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Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

kevinchen.co

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Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#301

Post by theptip »

I’m curious about whether the “autopilot+” model could be a useful stepping stone. If you always have a human driver on board, but they can take breaks while the autopilot drives, maybe this covers a lot of the problematic scenarios? A human driver could look at traffic reports and plan to take the wheel on areas with congestion, road works, and the hilly sections that are technical. The boring straight shots they can sleep. Maybe this could get the duty cycle up to 100% and keep the truck moving non-stop? Really any material increase in the duty cycle would be incredibly valuable.

This approach would help data collection (since you have a ground truth from the drivers) and would also mean you have a mechanic on hand to fix the out-of-cab issues that inevitably come up.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#302

Post by gcanyon »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #25
mxwsn wrote: post #22

Whoa hold on, table 1 of stopping distances is calculated for 2.5 second reaction time which is 10x longer than conventional human reaction time. Then the stopping distances are compared to radar/lidar/camera to argue that AVs can struggle to stop within detection range. It's possible a computer might need 2.5s to make a decision to stop. But the current analysis isn't based on that. This analysis seems really suspec…

A human decision to stop is not binary 1/0. If I am approaching a hazard, first thing to do is raise alertness. Also, lift foot off accelerator pedal. Then, put foot on brake. Then, apply some pressure to brake. All this stuff happens on a gradient depending how quickly I need to react and stop. So between which endpoints shall you measure "reaction time"? I'm already priming my reaction by actions which lead up to i…

I had a guy do the exact opposite: he slammed on the brakes doing a left turn in front of me. I t-boned him. If he had had a passenger they would have been severely injured: he was driving a Kia, I was driving an Isuzu Trooper. My entire family was in the Trooper, and we were fine. The Trooper's radiator (and air conditioning) were broken, but we put in a new radiator and drove it another 150 thousand miles. That Trooper Would Not Die.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#303

Post by geraldwhen »

nox101 wrote: post #291
ChainOfFools wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a rail expert, not even a casual spectator. But my unstudied impression is that the noise that penetrates the most is the ultra-low frequency rumble that comes from the diesel side of the drivetrain, with a secondary source being steel on steel squealing of bogeys around bends at the minimal range of their tolerance. But the latter doesn't have the penetrating power of the former, not by a long shot, so to elimin…

Japan puts tall fences around highways. I've assumed that's for the noise but never checked. Example: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.webca...

Many states have those. If not barriers, then large trees.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#304

Post by xethos »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #259
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #238

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkVBBThAnE This is a video from our firefighters here in slovenia... Humans are shitty drivers, sure, but how the hell would a computer react to a chaos like this?

Pulling to the side when the traffic jam starts, not only when the firefighter walks up and knocks on the window. Also, since it's a relatively time-insensitive situation (as in, tens of seconds to deal with it rather than seconds), once it identifies that it's an exceptional situation, it can have someone connect to the truck remotely.

> it can have someone connect to the truck remotely

This is covered in TFA, and noted that one cannot rely on wireless connectivity along all highways. Certainly not immediate responses, and doubly-so when the vehicle may be in a deadzone; either a natural one or one caused by overloading the local towers (such as one might find at a remote accident with lots of other motorists) will do.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#305

Post by throwaway2037 »

hedora wrote: post #281
ChainOfFools wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a city that has some of these going through it, and I can say that my opinions changed dramatically after moving here, with respect to this idea. Our real estate agent, in hindsight, had employed numerous subtle tactics to discourage us from taking serious interest in homes that were within a quarter mile or so of these lines, although I was completely oblivious to what they were doing at the time. What I d…

I grew up half a block from a freight train line, and you could hear it, but it wasn’t really an issue. Trains have gotten a lot louder in the US recently due to lack of rail maintenance. (Concretely, the transbay BART tube is screeches was above osha safety limits inside the car these days, but was quiet when new. The problem is that you need to grind rails to have a rounded top or they screech (and wear out train w…

> The problem is that you need to grind rails to have a rounded top or they screech (and wear out train wheels), but BART doesn’t bother.

I just Googled for >

Plenty of hits indicating that, yes, BART does grind tracks and wheels.

> was quiet when new

Do you mean in 1974 it was quiet? I tried to Google for any evidence of this and I can find nothing.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#306

Post by throwaway2037 »

ehnto wrote: post #267
capitainenemo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. I did a quick search on freight percentages, EU vs US and google gave me this snippet off the top hit. "46 percent of European freight goes by truck while only 11 percent goes by rail, while in the United States more than 40 percent goes by rail while just 30 percent goes on the highway." Seems US is doing pretty well on prioritising freight rail transport, despite brainwashing, at least compared to europe. Which…

So perhaps a priority could be to build more medium/high speed passenger rail, and get it off the freight lines? Travelers and commuters win, cargo wins! It is funny though, the US built it's current freight network in a comparatively low tech era, yet I doubt it could do it again in the current era due to funding and beauracracy.

This is a weird post. Could any highly industrialised nation build a new freight network today? Probably not. Mostly, it would be blocked by noise complaints and lack of land. Most nation-sized freight rail networks were built more than 100 years ago when population density was far lower and noise controls barely existed.

Also, have you heard of the Alameda Corridor is Los Angeles County? That project is incredible. The amount of soil moved for that project must be staggering. The dimensions: >

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda_Corridor

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#307

Post by Groxx »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #305
hedora wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up half a block from a freight train line, and you could hear it, but it wasn’t really an issue. Trains have gotten a lot louder in the US recently due to lack of rail maintenance. (Concretely, the transbay BART tube is screeches was above osha safety limits inside the car these days, but was quiet when new. The problem is that you need to grind rails to have a rounded top or they screech (and wear out train w…

> The problem is that you need to grind rails to have a rounded top or they screech (and wear out train wheels), but BART doesn’t bother. I just Googled for > Plenty of hits indicating that, yes, BART does grind tracks and wheels. > was quiet when new Do you mean in 1974 it was quiet? I tried to Google for any evidence of this and I can find nothing.

"does not screech horribly" isn't particularly noteworthy, to be fair

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#308

Post by coalteddy »

capitainenemo wrote: post #258
beedeebeedee wrote: post #247

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…

Hm. I did a quick search on freight percentages, EU vs US and google gave me this snippet off the top hit. "46 percent of European freight goes by truck while only 11 percent goes by rail, while in the United States more than 40 percent goes by rail while just 30 percent goes on the highway." Seems US is doing pretty well on prioritising freight rail transport, despite brainwashing, at least compared to europe. Which…

The reason is probably because, in the EU, passenger rail transport is prioritised over cargo. For example in Switzwerland rail cargo is mainly transported during the night because thats the only time the network isn't working at it's limit for the passenger trains.

In Canada, to my understanding, it's the other way round where passenger trains have been reduced because of the need for more cargo train trips. The USA might be similar.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#309

Post by p_j_w »

mcmoor wrote: post #256
beedeebeedee wrote: post #247

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…

I thought that trains is already hyper focused on cargo that's why the passenger experience is so terrible

For most heavy passenger rail like Amtrak and things like Caltrain in the Bay Area, it's because those trains use the same tracks as freight companies and the freight traffic takes priority.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#310

Post by asynchronous »

xethos wrote: post #304
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling to the side when the traffic jam starts, not only when the firefighter walks up and knocks on the window. Also, since it's a relatively time-insensitive situation (as in, tens of seconds to deal with it rather than seconds), once it identifies that it's an exceptional situation, it can have someone connect to the truck remotely.

> it can have someone connect to the truck remotely This is covered in TFA, and noted that one cannot rely on wireless connectivity along all highways. Certainly not immediate responses, and doubly-so when the vehicle may be in a deadzone; either a natural one or one caused by overloading the local towers (such as one might find at a remote accident with lots of other motorists) will do.

Gotta say Starlink could very well fix this soon.
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