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Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

waymo.com

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Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#241

Post by lysace »

rbbydotdev wrote: post #230
mlsu wrote: post #71

Obviously there is a huge amount of money and effort being spent on automated driving. But I cannot help thinking that this perception technology will prove very useful for robotics in general, factory, home, in space, etc. Car dynamics are fast enough to be useful across a huge number of domains. In some sense, the visionaries in this space are not thinking big enough. I want visions of mobility with a totally diffe…

I’m imagining these vehicles on a sort of track, this way if the automation fails, it can still be guided. Also, the track could even potentially deliver power. The vehicle can be any number of connected pods.

Because trains are famously awesome for the last mile(s)?

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#242

Post by cucumber3732842 »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #205
bonsai_spool wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Midwest, golf carts are exactly what people use to get around in small towns. It's not unreasonable that neighborhoods might be closed to large vehicles and use other forms of transit within their boundaries.

Cool! I thought this is more a thing of elderly care centers. I like the drivingfeeling of golf carts, so I would clearly do this as well if it would be allowed on public streets. Though on most streets with all these SUV around, it will feel unsafe for me.

The state reduced regulation around vehicle registration so farmers can drive their SxSs and ATVs on the street (with some restrictions, obviously they don't go on the interstate) and then people in town registering their golf carts or whatever as second cars for around town stuff.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#243

Post by azernik »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #82

Is the TL;DR of the article that they're launching this ( https://waymo.com/blog/2021/12/expanding-our-waymo-one-fleet... ) new vehicle design? I read the whole thing, but, idk, surprised they didn't include a picture or clarify if this is strictly hardware, or hardware + software changes (with the software changes maybe back propagating to existing Drivers)

From the post:

"Because we are focused on building a Driver and not a vehicle, we’ve designed a versatile, integrated autonomous driving system that can be adapted to various platforms and use cases over time. Our versatile hardware approach allows us to reconfigure our sensors and generalize our AI to meet each platform's unique needs—whether it is the Ojai or the Hyundai IONIQ 5—providing the Waymo Driver an optimal view of its surroundings while streamlining for efficiency."

ie this is a sensor+software package for any vehicle that they install on.

My understanding of the text is that, to get this to run on the existing fleet, they'd need to go into the shop for sensor/computer replacement, but the text isn't explicit about that.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#244

Post by IsTom »

lysace wrote: post #241
rbbydotdev wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m imagining these vehicles on a sort of track, this way if the automation fails, it can still be guided. Also, the track could even potentially deliver power. The vehicle can be any number of connected pods.

Because trains are famously awesome for the last mile(s)?

Trams are pretty ok

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#245

Post by azernik »

wolrah wrote: post #41
_diyar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with your first point: Musk has shown tremendous ability to manage companies to become unicorns. He's clearly skilled in this domain. However, if you think about this for 2 seconds with even a rudimentary understanding of sensor fusion, more hardware is always better (ofc with diminishing marginal value). But ~10y ago, when Tesla was in a financial pinch, Musk decided to scrap as much hardware as possib…

> I fully agree with your first point: Musk has shown tremendous ability to manage companies to become unicorns. He's clearly skilled in this domain. I would firmly disagree with that. What Musk has done is bring money to develop technologies that were generally considered possible, but were being ignored by industry incumbents because they were long-term development projects that would not be profitable for years. W…

This is all true, but is completely consistent with your parent post's claim that he's good at building unicorn companies.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#246

Post by hypercube33 »

garbawarb wrote: post #4

I'm forever baffled that GM gave up on Cruise just as soon as Waymo was proving that autonomous driving is feasible. (Disclaimer: former Cruise employee)

Isolated I get why you're baffled, but given GM being GM this is par for the course.

Check out their history of EV or hybrid vehicles or even the history of Saturn - they stumble onto something awesome that people love and it's the company mission to destroy it.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#247

Post by rswail »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #204
xnx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truly. I don't understand why Tesla fans think camera/lidar fusion is unsolvable but camera/camera fusion is a non-issue.

Unsure if you’re trolling, but you haven’t listened to what Tesla are actually saying. Having more sensors is complicating the matter, but yes sure you can do that if you want to. But just using vision simplifies training a huge amount. The more you think about it, the stronger this argument is. Synthesising data is a lot easier if you’re dealing with one fairly homogenous input. But the real point is that cameras ar…

Cameras are only "cheap" because of mobile phone camera development, radar/lidar is going through the same process with car and mobile robotics.

So the "we can train cheaply because of lots of cameras" falls down when, for example, BYD has all of its cars with lidar for ADAS but can collect the data for training as well as the vision from cameras and whatever other sensors like tyre pressures and suspension readings and all the other sensors that are on a modern car.

The argument that we can make the cars cheaper in the future by not collecting the additional data now has been proven wrong by the CN and KR manufacturers.

That's also independent of the whole EV side of things.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#248

Post by IsTom »

socalgal2 wrote: post #195

When are they going to trivally stop breaking traffic laws? Unlike human driven cars, 100% of Waymos are fully filmed. The proof is on every drive. And there is one entity responsible for all of them, Waymo. I've enjoyed my trips so far, but want them to stop breaking the law.

As somebody very far away from any even partially autonomous cars, what kind of laws do they break?

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#249

Post by fragmede »

mlsu wrote: post #71

Obviously there is a huge amount of money and effort being spent on automated driving. But I cannot help thinking that this perception technology will prove very useful for robotics in general, factory, home, in space, etc. Car dynamics are fast enough to be useful across a huge number of domains. In some sense, the visionaries in this space are not thinking big enough. I want visions of mobility with a totally diffe…

No it won't. Waymo's can drive without LIDAR, btw. It's a red herring. The thing is, we want these things to be better than human drivers. I can't see in the dark, through rain, and past fog. Radar can.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#250

Post by chpatrick »

lysace wrote: post #241
rbbydotdev wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m imagining these vehicles on a sort of track, this way if the automation fails, it can still be guided. Also, the track could even potentially deliver power. The vehicle can be any number of connected pods.

Because trains are famously awesome for the last mile(s)?

I think the idea is that they could go full speed in sync, then afterwards they could still take you to your doorstep.
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