Hidden obstacles for self driving cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#61

Post by kamaal » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 6:55 AM UTC

webignition wrote: post #33

letstryagain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just have to be significantly safer than humans, and that's not hard.

I think you would have to experience first-hand what it is like to drive in almost any country that is outside the US, Europe or most of the commonwealth to really appreciate the difficulty of developing a self-driving car that could handle such conditions more safely than humans. It very much is hard. I've driven in and around India. Aside from the fact that the majority of vehicles have four wheels and generally mo…

>>Try circumnavigating Connaught Place on any day for a taster, or try taking the main highway north from New Delhi any distance.

That's like the easiest of the tests you give.

The difficult ones require record precision gear-clutch-accelerator usage, to move vehicle in measures of inches in case of grid locks in some places in India. This is beyond the fact that it may raining heavily, and you might be navigating through huge pot holes, with garbage, beggars and stray dogs on streets.

Well then nothing can give you true idea until you drive here.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#62

Post by agildehaus » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:11 AM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #49

georgemcbay wrote: post #3

I'd love to see an article on this topic that was actually written for techies/engineers. IMO, this could be right out of Wired the way it is written -- it conflates regulatory issues, problems that are clearly (relatively) easy but just not tackled, and problems that are legitimately still pending solutions before this goes mainstream. An article focusing on what the actual real difficult unsolved technical issues a…

> People aren't that great at this either The robot car has to be considerably better than people to become acceptable. This is a serious burden for the technology.

Accidents are usually caused by human unpredictability, lack of attention, terrible reaction time, stupidity, narrow perception, inability to follow traffic rules, and the effects of various drugs. Driverless cars mitigate all of these issues.

I would feel much better riding a bike in the vicinity of a self-driving vehicle than any random human.

There are a number of issues to iron out yet and a lot of testing to do. But make no mistake, they're already far better.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#63

Post by agildehaus » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:26 AM UTC

teej wrote: post #7

I made this comment about google self driving cars two years ago and I think it's still relevant now: 200k miles is nothing. Over 8 billion vehicle miles are spent per DAY in the US. One person is killed for every 75 million miles driven. 200k miles isn't enough to test every terrain, under every weather condition, in every lighting, etc. There's too many variables in the equation. The Google car won't be truly safe…

Considering the average human has only a few miles of officially observed driving before it receives a license, I think this is a bit unfair.

How would you suggest testing these vehicles to tens of millions of miles without having an actual public deployment?

Also, Google can test its algorithms in simulation to many millions of miles within hours. I believe they're lobbying for simulation to be a major part of testing:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/google-tes...

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#64

Post by agildehaus » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:36 AM UTC

nicholas73 wrote: post #46

balloot wrote: post #31

I've been saying this for years, as I took Thrun's class when he was at Stanford. Google's dirty little secret is that self driving cars are still mostly smoke and mirrors. Given relatively controlled conditions and a trained driver who can play backup when needed, they work. But if you put them in complicated situations - snow, a busy city environment, abnormal signage - watch out. The problem is that the driving mo…

I decided to test a Google self driving car as it crossed the intersection by accelerating into its broadside - no reaction at all. Well, got a reaction from the humans inside. I recently narrowly avoided getting killed by a broadside collision by braking just in time. If I were further I would have sped up out of the way. Would a probabilistic approach handle this? Maybe they need to compile a list of special edge c…

I think they're currently concerned with making sure the vehicle drives safely. Many humans apply evasive maneuvers, only to end up killing someone else or hurting themselves in other ways.

All this shows is that the Google car was driving well, and you weren't. Though I'm sure as the tech progresses they'll look into this sort of thing, and will implement what makes sense.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#65

Post by prawn » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:39 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #9

teuobk wrote: post #6

So what if the car can't drive itself in anything other than familiar roads during clear weather? I would guess that the majority of my current driving is done under those conditions. If the car could take care of itself most of the time but fell back to my control during rain, snow, obscure roads, or construction zones, I think it would still be a net benefit to me.

The problem there is driving is a skill, and one which you can lose if you do not exercise it. A self driving car which only works 99% of the time seems like a non-starter, since by that point the humans inside of them are no longer qualified to take over. Particularly if that 1% is in conditions that are particularly difficult.

I could see people driving slowly and carefully in those rarer cases. e.g., in the event of minor flooding or a fallen tree that confused sensors.

In cases like garbage bags (may be empty, may contain sharp debris) on the road, I could see a car communicating with the others in the network to describe the problem from another vantage, or after driving through.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#66

Post by agildehaus » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:41 AM UTC

snowmaker wrote: post #47

prbuckley wrote: post #12

It seems to me we have a better chance of seeing low flying autonomous vehicles for personal transportation before we see self driving cars (think quad coptor drone style vehicle with 500 lb payload capability). Autopilot systems are already widely used in commercial air vehicles. Fewer obstacles need to be accounted for in the air and there is less in grained regulation. It feels like we are going to leapfrog the ca…

Each approach has a different challenge. For autonomous cars, the challenge is software. It's very difficult to build software that handles all the edge cases mentioned in the article. The hardware (cars) is a solved problem. For autonomous personal flying machines, you're right that the software is easy, but the challenge is power density. The only VTOL machine that can carry humans a considerable distance without r…

Also, the software for autonomous flying machines would NOT be easy if suddenly we had tens of millions of them in the air.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#67

Post by prawn » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:46 AM UTC

webignition wrote: post #33

letstryagain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just have to be significantly safer than humans, and that's not hard.

I think you would have to experience first-hand what it is like to drive in almost any country that is outside the US, Europe or most of the commonwealth to really appreciate the difficulty of developing a self-driving car that could handle such conditions more safely than humans. It very much is hard. I've driven in and around India. Aside from the fact that the majority of vehicles have four wheels and generally mo…

Can you imagine the sensors and speeds that might be available within one decade let alone two or three? Compare that to a human looking in just one direction at any given time and with imperfect reaction time.

You know those larger, heavier vehicles you mentioned? What if they're self-driving long-haul transport? They'll likely be able to make it through.

Cost will be the thing that prevents self-driving cars from dominating roads in India before the technology itself is a problem.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#68

Post by prawn » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:49 AM UTC

teej wrote: post #7

I made this comment about google self driving cars two years ago and I think it's still relevant now: 200k miles is nothing. Over 8 billion vehicle miles are spent per DAY in the US. One person is killed for every 75 million miles driven. 200k miles isn't enough to test every terrain, under every weather condition, in every lighting, etc. There's too many variables in the equation. The Google car won't be truly safe…

You make it sound like they're stopping trials. There are only going to be more vehicles from more manufacturers out there being tested and in increasingly complex situations. That mile count will continue to rise.

And this isn't true: "The Google car won't be truly safe until it has logged 1000x miles."

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#69

Post by agildehaus » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:50 AM UTC

xauronx wrote: post #21

Oh really? A futuristic mind blowing developing technology which hasn't been released to the public (and has no plans to) isn't ready to be released to the public? What's the point of an article like this, especially being posted here? We're all technical people who understand the complexities (or understand it's so complex that we can't understand them.) If the effort is to inform the ignorant public of their miscon…

It's an odd reaction that self-driving cars have to be perfect and handle every edge case and have tens of millions of miles of error-free testing before they're considered "ready".

Humans usually spend about 30 minutes driving 5-10 miles to get a license, are far more unpredictable and inattentive, and have a stupid number of edge cases of their own.

Not to say we shouldn't hold self-driving cars to a higher standard, we absolutely should, but it's silly to think they need to be perfect.

Re: Hidden obstacles for self driving cars

#70

Post by agildehaus » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 8:06 AM UTC

balloot wrote: post #34

Swizec wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have trouble with snow as well. If there are no tracks in front of you, you just guess where you're supposed to go and go for it. It's pretty fun on roads you know well, rather miserable on roads you don't. Also, most 3-lane roads magically turn into 2-lane roads, and many 2-lane roads turn into 3-lane roads etc.

You just described the problem nicely. The "magic" that turns 3 lane roads into 2 lanes etc, is a situational awareness that is really, really difficult to impart on a learning system. The big problem is that probabilistic models don't have a notion of "common sense" solution to an odd situation. They need to have seen the situation, or something very similar to it, enough to make a reasonable calculation of what to…

The 3 lane to 2 lane problem is solved already. These cars follow a centimeter-accurate 3D map that has the lanes precisely defined (as well as acceptable speeds, location of stoplights, etc).

The Google car knows the lane change is approaching long before it shows up on any sensor.