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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

#291

Post by chooseaname »

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 an excellent point I had not considered.

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

#292

Post by macintux »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #166
kasey_junk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most places that have snow removal equipment “snow days” are actually called more frequently for cold. Leaving kids out in the cold is the issue. Driving in sbasic snow is a solved problem for humans in much of the world.

> Leaving kids out in the cold is the issue. I live in Norway and beg to differ. We see temperatures down to -40 C in winter, and the kids love it. We don't have "snow days", it's literally not a thing here. All you need is proper clothing, some seal fat for rubbing on your face, and cold weather experience among the adults (checking the kids faces for warning signs of frostbite, etc.). 95% of Norwegian babies and to…

> 95% of Norwegian babies and toddlers sleep outside in their prams

Can you elaborate? I don't understand this sentence at all.

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

#293

Post by alkonaut »

bluGill wrote: post #284
alkonaut wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If roads are covered with ice then you should have studded tyres or at least M+S. If even 10% of the cars drove around with the same tyres all year, I'd stay at home too (even if MY car had studded tyres).

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

#294

Post by Piskvorrr »

rootusrootus wrote: post #279
Piskvorrr wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a thought experiment ; do not expect a literal trolley (or even literal corpses!) any more than Schrödinger's cat deals with actual felines. Here's a restatement without all those corpses: In the event that an accident appears unavoidable, the computer should do everything within it's power to stop the car immediately. (This is already a given: safety first.) "If there are multiple ways of doing the above, what…

Well, that's where crumple zones come into play. Trying to have a computer calculate whether or not it is feasible to stop slower to avoid or reduce an imminent rear collision gets very complex in a hurry. What if the guy behind you is much smaller, or much bigger, what if his car has better crumple zones, or none, what kind of energy is he going to impart to you when he hits and where will that send you, who is at t…

In that case, I present a SDV that never makes a wrong choice - by remaining stationary at any cost ;o)

In other words, there is always a balance between safety and usefulness, and the question of "is this the right choice" is always upon us, whether we want it or not. You can never have certainty anyway, what the software is doing is maximizing on some reward function. The TP also asks "is there even a moral component to this?" It seems there is, from the range of emotions this conjures up.

(btw "do not swerve to avoid unknown objects" has directly caused at least 1 dead person - Elaine Herzberg - so that's a really unfortunate maxim for illustrating your point: the car has also an obligation not to be a danger to others. "We just maintain control and everything else be damned" is easy to explain in court, true: IANAL, but sometimes you need more than a simple explanation to avoid being convicted.)

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

#295

Post by saalweachter »

Quanttek wrote: post #231

> The cluster of sensors, bolted underneath a chassis like a skid plate, can scan 10 feet beneath the ground to reveal soil, water, roots, and rocks. Once WaveSense has scanned an entire roadway, it creates a map of the subsurface strata that can determine the location of a vehicle within a few centimeters. nononono! Even assuming you can create sufficient map data as soon as there is any kind of roadworks - or even…

> I'll never understand companies that focus so much on maps as primary source of data.

While not sufficient, this does play to one of the fundamental advantages computers have over people: you can copy information from one to the other.

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

#296

Post by saalweachter »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #250
manfredo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can drive in a torrential downpour. Short of actual flooding or the creation of large puddles, rain isn't all that bad of a driving condition. Be sure not to drive past the limits of visibility and increase follow distances from 2-3 to 5 seconds and you're good. Even motorcycle races are held in the rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv4_425K8r4

I have been in a lot of monsoon level downpours where it is effectively impossible to drive as visibility goes to 0. There are different types of rain.

At some point "no one[0] should be driving" becomes a valid answer.

[0] I mean, there are going to be cases, but the number of people currently driving in horrific weather conditions because it would be inconvenient not to is too damn high.

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

#297

Post by wenc »

seibelj wrote: post #278
wenc wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have a problem that is unconstrained, with infinite variables I'm not sure this is correct. I come from the optimal control world. The problem is not unconstrained and definitely does not have infinite variables (if you think in state-space, consider the state-space equation x' = f(x, u, theta). The x-space (state) is large but finite, and the u-space is fairly small -- steering, gear, brake, etc.). The x-space…

I could not disagree more. The input to an AV’s sensors, not just the data but what it represents and must be determined, is infinite. If your solution is to stop the car, you must also determine if that’s safe to do. It’s extraordinarily complex. This isn’t a factory.

I strongly disagree. It is a large set but not infinite, otherwise humans would not be able to drive. It is constrained by physical laws.

Also, control systems have been used to control much more complex entities than just factories.

I agree it is an extraordinarily complex problem. But I also believe progress can be made to a point where it can be feasibly solved.

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

#298

Post by CaptSpify »

macintux wrote: post #288
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Safer is better, no matter how we get there.

Not really true. It'd be safer to just get rid of high-speed vehicles in the first place, but that would be disastrous.

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by saalweachter »

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…

How well do the south Europeans jumping into their rental cars and coming up north to tool around on your weird roads fare now?
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