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The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

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Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#161

Post by gfodor »

Question for self-driving car aficionados. When I'm driving and encounter a strange or dangerous situation these days I often try to think if a robocar will be able to handle it properly. One situation came up the other day that made me nervous. I was driving on a relatively empty highway at high speed (70mph) and there was a piece of debris in one of the lanes. I spotted the debris far ahead and safely changed lanes.

For an autonomous car, the car will a) need incredibly far range to see this debris in time and b) will need incredibly precise lidar/radar to see the debris if it is small. At a far distance, a small piece of debris covers a minuscule solid angle on the sensor. At high speeds, you have a twofold problem that tests the limits of the onboard sensors and collision avoidance systems: objects approach rapidly, and small objects can cause catastrophic damage or cause other collisions. In the case where other cars are on the road, the problem seems straightforward since the robocar can probably see all the other cars ahead of it changing lanes in a pattern. On a deserted highway however the car is in trouble unless it can spot the debris from a very far distance, it seems. Any thoughts?

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#162

Post by bryanlarsen »

oceanplexian wrote: post #150
Zigurd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the biking routes are that popular, one side of the street should be a bike lane separated from traffic. Until such time, cars need to be patient. Each one of those cyclists you are stuck behind is keeping a 3 ton multi-kilowatt biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions car off the road. Cars are huge polluters and energy consumers. Would you be equally pissed off if the residents along narrow streets had sp…

Cyclists are using roads that are subsidized and paid for by gasoline taxes and automobile registration fees. If you really want dedicated lanes and preeminence then pay your fair share. I don't think bicycling would be as attractive if cyclists paid for all the externalities of their hobby.

Pedestrians, bicyclists & mass transit reduce the number of cars on the road, making the gas taxes that you pay go further. And since buses & bicycle lanes are a lot cheaper than widening the road or other measures that allow more cars on the road, as a car driver you should be happy that gas taxes go towards bicycle lanes.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#163

Post by mc32 »

mindslight wrote: post #124
gbog wrote: post #120

In this discussion I very rarely see mentioned how heavy are cars. Since when do we need multi tons machine to move a being that is usually below 100kg from a to b? Here in northern China, many people have very small egg-cars, which are nothing more than an electric bike with a thin shell for the cold, and this is much less likely to kill someone by accident. I think we have been under a very strong brain washing so…

Don't get your hopes up, that brainwashing is still alive and well with the first word of Google's post being "Jaywalking".

Underscoring your sentiment is the origin of the term jaywalking http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-invention-of-jaywalking-w...

Although, to be sure, with the speeds of modern vehicles, it makes sense that people's paths be predictable since vehicles are much less able to be nimble and swerve out of someone's path.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#164

Post by slazaro »

I still think that the best application for computer controlled cars is to have humans driving and computers handling the safety, braking when they detect danger, stuff like that. Lots of accidents like hitting pedestrians, cyclists or other cars could be avoided, and it's not as high level and difficult as what they're currently trying to figure out.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#165

Post by oh_sigh »

oceanplexian wrote: post #150
Zigurd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the biking routes are that popular, one side of the street should be a bike lane separated from traffic. Until such time, cars need to be patient. Each one of those cyclists you are stuck behind is keeping a 3 ton multi-kilowatt biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions car off the road. Cars are huge polluters and energy consumers. Would you be equally pissed off if the residents along narrow streets had sp…

Cyclists are using roads that are subsidized and paid for by gasoline taxes and automobile registration fees. If you really want dedicated lanes and preeminence then pay your fair share. I don't think bicycling would be as attractive if cyclists paid for all the externalities of their hobby.

Very few bicyclists just use a bicycle. Most, including myself, own a bicycle and a car, and choose the bicycle for trips where it makes sense(single person trip, short distance, safe route, no cargo).

I would be willing to bet that people like me put less wear and tear on the road since the effects of bike on asphalt are negligible.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#166

Post by TeMPOraL »

mortenjorck wrote: post #75
deanclatworthy wrote: post #4

This is amazing, but if anything it's made me more wary of some of the challenges the project faces. - What if the cyclist fell off his bike in front of the car? How quickly can the computer process the real-time imagery and react compared to a human with their peripheral vision. - What if the cyclist swung from the pavement on to the road. A human driver will probably have spotted the hazard (we all train for that k…

I see where your concern is: this is the sort of lateral synthesis of ideas that computers are still vastly our lessers at performing. We can fill in what we know is going to happen before the rider hits the ground and potentially react before the event happens, while the computer would have to have an algorithm in place specifically to detect a combination of rider posture, angular acceleration of the bike, identify…

> while the computer would have to have an algorithm in place specifically to detect a combination of rider posture, angular acceleration of the bike, identify a heavy package affecting the center of balance, and so on.

Or just an algorithm to detect that the rigid body in moving in front of the car is about to enter a collision trajectory. Isn't that a pretty much solved problem? There's no need for computer to "know" that the dangerous object is a cyclist.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#167

Post by TeMPOraL »

gfodor wrote: post #161

Question for self-driving car aficionados. When I'm driving and encounter a strange or dangerous situation these days I often try to think if a robocar will be able to handle it properly. One situation came up the other day that made me nervous. I was driving on a relatively empty highway at high speed (70mph) and there was a piece of debris in one of the lanes. I spotted the debris far ahead and safely changed lanes…

My thought: LIDARs and other kind of sensors are much better than human eyes. I'd expect the current self-driving cars to have already better sensory resolution than human drivers.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#168

Post by mzs »

thefreeman wrote: post #134
josefresco wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll back that as soon as a system to force bicyclists to abide by traffic laws is required.

I have a feeling that the general populace of hacker news will disagree with us, but I am with you 100%. I live in a small-ish town on the outskirts of Philadelphia that happens to be in the middle of some sort of really popular biking route. Unfortunately, we have a ton of really small streets with cars parked on both sides. I understand and appreciate that cyclists have no other place to ride then in the street, an…

Why I pull in front of the line of cars stopped at the red light on my bike is because otherwise a car will clobber me. It's not a matter of if but when and the consequences will be severe for my family and me. On my commute I am minimally wearing a bright neon green penny over my clothing. When I have stopped in the line of cars at the light I have had cars almost rear end me. Also when I get to the intersection drivers do not seem to notice me there and turn right directly in front of me or a car from the oncoming lane decides to turn into me. So I crawl to the front. And do you know what happened here a handful of time? Even when I make eye contact with an oncoming car, the moment the light turned green, the driver forget I was there and tried to turn left as I was crossing on the green. So for my safety on this particular intersection on my commute I crawl to the front, wait for the light for the cross traffic to turn red and verify that all the cars are slowing, then I book it across before the light turns green for me and the other people barely awake behind the wheel. In this way I am not there anymore when another car starts going. I know it's illegal, but it is the only way I have found to get to and from work safely as it is the only entrance. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why I do that. Some people that do not ride bicycles enough just don't have the experience to appreciate what other things might be going on when not in a car.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#169

Post by scarmig »

oceanplexian wrote: post #150
Zigurd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the biking routes are that popular, one side of the street should be a bike lane separated from traffic. Until such time, cars need to be patient. Each one of those cyclists you are stuck behind is keeping a 3 ton multi-kilowatt biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions car off the road. Cars are huge polluters and energy consumers. Would you be equally pissed off if the residents along narrow streets had sp…

Cyclists are using roads that are subsidized and paid for by gasoline taxes and automobile registration fees. If you really want dedicated lanes and preeminence then pay your fair share. I don't think bicycling would be as attractive if cyclists paid for all the externalities of their hobby.

As your first assignment in transit 101, calculate the wear and tear on a road from a bike vs a car vs a semi.

Re: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving

#170

Post by rpedela »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #167
gfodor wrote: post #161

Question for self-driving car aficionados. When I'm driving and encounter a strange or dangerous situation these days I often try to think if a robocar will be able to handle it properly. One situation came up the other day that made me nervous. I was driving on a relatively empty highway at high speed (70mph) and there was a piece of debris in one of the lanes. I spotted the debris far ahead and safely changed lanes…

My thought: LIDARs and other kind of sensors are much better than human eyes. I'd expect the current self-driving cars to have already better sensory resolution than human drivers.

Yeah and I think a larger problem is deer or other animals running into the road especially at night. I don't know if the Google car can handle that situation yet, but the sensors should be able to see animals way before humans can.
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