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Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

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Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#241

Post by kcplate »

bluGill wrote: post #184
lotsoweiners wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I’d totally take transit so long as it will pick me up in my driveway, is ready within a minute of me deciding I need to leave, and is a ride for only me and my family/friends.

This attitude is why we can't have nice things. You have probably never experienced a system like I outlined and you won't even consider it without adding other requirements that drive up the cost until we cannot get it. If instead you would accept that you can wait up to five minutes, and "other people" are nice enough and so you can share a space with them - we could have a nice transit system. The five minute time…

I have ridden a whole lot of public transport all over the world and have seen what you are describing.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#242

Post by nimbius »

awinter-py wrote: post #240
nimbius wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a diesel engine mechanic by trade, and having been to a few mid america trucking shows I can definitively say the autonomous trucking scenes pretty dead in the water. Too many "ideal condition" technologies, not enough edge condition focus (lots with no turnaround, lots with poor traction or mud,etc...) And too many companies demanding infrastructure investment that won't come. The in cab electronic log system is…

can you explain the issue with logging + tandem adjustment?

Even if autonomous trucks managed to handle digital logging they'll still get stopped for inspection due to weather, traffic, and load size. The rear tandem adjustment takes place on the trailer and is mandatory for safe operation so, youre building autonomous trailers too (no one is).

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#243

Post by Vecr »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #157
karaterobot wrote: post #132

> No guarantee of a timely response from remote operators or backend services. > Therefore, all safety-critical decisions must be made by the onboard computer alone. Why is the requirement that all safety-critical decisions must be made on board, versus the seemingly-simplifying assumption that only some or most decisions would have to be made on board, because a remote operator or backend service could be available…

Ya, I wonder the same thing. In an extreme case it seems like you could build dedicated repeaters/cell phone towers/something along specific stretches of highway, and then start testing along just that stretch with remote operators on call. I suspect remote operators are cheaper than devoted drivers, potentially making a profit from that transition alone, and also collect training data to develop full autonomy.

You need at least a minute to get into the context and have full situational awareness, to imagine what it would be like as a remote driver with less lead time than that, think about a scenario where you suddenly wake up with your hands on the wheel, with no idea where you are and no idea what's going on, except the situation is probably bad.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#244

Post by lvl102 »

ZeroSolstice wrote: post #229
lvl102 wrote: post #41

We need smart roads. Not just smart cars. Until that happens, autonomous is impractical. You don’t want to build an autonomous system to match human error rate. That basically got us nowhere in the past seven years since Elon bs’d his way to selling vaporware.

Correct this is the best path forward. Night time is typically when there is less traffic and we should be able to at least utilize that for autonomous transportation between distribution centers. Then slowing keep upping the advancement as roads are repaired, replaced, etc. If you build a smart road for lets say just trucking, now you can map out the best places for distribution centers, similar to what UPS, Fedex f…

One could argue traffic light was the first “smart” feature added to roads. Why do we continue to have costly high way accidents in 2024? Massive pile ups can be minimized and even avoided.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#245

Post by paulmd »

zbrozek wrote: post #19

Sensors and their ranges aren't the right thing to point to. Off-the-shelf options are typically geared towards the ranges useful for passenger vehicles because that's where the volume is, but with money and time one can design something different. It's possible to achieve a sensible link budget for lidar or radar at much-longer ranges. The sensors will be bigger, they'll consume more power, and they'll cost more. Bu…

Long-haul trucking is potentially easier but we already have a great system for delivering large amounts of cargo along fixed, guided pathways. The only problems that making it run on roads instead of rails solves is political - the US is allergic to owning and funding rails but will happily dump tens of billions into its government-owned roads every year.

Short-haul trucking (in-city delivery etc) is where the value is in having agile, self-driving vehicles moving cargo away from supply points… but it’s also the hardest to implement because there are so many dynamic elements in city driving. And largely these light delivery vehicles are already being electrified where it makes sense (UPS, USPS, etc). You are mostly talking about it any advantage coming from removing a human, not the act of rolling electric vehicles into it like taxis where it’s primarily disrupting internal combustion with electric.

Also, any system is eventually going to be utilized at its full capacity. The number of vehicles supervised per agent will increase until the average number of incidents at any one time meets the average number of agents, or beyond, until there is a regulation. Capitalism is a cost optimizer and no cost will ever go unsqueezed - much like the internet is designed to route around network damage, capitalism is designed to route around any such inefficiency as morals or safety standards until otherwise compelled by regulation.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#246

Post by ZeroSolstice »

nativeit wrote: post #55
lvl102 wrote: post #41

We need smart roads. Not just smart cars. Until that happens, autonomous is impractical. You don’t want to build an autonomous system to match human error rate. That basically got us nowhere in the past seven years since Elon bs’d his way to selling vaporware.

Aaaaand we’re back to reinventing trains. There should be a name for this phenomenon. How long do tech folks discuss how to improve transportation until they attempt to reinvent trains?

Stop being moronic. Different transportation mediums exist for a reason. Trains in the US are currently suited for long haul transportation at which they excel at. We already tried running rail lines to warehouses and distribution centers and determined trucks were a better form of last mile transportation.

Do you think that no one at UPS, FedEx, Walmart or Amazon has ever looked at how much more efficient or what cost saving they could get if "only they had a rail line to their warehouses verse a road?"

What the discussion is looking at is making a micro improvement to what we have already tested as the better method of delivery, trucks in this case. Where the issue is coming about is we are trying to build autonomous actions into a hybrid roadway verse dedicating a portion of a roadway to autonomous driving. The article states the following:

  "Trucking was supposed to be the ideal first application of autonomous driving. Freeways contain predictable, highly structured driving 
  scenarios"
When sharing the road with human drivers this statement makes no sense as all. Vehicle's are their own entities with no connection to each other outside of the road, signage and defined lanes.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#247

Post by beedeebeedee »

Build more railroads.

(I used to work for an autonomous truck company, and when you factor in the cost of roads in addition to the development of the trucks, it makes absolutely no sense to do autonomous trucking when you could do trains. As a culture, we've been brainwashed not to fund trains. We collectively spend billions and billions on roads but would not dare spend money to build more tracks. It is shocking and ludicrous, but that's what happens when you suck up a century of propaganda from the fossil fuel and automotive industry).

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#248

Post by dools »

acc_297 wrote: post #233
awinter-py wrote: post #231

wonder how much of this could be solved with a $10000 sensor post every 200m of road? 48k miles in the interstate = 80k km, 400k posts, 4 billion dollars (and you can start regionally) could also run semi-autonomous convoys where a robot truck follows a human truck, extending sensor range

Yeah I’ve wondered this too I think the safest path to driverless if we insist on deploying that technology is deployment into road infrastructure Driverless trains put about half the system logic outside the vehicles and those things operate mostly incident free

Right so maybe just have more trains and less road traffic generally

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#249

Post by greenyoda »

awinter-py wrote: post #240
nimbius wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a diesel engine mechanic by trade, and having been to a few mid america trucking shows I can definitively say the autonomous trucking scenes pretty dead in the water. Too many "ideal condition" technologies, not enough edge condition focus (lots with no turnaround, lots with poor traction or mud,etc...) And too many companies demanding infrastructure investment that won't come. The in cab electronic log system is…

can you explain the issue with logging + tandem adjustment?

An explanation of tandem adjustment (with diagrams) can be found here: https://www.bigtruckguide.com/know-how-to-slide-your-tandems...

It involves moving the trailer's rear axles forward or backward based on the load's weight distribution.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#250

Post by coryrc »

lpapez wrote: post #195
ars wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then pressure (force) on each tire is lower now, so the friction is also lower. Effective friction is a function of weight and coefficient of friction between the materials. Interestingly the surface area of the contact is not part of the equation. On a flat surface a truck and a car using the same tire compound should have identical stopping distances. The issue comes when you are going downhill.

That equation works for friction between idealized solids. Tires are not even close to an idealized solid, they deform as more weight is added to them, so the contact surface area increases as more pressure is added. That is why you see racing cars with big fat tires, because it's more grip and the relationship is not linear.

They have the fat tires because they're purposefully melting tire rubber into the pavement for a bit more traction. Rubber tires have maximum grip at 7% slip; just about the only material where sliding friction is greater than static friction.

Road-going tires won't get hot enough unless you're skidding far below 7% slip.

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