo that claims to be a self-driving car I don't say to myself "yep, looks production ready," I say "Cool prototype, now let's break it." To me it seems entirely reasonable to get a working Python prototype 90% of the way there and then send it off to the OS programmers to design something that actually meets the concept of "production ready".
I read an interesting ethical dilemma related to self-driving cars recently. Imagine that a self-driving car detects a child in the road, and the only way to avoid hitting the child is to crash the car in to a wall, certainly killing the driver. What choice should the car be programmed to make? Who should decide what that choice is? Who is ethically responsible for that choice? In a normal car that is driven by a hum…
From an engineering point of view you can just hit the brakes and never swerve. Good enough.
Really, a safety critical hard realtime system with control loops on top of Python, a general purpose OS and a CAN-USB adapter? There are reasons why we have realtime operating systems, deterministic bus systems and dedicated CPUs for these kinds of applications. That might be an interesting research, prototyping or simulation platform. But nothing you want to have on a real public road.
Why not? We entrust humans with operating cars right now. Humans in a sense are running a general purpose OS.
Really, a safety critical hard realtime system with control loops on top of Python, a general purpose OS and a CAN-USB adapter? There are reasons why we have realtime operating systems, deterministic bus systems and dedicated CPUs for these kinds of applications. That might be an interesting research, prototyping or simulation platform. But nothing you want to have on a real public road.
I'm extremely familiar with OBD|CAN and car networks - the embedded code alone is an essay in how trivial something can appear (sending commands to a ECU) without considering the million edge cases that make this a safe product to use.
Really, a safety critical hard realtime system with control loops on top of Python, a general purpose OS and a CAN-USB adapter? There are reasons why we have realtime operating systems, deterministic bus systems and dedicated CPUs for these kinds of applications. That might be an interesting research, prototyping or simulation platform. But nothing you want to have on a real public road.
It seems incredible that this is the source code for the $999 product originally destined to be available this year. I'm extremely familiar with OBD|CAN and car networks - the embedded code alone is an essay in how trivial something can appear (sending commands to a ECU) without considering the million edge cases that make this a safe product to use.