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AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

forbes.com

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Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#21

Post by sho »

m0zg wrote: post #19
sho wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? There are dozens of installations worldwide with many more on the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_... If you are talking about intercity trains instead of metro systems - although metros typically handle many times the number of passengers - China is currently trialling driverless technologies on its Fuxing class HSR on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou route with expected entry into serv…

Sure, there are autonomous trains in some places, I said so right in my post. But why aren't _all_ of them autonomous by now?

The technology's only really been perfected in the last 10 or 20 years, well below the normal replacement cycle for this kind of heavy infrastructure. Give it time - it's inevitable.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#22

Post by isostatic »

Chetan496 wrote: post #11
m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

Dockland light railway is completely automated. This train line is in London. I have travelled on it. There is no engine room or train driver. It felt interesting to sit in the very first train cabin which would usually be an engine room in other trains.

Except when the guard takes over driving, which happens a lot

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#23

Post by isostatic »

tialaramex wrote: post #14
m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

The human can look out of the front window and notice that e.g. the cliff above has fallen onto the track, or cows have broken through a fence and are now standing on the track. Something like the DLR normally operates autonomously, there's a member of staff trained to drive it on every train but it's actually slower and more dangerous if they have to. But that's a completely grade separated system, cows on the DLR i…

At high speeds a driver can’t do anything if they see an obstruction. Breaking distances on trains tend to be measured in miles, not metres.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#24

Post by jcranmer »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

I'm assuming you're talking about the kind of trains pulling 1,000 mile runs as opposed to metro trains.

Train drivers do more than just drive a train. They also have to deal with dropping off and picking up cars from the consist. They also need to monitor track conditions that aren't necessarily easy to pick up from track circuits, such as deep snow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yja2VmZOfdA shows you how some trains deal with snow).

In general, the costs of upgrading track to be able to support autonomous driving aren't worth the savings you get from eliminating driver. The main counterexception to this is Western Australia, where everything of value is 1,000 miles away from where anybody lives (and is transported by trains to the coasts for export), and so railroads face tremendous costs actually getting their drivers to their trains. Unsurprisingly, the mining companies in Australia who own/run their own railroads have invested heavily in autonomous trains.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#25

Post by TaylorAlexander »

tialaramex wrote: post #14
m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

The human can look out of the front window and notice that e.g. the cliff above has fallen onto the track, or cows have broken through a fence and are now standing on the track. Something like the DLR normally operates autonomously, there's a member of staff trained to drive it on every train but it's actually slower and more dangerous if they have to. But that's a completely grade separated system, cows on the DLR i…

I agree drivers have other benefits. I will say, you made me realize that an electric sled with 3D LIDAR could check our track hundreds or thousands of meters in front of the train and confirm the track was still safe.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#26

Post by [deleted] »

madrox wrote: post #7
akira2501 wrote: post #5

Several issues with this idea: 1) On the open ocean, what is there to even avoid? In the harbor, you often don't have a choice; the harbor master is going to _require_ you to pick up a harbor pilot who is rated and certified for the harbor you'll be in and they must be in command of the ships steering and propulsion in order for your ship to even enter their waters. 2) Only 20% of the global merchant fleet is dedicat…

I get the impression you didn't actually read the article, as it addresses most of your questions.

[deleted]

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#27

Post by AnimalMuppet »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

From the Wikipedia article on BART (the Bay Area Rapid Transit system):

> Less than a month after the system's opening, on October 2, 1972, an ATC [automated train control] failure caused a train to run off the end of the elevated track at the terminal Fremont station and crash to the ground, injuring four people.

In a bit more detail, they had trackside something-or-others that gave speed information to the train. One train mis-read the speed instruction as calling for 67 MPH instead of 20-something, at a time that it was heading into a dead-end station. When that happens, if there's no human there to say "wait a minute, that's not right", the mistaken command gets obeyed, and the train crashes.

Now: Does that happen more often with automated systems? Or less often? Arguably, less. But to this day, BART has people in the cabs of their trains, at least to monitor the automated system.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#28

Post by samplatt »

jcranmer wrote: post #24
m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

I'm assuming you're talking about the kind of trains pulling 1,000 mile runs as opposed to metro trains. Train drivers do more than just drive a train. They also have to deal with dropping off and picking up cars from the consist. They also need to monitor track conditions that aren't necessarily easy to pick up from track circuits, such as deep snow ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yja2VmZOfdA shows you how some tr…

The mining operations in Western Australia have also invested heavily in autonomous EVERYTHING.

The massive dump-trucks and drill rigs are going autonomous, with anywhere between 10% and 100% (depending on the site) of the heavy vehicles are now driverless.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#29

Post by toomanybeersies »

ehnto wrote: post #13
akira2501 wrote: post #5

Several issues with this idea: 1) On the open ocean, what is there to even avoid? In the harbor, you often don't have a choice; the harbor master is going to _require_ you to pick up a harbor pilot who is rated and certified for the harbor you'll be in and they must be in command of the ships steering and propulsion in order for your ship to even enter their waters. 2) Only 20% of the global merchant fleet is dedicat…

There are some ships, small sailing ships for example, that do not get picked up by radar. They often need to get radar reflectors fitted to be visible. You certainly wouldn't want to be on a sailing vessel while an automated cargo ship barrels down on you. Sailing ships get right of way to powered ships as well so detecting the difference between vessels is important and the automation would need to take that into a…

Might makes right.

Sailing vessels only get right of way with small vessels. You can't sail your little 20 ft trailer sailer in front of a container ship and expect them to give way.

I can't remember what the actual rule is, but I think it's somewhere around the 250 t mark that sailing boats no longer have right of way.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#30

Post by philwelch »

> In the near term, it’s more likely that the helm will be controlled by an autonomous system or a remote human operator while a smaller crew takes care of the vessel.

Hopefully the helm and navigation controls are governed by a secure, air-gapped connection; otherwise someone could hijack the signal and commandeer the ship remotely, and that would be the first case of actual internet piracy.

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