Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

autoworldnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#51

Post by maxerickson »

jahooma wrote: post #50

The common sentiment has been that self-driving cars are just around the corner. The reality is quite different. The remaining problems to solve such as navigating the elements or obeying construction signs or interacting properly with pedestrians or police are orders of magnitude more difficult than the problems that have been solved thus far. These problems are fundamentally different in that they can't be solved b…

If self driving is otherwise compelling, police and construction can use electronic signs (radio, networked notifications, whatever).

The robot drivers will do better than humans in that case, they will reliably obey the signs (imagine how easy it would be to detour a car that communicates with a regional traffic management system, compared to a human that thinks they know better).

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#53

Post by takemikazuchi »

maxerickson wrote: post #51
jahooma wrote: post #50

The common sentiment has been that self-driving cars are just around the corner. The reality is quite different. The remaining problems to solve such as navigating the elements or obeying construction signs or interacting properly with pedestrians or police are orders of magnitude more difficult than the problems that have been solved thus far. These problems are fundamentally different in that they can't be solved b…

If self driving is otherwise compelling, police and construction can use electronic signs (radio, networked notifications, whatever). The robot drivers will do better than humans in that case, they will reliably obey the signs (imagine how easy it would be to detour a car that communicates with a regional traffic management system, compared to a human that thinks they know better).

While I agree in principle, in practice this idea sounds like a security and authentication nightmare.

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#54

Post by thaumasiotes »

DanBC wrote: post #48
thaumasiotes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? In the long run, having the maps is trivially easy. Roads aren't naturally occurring. If they can be helpful (which seems certain, since human navigators also rely heavily on having the area they're driving through memorized), why wouldn't we use them?

The specialised maps are far too noisy for human navigators to use.

So? I'm just pointing out that we don't expect anyone to navigate without maps -- there's no reason for automated cars to be different. amirmc said "the goal would be not to need those special maps at all", but that's contrary to navigation as practiced since the dawn of time. Given the ease of creating the maps, it makes infinitely more sense to have maps and better navigation than no maps and worse navigation.

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#55

Post by maxerickson »

takemikazuchi wrote: post #53
maxerickson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If self driving is otherwise compelling, police and construction can use electronic signs (radio, networked notifications, whatever). The robot drivers will do better than humans in that case, they will reliably obey the signs (imagine how easy it would be to detour a car that communicates with a regional traffic management system, compared to a human that thinks they know better).

While I agree in principle, in practice this idea sounds like a security and authentication nightmare.

The simplest form I can think of is a beacon broadcasting its location along with a stay back distance (with the routing system in the vehicle left to deal with the details of compliance).

That doesn't address security or authentication, but it should be fairly easy to track down a broadcasting radio, and it should also be easy to log and aggregate the active beacons that have been spotted by vehicles. With that context, traditional enforcement tools should probably work well enough.

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#56

Post by Houshalter »

Hermel wrote: post #22

All self-driving technology I am aware of is based on visual input (cameras, lasers, etc.). I'm not sure self-driving cars can get as good as human drivers without any audio input. Noises are an extremely important source of information, especially in critical situations. I guess that a startup focusing on converting audio input into 3D-data (e.g. "truck approaching from behind") could become very valuable.

Deaf people can drive well.

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#57

Post by jfoster »

tatterdemalion wrote: post #26
jfoster wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When humans do it, are they just taking a risk that the autonomous car could take, but won't?

That seems like it might be an overgenerous treatment of autonomous vehicles' (current) risk evaluation. The article reads like humans are making the determination that the vehicle can't drive in the rain, not the machines.

What I mean is that the autonomous vehicles probably just get very noisy signals in the rain. Isn't that also what happens to humans driving cars in heavy rain? The rain limits long-range visibility, fog limits short-range visibility, wet road increases stopping distance, and yet humans think it is safe to drive at regular speed limits. Perhaps humans are (for now) better equipped to deal with those very noisy signals, but my point is that it's also dangerous for humans to drive in heavy rain.

Re: Google's Self-Driving Car Can't Navigate Heavy Rain or Most Roads

#58

Post by jfoster »

jahooma wrote: post #50

The common sentiment has been that self-driving cars are just around the corner. The reality is quite different. The remaining problems to solve such as navigating the elements or obeying construction signs or interacting properly with pedestrians or police are orders of magnitude more difficult than the problems that have been solved thus far. These problems are fundamentally different in that they can't be solved b…

Some of the things you mentioned as not being handled by Google's cars actually are handled, and you can find videos on the Google Self-Driving Car Google+ page that provide visualizations of the car encountering some of those scenarios or similar ones. (some of the others do seem to be unresolved so far, though)

You assert that Google can't make this profitable. Why do you think that? If they can make it work well enough, they can be cheaper and more efficient than (probably) any other form of transport, probably drive all taxi companies out of business, and be raking in some revenue every time someone wants to go somewhere, worldwide. (think Uber, if only it were used for every single trip)

This could be far bigger than their current businesses.

Post reply on HN