Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]

#131

Post by romwell » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

joshvm wrote: post #22

jimmy1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think CV ever will account for that. I always have thought the answer is going to be somewhere between great technology, and infrastructure to support it. We need "smart" roads.

Ultimately I think it'll have to be smart highways. You could embed a coded marker in the centre of each lane which the car can pick up using RF (e.g. an induction loop). This plus other constraints like GPS, visual-inertial odometry, etc should be enough to localise and remain safely within a lane boundary even if it's invisible. This would work fine through a layer of snow - some of the more expensive ski jackets h…

Indeed!

Since off-road use for smart cars is comparatively small, we should optimize the roads to be smart-car friendly.

Perhaps we could install systems which would enable smart cars to stay in lanes, perhaps with some hardware preventing the smart cars from going off-road.

And while we're there, we could also have systems providing charge built right into the road! Wouldn't that be neat?

The lane-keeping and power systems could allow regular cars to operate on the same roads, for backwards compatibility reasons.

Sounds too expensive to build? Not until you realize that you've re-invented the infrastructure for trams and trolleys put in place a 100 years ago.

Re: Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]

#132

Post by flyingfences » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 4:01 AM UTC

lnanek2 wrote: post #4

I'd love for it to be true, but it's tough to believe that's real. There's one point where a pedestrian is standing in the snow on the road just to the side of where the car would pass: https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow?t=35s Wouldn't any pedestrian detection decide the person in the road has priority and stop and let them cross? It isn't capable of reading a person's intention to stand there vs. cross or not. The title c…

It also looks to me like it's braking very late at times. That's not the sort of caution that one would expect from a prototype.

Re: Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]

#133

Post by friendzis » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #71

friendzis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country there is very specific provision along the lines "it is illegal to enter intersection if an obstacle would force a stop in intersection and block traffic" which means that in a "turn left or go straight" lane you enter intersection and cannot turn left due to traffic and block traffic for cars going straight making that technically illegal. Human drivers, of course, do this all the time.

Are you sure that moving, oncoming traffic is seen as an obstacle under that definition? The real trick against gridlock is to equate the switch to green not as "go", but as "go, once the previous wave has cleared the intersection". The "don't enter before there is room for your car on the far side" is only an optimization on top of that.

I am not a lawyer so I may not be 100% correct. As far as I remember my driving classes and other resources (cannot quickly find exact provision), anything that is not part of road infrastructure (there are intentional obstacles to guide traffic) and causes vehicle to change speed/direction is an obstacle, so moving traffic kind of is. I understand that this particular provision is specifically there to prevent gridlocks and is never enforced in this particular situation.

The way traffic works is somewhat dependent on region. I can go to another city an hour away and already feel a bit alien traffic wise there. This is relevant in discussion on autonomous vehicles: in any foreseeable future we need them to coexist with human drivers and abide by unwritten "everyone drives like that here" rules.

Re: Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]

#134

Post by friendzis » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:01 AM UTC

Piskvorrr wrote: post #107

tonylemesmer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to imagine to avoid such situations there would some kind of control on the dash that allows a stalemate to be overridden (not the steering wheel :P). It would be great if it were a "give way" button rather than a "I'm going now" button.

Doesn't matter how the controls look - you can't have the cake of Level 5 autonomy and eat it too by having a human giving control inputs. (GP: That's actually easy: random exponential binary backoff. It works for other domains quite well.)

In this particular instance yes, that is easy. The core of the problem is that hard rules force traffic into this deadlock. To avoid this deadlock autonomous vehicles must be taught to sometimes bend the rules. Which brings its own can of worms - how do you teach a robot under what specific circumstances rules can be bent.

Re: Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]

#135

Post by Piskvorrr » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

friendzis wrote: post #134

Piskvorrr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter how the controls look - you can't have the cake of Level 5 autonomy and eat it too by having a human giving control inputs. (GP: That's actually easy: random exponential binary backoff. It works for other domains quite well.)

In this particular instance yes, that is easy. The core of the problem is that hard rules force traffic into this deadlock. To avoid this deadlock autonomous vehicles must be taught to sometimes bend the rules. Which brings its own can of worms - how do you teach a robot under what specific circumstances rules can be bent.

Not a good example - "Yield right _in the order of arrival_" is still a hard rule, but practically deadlock-free.

Re: Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]

#136

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

friendzis wrote: post #60

kosmet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be impressed if I see a self-driving car making a left turn in a crowded junction without a specific left-turn signal at LA. The only way to turn left in such roads is to make an illegal turn after the signal just becomes red. I wonder how the self-driving car would do in such a situation.

Equally impressive would be four self driving cars turning left (in right-hand traffic) at equal priority intersection. At least in my country the rules are muddy in this case and no car has explicit priority. The most general "priority in right" loops around and cars should be stuck there indefinitely :)

The rule in California is “first to arrive”, with “yield right” as fallback for simultaneous arrival. Deadlock is unlikely (and a tertiary fallback by compass direction would solve it completely.)