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Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#131

Post by baxtr »

Declanomous wrote: post #122
zwkrt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the phrase "carving wooden headphones"? I haven't heard of that term before.

The island natives in the pacific got a lot of fantastic things from the servicemen who visited their islands during WWII. In an effort to bring them back, they emulated everything they saw the servicemen doing. In effect, they were just going through the motions without purpose. They built runways and carved wooden headphones like they saw the aviators wearing. Here's a summary from Wikipedia: With the end of the wa…

Fascinating. Search for “cargo cult” on google images for visual impressions

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#132

Post by kbos87 »

This article tries to cover for Tesla by relying on the fact that competing systems also cant avoid similar objects. Sorry, this is further proof that the engineers and managers at Tesla willingly put unsafe technology on America's roadways. A hard stop and prison time for someone is in order at this point.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#133

Post by baybal2 »

smogcutter wrote: post #60
dchichkov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be even worse than that. They likely think that they are on the path, because they are running a massive data-collection campaign on the sensor suite installed on the fleet. But the reality might be different. Running a data collection campaign is easy. Engineering products with machine learning is hard. Most of the teams don't even know what they need to know, to do it right. And so they engage into classic…

I mean, I'm also pessimistic about self driving cars, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Tesla engineers are aware that machine learning is hard.

That's strange. As one of most popular "crash management" systems on the market, one installed on Volvos is quite good at this, to the extend they put it's test video into their commercials.

A sponsored article?

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#134

Post by taneq »

stevenwoo wrote: post #25
tracer4201 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't hit me that way. Sounds more like we as consumers misinterpret what the technology is and trust it too much... of course, there's a feedback loop where companies like Tesla call everything autonomous and hype the marketing to mislead consumers.

It seems like the radar/camera system Toyota uses for its Pre Collision System has the same weaknesses as Tesla's sensor suite but the list of exceptions in the Toyota manual is pretty brutally honest about the issues. Just for pedestrians it warns: Some pedestrians such as the following may not be detected by the radar sensor and camera sensor, preventing the system from operating properly: • Pedestrians shorter tha…

It still somewhat baffles me that these systems are trying to identify certain classes of object to avoid colliding with, rather than simply avoiding hitting anything solid over a certain size. Do I care whether the thing in front of me is a hatchback or a group of pedestrians? No! I just want the car not to hit it!

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#135

Post by Animats »

jacobush wrote: post #76
smogcutter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'm also pessimistic about self driving cars, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Tesla engineers are aware that machine learning is hard.

Depends on how many are fired by angry managers. If you are unlucky, only the wood carving ones are left.

Tesla's "autopilot" project has had at least 3 of the project leaders quit.[1]

[1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/tesla-autopilot-crisis-...

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#136

Post by PhasmaFelis »

> A natural reaction to these incidents is to assume that there must be something seriously wrong with Tesla's Autopilot system. After all, you might expect that avoiding collisions with large, stationary objects like fire engines and concrete lane dividers would be one of the most basic functions of a car's automatic emergency braking technology.

> But while there's obviously room for improvement, the reality is that the behavior of Tesla's driver assistance technology here isn't that different from that of competing systems from other carmakers.

Is this actually saying that there's nothing "seriously wrong" with an autopilot that randomly decides to aim at a wall and accelerate, because other self-driving systems also do that?

This is some very weird apologetics.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#137

Post by arbie »

beefield wrote: post #129
atomical wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People smell better in Europe? When people trot out their arguments against public transportation they always refer to the inefficiencies and completely ignore the human element. No one wants to be crammed in a small space with a bunch of strangers every day.

> No one wants to be crammed in a small space with a bunch of strangers every day. I take 15 minutes crammed in a small space with a bunch of strangers over one hour of solitude in a small metal box with windows any day. Nobody has managed to explain me how self driving cars reduces congestion. It is space that is the limiting factor, and I do not understand how autonomous cars reduce the need for that. Vice versa, r…

> I take 15 minutes crammed in a small space with a bunch of strangers over one hour of solitude in a small metal box with windows any day.

I am reasonably sure economics will change that.

> Nobody has managed to explain me how self driving cars reduces congestion.

It doesn't, but it allows the work day to begin at commute time. Those that don't adapt will simply have fewer "work hours" to make up the lost productivity.

I suspect the bumpiness of roads will become a public nuisance once people start reading/computing in-car.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#138

Post by stephengillie »

smogcutter wrote: post #60
dchichkov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be even worse than that. They likely think that they are on the path, because they are running a massive data-collection campaign on the sensor suite installed on the fleet. But the reality might be different. Running a data collection campaign is easy. Engineering products with machine learning is hard. Most of the teams don't even know what they need to know, to do it right. And so they engage into classic…

I mean, I'm also pessimistic about self driving cars, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Tesla engineers are aware that machine learning is hard.

Yandex Taxi has Youtube videos of their self-driving car. This video of a car navigating a snowy Moscow street is especially impressive [0]. They don't seem to come up in self-driving car discussions on HN.

[0] https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#139

Post by dmode »

macspoofing wrote: post #104
gwbas1c wrote: post #47

It's currently illegal to say that something can cure cancer, and this is because a lot of people just don't understand to the details of fighting cancer to really know what a cure means. Perhaps we need to regulate how driver assistance is sold so that people don't accidentally think they can just keep their eyes off the road?

The only irresponsible car company has been Tesla (and Uber). All the other companies positioned their adaptive systems correctly and very conservatively. Tesla came out and downright asserted their system was autonomous[1]. Predictably, they have since had to scale that back significantly. [1] https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/videos/autopilot-self-driving-ha...

Tesla literally never says that autopilot system is self driving and has repeated nags and reminders to keep hands on the wheel and pay attention. This message is repeated during onboarding, training videos, and manual etc. 99% of Tesla owners follow these instructions. There will of course be 1% drivers who will not.

Re: Why emergency braking systems sometimes hit parked cars and lane dividers

#140

Post by Zarel »

School-Cotton wrote: post #80
kjksf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is definition of "mass"? Waymo almost certainly will launch this year a fully self driving service, accessible to anyone, "within parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area, including Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert" ( https://waymo.com/apply/faq/ ) which is where their pilot program has been running for several months now. See e.g. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/it-sure-looks-like-waym... They already have…

What makes you think "works in Phoenix" is anywhere near "works in most places" ? I think the difficulty of driving in Phoenix suburbs is maybe 1% of the difficulty of driving in urban areas, anywhere with snow and rain, etc.

Waymo showed off their tech for driving in snow/rain in Google IO this year.

They've also done a lot of their testing in the SF Bay Area, which is a pretty difficult urban area to drive in.

They're obviously launching in Phoenix because it's the easiest major city to drive in, but they're also obviously going to expand to other places once they get successes in Phoenix.

Honestly, to me, the more interesting question is: As self-driving cars slowly expand to other cities, will other cities intentionally start making their lane markings more obvious and doing other things to make it easier for self-driving cars to drive in?

Sometimes, shuffling around blame can cause things to get fixed. Previously, with bad lane markings, you could blame bad drivers for accidents. But with self-driving cars, you can only blame the software. So if a self-driving car company is willing to serve one city with good lane markings but not another city with bad lane markings, suddenly the city government gets the blame for bad lane markings.

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