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Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

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Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#281

Post by throwawayjava »

bsagdiyev wrote: post #32
throwawayjava wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one glimmer of hope that I have is that I am literally incapable of driving in the snow without substantial software assistance, and that's true for literally every other human I know.

You and the people you know may just not be suited for driving in those conditions. Mountain areas in California have plenty of people capable driving in some serious snow with older cars, ABS is usually the only thing they have, no traction control or other software help. Anecdotal, of course, but so is your comment.

> You and the people you know may just not be suited for driving in those conditions

...northern Wisconsin gets its fair share of snow.

> ABS is usually the only thing they have

I think you've just agreed with me. ABS and TCS are exactly the systems I was referring to, and most of today's drivers have never encountered a car that doesn't at least have ABS.

I've driven a car without ABS or TCS in the snow. It's extremely difficult. Kind of similar to driving a stick shift for the first time. The idea is simple, but getting it into muscle memory enough that you're not constantly making mistakes is non-trivial.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#282

Post by rootusrootus »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #277
chooseaname wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll never understand companies that focus so much on maps as priamry source of data. Maybe they don't really care about the product. Maybe the execs only care about making money, so they'll find funding for anything - whether it will pan out or not. Self-driving cars are hot and for now there's a lot of money available. I think things will cool down when the hard part starts - like when they really do have to figu…

Depending on how good that data is, this might be a data play where the data collected in a single repository is extremely valuable. Sell it to the military for operating when GPS is jammed. Sell it to mining companies, insurance companies for a detailed very large map of what lies below.

That's what I was thinking. Worst case, the map data isn't all that critical for self-driving cars, but you have a huge amount of potentially very valuable data that can be used for a lot of other things.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#283

Post by stevetk »

Animats wrote: post #156

The article is kind of vague. What they seem to be doing is operating a ground penetrating radar under the vehicle so that underground details can be used as positional references. This is useful only if you have a map which includes that data. At best, this tells you where you are. It tells you nothing about what's ahead. LIDAR units that return "first and last" returns are helpful in dealing with rain and fog. The…

It's important to note that scattering will get worse at the higher frequencies too. This is why radar can penetrate dust and visible light has more difficulty.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#284

Post by bluGill »

alkonaut wrote: post #154
njarboe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or most people. If it is actually blizzard conditions, one should have a very serious reason to be on the road. If not, stay at home instead of driving. Snow days are called for schools. Maybe work in general also?

I think this is very regional. I have never had a snow day in my entire life because we get snow several months per year. I think the "snow day" phenomenon happens in cities where snow is rare enough that there is no infrastructure in place to take care of it (having that would be more expensive than just accepting everything stops a couple of days per year) AND not every car has winter tyres. After 60cm snow on one…

Where there is a lot of snow the infrastructure handles it. Snow plows run all night long. There is 60cm of snow on the ground, but at most 3cm on the roads, and plenty of sand/salt underneath so that there are no ice spots.

Where there is little snow they don't have plows or salt/sand. 4cm of snow and you better stay home because the roads are covered in ice, and nobody can help you.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#285

Post by dmix »

petterih wrote: post #222

Sensible 4 ( http://sensible4.fi/ ) uses bunch of various sensors including LIDAR, IR and normal camera. Seems to do ok in typical winter environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQWrngWvcnU

That's awesome, they also have some old videos from 1990-1993:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7jxensSdhE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMlz5tAKmUs

They've been working on this problem for a very long time. Which explains the progress they've made. I don't know how people can say this is an unsolvable problem when some high end research applications have made such progress.

Plus there's Microsoft's 2016 announcement with Ford about algorithms that can work within snow/rain by identifying raindrops and snowflakes then 'ignoring' them:

https://qz.com/637509/driverless-cars-have-a-new-way-to-navi...

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#286

Post by throwawayjava »

jerkstate wrote: post #33
throwawayjava wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one glimmer of hope that I have is that I am literally incapable of driving in the snow without substantial software assistance, and that's true for literally every other human I know.

I learned to drive on snow and ice in the midwest in a stick-shift car from the '70s.. of course, I would rather have traction control and ABS, but it can certainly be done (and it was for many years before the modern conveniences)

Sure, people could learn how to drive without software assistance.

Just like people could learn how to drive a stick shift.

But most people (at least in the US) don't know how to drive in a stick shift or how to navigate snow without ABS and TCS.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#287

Post by oihoaihsfoiahsf »

skywhopper wrote: post #275

"robots sophisticated enough to [...] improve on lackluster human perception" This underlying misapprehension is at the root of the self-driving car hubris. Humans have remarkable perception of physical environments. The fact that electronic systems can beat humans handily on a few metrics has led to an entire industry built on the misconception that those few metrics are all that matter. But those were just the triv…

> This underlying misapprehension is at the root of the self-driving car hubris.

I will basically guarantee you that no one working on self-driving cars thinks human perception is lackluster or an easily matched capability. Journos interpreting their work might impute that belief to self-driving engineers, but nobody could work on the problem for even the shortest amount of time without realizing that it is an incredibly hard problem.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#288

Post by macintux »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #268
btbuildem wrote: post #258

Honestly, it seems like a more workable solution would be to improve the roadways with built-in beacons to indicate where a road is, and where it isn't. The cars would work only on the improved infrastructure, but they would work. I suppose there is a danger of nefarious actors spoofing beacons to make you drive off a bridge, but it seems far-fetched.

To me that removes the "self" in self-driving car. A car that stays on the road because there are magic beacons is like bowling with thise giant bumpers in the gutters. It'd be more like cars with uber cruise control.

Don't we want driving to be more like bowling with bumpers in the gutters?

Safer is better, no matter how we get there.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#289

Post by jasonlotito »

amluto wrote: post #114
gwern wrote: post #14

> Waymo, widely seen as leading the self-driving vanguard, says it has made progress teaching its software to better filter out “noise” from precipitation. The last Waymo leak claims that it is more than just 'progress', but that 'rain is solved', incidentally: https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2018/09/14/waymo-plan...

From that article: > Also snow seems to be solvable, as there will probably similar patterns that the sensors get in their signals. Real snow is not just a software problem. Fancy rear facing sensors near bumper? I hope they function through a couple inches of frozen muddy spray. Front windshield? Sometimes needs scraping. Lidar on roof? Does it work through the big heap of snow on it?

Until I see self-driving cars driving in a Montreal blizzard aftermath navigating the various streets, they can't handle snow.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#290

Post by Faark »

Moru wrote: post #175
scj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd rather share the road with a computer. Not version 1. Factoring in all these variables is going to be a lot of work for a non-universal feature. I have no doubt they'll be included some day, but I doubt it'll be day 1. EDIT: To be clear, I believe that dealing with ice and snow is an order of magnitude more difficult than driving under normal conditions. This is an 80-20 feature that many people won't need. I c…

I'm worried about the south europeans jumping into their self-driving car thinking they can come visit us in northern Sweden early spring (their season, still full winter here). How do you meassure how slippery the road is? How much wind from the side? Will the wind blow me off the road because it has been polished by the wind just after those trees end, next to the lake? Will the car know to stop before even going b…

You're presuppose individual ownership of self driving cars. Ride hailing replacing those seems like a very likely outcome of self driving tech and won't have your issue thanks to "destination outside service area".

Actually, even with private ownership i'd not be surprised we'd end with region locked software, even if just for business reasons.

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