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Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

bloomberg.com

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Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#81

Post by clay_the_ripper »

I don’t see the fact that self driving cars can’t drive in all conditions as a reason not to still want one that can drive on the freeway in good weather. A lot of people spend a large portion of their driving time on freeways so if we could solve that to a standard of safety that is acceptable, that would be a huge win in my book. As soon as it starts raining, have the system disengage and I’ll take over.

It seems to me that a lot of people commenting here are a bit obsessed about the edge cases, and if it has edge cases then it’s not a “true” self driving car. I disagree. I think a car that can self drive in some situations would still be amazing.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#82

Post by romed »

sna1l wrote: post #62
gwern wrote: post #14

> Waymo, widely seen as leading the self-driving vanguard, says it has made progress teaching its software to better filter out “noise” from precipitation. The last Waymo leak claims that it is more than just 'progress', but that 'rain is solved', incidentally: https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2018/09/14/waymo-plan...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/08/29/waymos-sel... Surprising that Waymo has figured out rain but not things like left turns. Different problem spaces I'd imagine, but still surprising.

That Waymo has not solved left turning is not really a conclusion supported by that article. A supportable conclusion is that the impatient meatbags are angry that the Waymo van won't dangerously veer out into oncoming traffic.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#83

Post by jefft255 »

Itsdijital wrote: post #77
hanoz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As LIDAR's pièce de résistance to date has been its ability to "see through" forest canopies to the terrain below, I don't understand how rain or snow should present an unsurmountable obstacle to seeing the road ahead.

Trees don't refract and reflect light.

Of course they do. Airborne lidar usually works in the near infrared spectrum which is not absorbed by wood. It is however more absorbed by leaves which have a higher water content. My main point is: airborne lidar (which is what OP is referring to when talking about removing forests and keeping the ground) has multiple returns for one laser beam. Laser beams can have a radius of 1-2 meters or more when they hit the ground. By keeping only the lowest return in the z direction you most certainly have a ground point. It's not rocket science and interpreting ground lidar scans (velodyne and such) in bad weather is a much much more difficult problem.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#84

Post by rootusrootus »

kxrm wrote: post #18
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn’t sensing, it’s decision-making.

The trolley problem is a tough one.

I've never understood why. I can't imagine any programmer or self-driving car company having any interest whatsoever in going down that particular rabbit hole. The answer is simple -- we don't expect humans to do realtime analysis of who is worth killing when an accident is happening, so we will not expect that of computers either. It's an unsolvable problem. So we just tell the computer that in the event that an accident appears unavoidable it should do everything within it's power to stop the car immediately. End of story.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#85

Post by [deleted] »

Itsdijital wrote: post #77
hanoz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As LIDAR's pièce de résistance to date has been its ability to "see through" forest canopies to the terrain below, I don't understand how rain or snow should present an unsurmountable obstacle to seeing the road ahead.

Trees don't refract and reflect light.

[deleted]

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#86

Post by pwg »

gmadsen wrote: post #51
dbcurtis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think they are qualitatively “better drivers”. But they are more experienced at certain things. When I lived in Minnesota, I got lots of practice driving in snow and ice and rain. Now in NorCal, not so much :) Its a skill. You get better with practice. The person going slow probably just hasn’t had enough practice yet with the conditions. Going slow is probably a good choice for them. Am I a better driver ove…

I've always been curious what "skills" need to be practiced to drive in the snow. It isn't overly technical. Just don't accelerate or brake too fast and dont turn while you are doing either. If you feel the car start to wobble or fishtail a little, it means you are going too fast. Thats literally all I change, and I have done fine all my life

One "skill" that very much needs practice is skid recovery (for those eventual times when the car, no matter how careful you are being, will want to skid).

It was described in the drivers ed manuals when I got my license, but it is a skill that has to become muscle memory habit (i.e., you don't have time to think "which way do I turn the wheel and how much", you have to "just do"). Without any practice (which was way easier in the 80's with rear wheel drive vehicles) you never got the "touch" down to just turn the wheel the correct direction and amount to recover when the car does start to skid.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#87

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

jryle70 wrote: post #56
seibelj wrote: post #19

I’ve taken downvotes from HN optimists for years about self driving cars. The slightest bit of criticism would have comments calling me an idiot 20 different ways. Then a single dead pedestrian changes all the news articles and the opinions change. We are a very, very long way away from self driving taxi cabs. What a total PR scam that was - but it did help valuations.

Not sure if you have read the article, but it's actually about a company called WaveSense who claims to have developed ground-penetrating radar that can greatly improve all weather autonomous driving. So yes, it's a daunting task but lot of people are working on it and progress is being made. I'd be interested to hear your counterargument.

>> I'd be interested to hear your counterargument.

Not the OP, but like you say, the article is about a company who claims to have developed a technology that will solve self-driving cars' problems with rain.

People in industry make claims all the time. People in the sciences do, too. Just because someone makes a claim, doesn't mean it's true. It's only a claim.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#89

Post by dasil003 »

romed wrote: post #82
sna1l wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/08/29/waymos-sel... Surprising that Waymo has figured out rain but not things like left turns. Different problem spaces I'd imagine, but still surprising.

That Waymo has not solved left turning is not really a conclusion supported by that article. A supportable conclusion is that the impatient meatbags are angry that the Waymo van won't dangerously veer out into oncoming traffic.

LOL, yes, the meatbags. Waymo exists to serve Waymo's purpose, it is a higher entity beholden only to its funding source not to petty meatbag concerns.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#90

Post by batteryhorse »

spin wrote: post #58
kxrm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trolley problem is a tough one.

In my entire life, I've never encountered the Trolley Problem, and I've never met anyone who has. Most safety problems in driving can be solved by slowing down . The problem with AI is all those weird, little edge cases that humans can reason through -- for example: if there's a deer next to the road, then I'll slow down, even if it's not on the road yet. I've known many people who have hit a deer when it spontaneous…

Perhaps most safety problems. But if you need to outrun an erupting volcano, a tsunami, or the police, slowing down won't really help you.
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