Earlier quoted context omitted.
EDIT: the following is incorrect per a reply below. Will leave the original comment below. --- That was going to be my hypothesis. GPS resolution can be reduced in a conflict area. I'll defer to someone with actual knowledge to add more info. :)
I believe the government promised not to ever reduce GPS resolution some 15 years ago, and new satellites supposedly do not even have the ability to do so.
Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
181–190 of 514 posts
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so tiresome that this (mostly false) story keeps coming up. The short version of the truth: The original owner did not buy AP. AP was enabled because of a bug. The dealer listed it as having AP included because, at the time, it was enabled. When ownership was transferred, the glitch was corrected, and AP was removed. The new owner bitched very loudly to the press, and Tesla restored AP to the car, for free, even…
If a dealer listed something as included, and it was not, I would be beyond livid, and they would be giving me a full refund.
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#183Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#184There is currently some kind of geomagnetic storm which is causing a lot of GPS tracks to be offset over the past few days. It's all over the running/cycling forums. Could be related, here's an example: https://old.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/vo17e2/the_magnetic...
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like a lot of people have kind of wisened up about this hypothetical future anyway, now that we're seeing FSD in practice. Sure, some problems would be eliminated by all cars being self driving, and the roads being tailored to that use case. But then, at the same time, trains literally run on tracks and they still have conductors.
The answer is going to look like: freeway and maybe roadway driving is autonomous while drivers are expected to takeover for irreconcilable issues. There can be no other way outside of someone actually factually creating general AI.
Remote employee "drivers" take over when a car signals that it doesn't know what to do
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the list of things that could go horribly wrong with self driving vehicles, incidents like these are only a minor, harmless inconvenience. The more immediate concern is self driving vehicles that are clearly not ready to be on public roads being allowed to test (or not being pulled off the roads).
I'd be curious on the statistics related to new under-developed FSD software vs a new teenage driver. The only way for either of these things to get better is through real-world experience.
And I work in robotics.
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#187There is currently some kind of geomagnetic storm which is causing a lot of GPS tracks to be offset over the past few days. It's all over the running/cycling forums. Could be related, here's an example: https://old.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/vo17e2/the_magnetic...
NOAA doesn't list any meaningful geomagnetic storms right now: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia... But that aside, I'd really hope that these cars are using professional WAAS-capable GPS receivers. Short of a major X-class flare which knocks out the WAAS geostationary satellites, the entire point of the system is to correct for these kinds of disturbances to the GPS signals.
Multi-band GNSS is what helps address issues around reception like multipath and interference. Receivers used to be pretty expensive, and the number of L5 satellites wasn't that high until the last few years, but now can be found in even a number of consumer electronic devices, and the number of L5 satellites keeps going up (and as more satellites have L5 signals, things will get better.) Several Garmin sport devices have it now, for example. A quick search shows Maxim sells a multi-band GNSS chipset for $10.
There is really no excuse for any autonomous vehicle company to not be at least evaluating multi-band GPS receivers, if only to give more reliable position data in urban environs.
I'd be surprised if at least some aren't using RTK receivers, but this requires a base station within a certain range of the cars, or commercial service (such as that offered to farmers by John Deere.) RTK just isn't that expensive compared to even a single LIDAR unit.
Edit: they can tolerate at least some degree of GPS degradation and use dead reckoning / lidar data in some cases, according to this person: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31940167
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#188It's amazing how driverless taxies are a reality now . It shows how there is progress being made as much as there is talk about stagnation.
Fsd isn’t as hard when you have tons of LiDAR cameras, radar, and super high definition mapping. Tesla is the only one working on real world FSD that doesn’t rely on all that stuff
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
NOAA doesn't list any meaningful geomagnetic storms right now: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia... But that aside, I'd really hope that these cars are using professional WAAS-capable GPS receivers. Short of a major X-class flare which knocks out the WAAS geostationary satellites, the entire point of the system is to correct for these kinds of disturbances to the GPS signals.
Why does this make me wonder if something is going on with GPS due to the war in Ukraine?
>Does this happen when you're not using Glonass? I wonder if Russia has been 'tweeking' it.
>I've switched to Galileo and the problem is FIXED.
Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco
#190It's amazing how driverless taxies are a reality now . It shows how there is progress being made as much as there is talk about stagnation.
It also shows how none of our governments seem to care to prevent companies from testing dangerous products on the street with other unwilling drivers