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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

#321

Post by eru »

kevinchen wrote: post #294
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cell networks are even longer lead time and more capital intensive than autonomous driving ;) even if we only consider the fcc + local permitting time, it already makes this option difficult.

Satellite internet is fast becoming cheap enough and good enough.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#322

Post by cornholio »

Vecr wrote: post #243
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Any kind of remote assistance will most likely not include steering the truck in real time over the internet.

Rather, things like "unknown obstacle on the road, can't continue", with the operator instructing it to just run over that empty cardboard box. All realtime safety decision-making should have safe autonomous fallbacks, a human cannot be expected to drop in and take charge in seconds. The entire level 3 / 4 "semiautomation" market is a bunch of make believe.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#323

Post by eru »

paulmd wrote: post #245
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…

> The only problems that making it run on roads instead of rails solves is political - [...]

You say it like this is a point against autonomous trucking?

Technical problems are solvable. Political and social problems are basically intractable in practice.

If autonomous driving can turn 'delivering large amounts of cargo along fixed, guided pathways' from a political into a technical problem, then this would be a jackpot.

> [...] capitalism is designed to route around any such inefficiency as morals or safety standards until otherwise compelled by regulation.

No? Plenty of eg cars exceed minimum safety standards. Some brands, like Volvo, are even explicitly sold on safety. Most companies explicitly talk up their morals and ethics, too. Look at almost any old advertisement for examples. Ethical brands are quite popular, and whenever one is found to be only pretending, there's usually a big scandal. So many of them actually practice what they preach.

Similarly, most people are paid more than regulated minimums. According to your theory, that shouldn't happen.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#324

Post by eru »

theptip wrote: post #301

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 ca…

> 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.

Yes, but honestly, you would have the computers look at the traffic report and at the map.

> 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.

I think technically that's probably possible on many routes, but I wonder how regulations interfere.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#325

Post by eru »

greenyoda wrote: post #249
awinter-py wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting!

Seems like something that should be pretty amenable to automation, especially if you can modify the truck.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#326

Post by huytersd »

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…

Trucks deliver to individual warehouses. You’re still going to need trucks for last mile delivery.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#327

Post by eru »

dools wrote: post #248
acc_297 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can try, but that would be a political problem to solve. Political problems are much harder to solve than technical problems.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#329

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

We already have a great interstate transport network that reaches every address, and where this cargo already travels.

I don't know what building a second parallel railroad system to take over this task would cost, but I'd guess several Iraq Wars.

Making the trucks autonomous doubles their utilization, which means we need half as many trucks, and makes freight cheaper, which makes prices lower, benefitting everyone, especially the poorest.

> As a culture, we've been brainwashed...

This is never the start of a insightful argument!

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#330

Post by ajmurmann »

coalteddy wrote: post #308
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…

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…

Yeah, I understand that in the US the rail is actually owned by cargo train companies, so they give their trains priority.
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