41–50 of 67 posts
Saw his code had a bunch of sleep() statements in it -- I wonder why that is?
they appear to always be on gpio 23 and 24, which a comment implies is for making beeping sounds (I'm guesing two-tone?). I'm guessing it's just to play beep sequences after it has done X or Y.
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I've always be leery of self driving cars. They run on software. Software is only is good as the guy programming it. What happens when the software develops a bug? Be it in the middle of rush hour traffic, or hurling down the highway at 70mph? For all of the great things we know self driving cars can potentially bring to the table, how do we account for the issue of buggy software?
Cars currently run on millions of lines of software. Airlines run on even more. Medical equipment is heavily run by software. Software already runs our lives, and worrying about the quality of the underlying software is a strawman. When was the last time a code bug took out a car or an airliner? Some industries have very stringent requirements and QA processes to make sure the code is bug free and can't kill people.…
Apparently infrequently but it does happen a lot of people end up dying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_inciden...
"The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985 is the single-aircraft disaster with the highest number of fatalities: 520 died on board a Boeing 747. The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression from an incorrectly repaired aft pressure bulkhead, which failed in mid flight, destroying most of its vertical stabilizer and severing all of the hydraulic lines, making the 747 virtually uncontrollable."
"On March 3, 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed in a forest northeast of Paris, France. The London-bound plane crashed shortly after taking off from Orly airport; all 346 people on board died. It was later determined that the cargo door detached, which caused an explosive decompression; this caused the floor just above to collapse."
"On February 19, 2003, an Iranian military Ilyushin Il-76 crashed in mountainous terrain near Kerman in Iran. The official report says bad weather brought the aircraft down; high winds and fog were present at the time of the crash.[21]"
"On May 25, 1979, American Airlines Flight 191, following improper maintenance and the loss of an engine, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, lost control and crashed near O'Hare International Airport in Des Plaines, Illinois. The crash resulted in the deaths of all 271 passengers and crew on board, as well as two people on the ground."
"On July 11, 1991, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120, a Douglas DC-8-61 aircraft operated by Nationair Canada, crashed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia after two tires ignited upon takeoff, leading to an in-flight fire. All 261 people died."
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
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Well, for one you can be pretty sure that self-driving car software isn't going to be written by hippie webdevs changing frameworks every other week. Companies and programmers that tend to work on this kind of software have pretty good track records - we don't see planes falling out of the sky or medical machines randomly killing patients all the time. Uou're going to have an app store for your car drivers.
Cars have it simpler than planes etc too. In particular they can always fail safe by stopping - something that isn't applicable to planes. Other complexities aren't present either due to the 2d nature of roads - for example car software doesn't have to worry about stalls, coffin corner or similar. I believe that self driving cars will primarily be owned by companies with fleets of them, rather than individual ownersh…
Not if you're in a highway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars currently run on millions of lines of software. Airlines run on even more. Medical equipment is heavily run by software. Software already runs our lives, and worrying about the quality of the underlying software is a strawman. When was the last time a code bug took out a car or an airliner? Some industries have very stringent requirements and QA processes to make sure the code is bug free and can't kill people.…
>> When was the last time a code bug took out a car or an airliner? Apparently infrequently but it does happen a lot of people end up dying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_inciden... "The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985 is the single-aircraft disaster with the highest number of fatalities: 520 died on board a Boeing 747. The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression from…
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you need some skills to bring the truck to a successful stop True, but that's skill most drivers don't have. Add in-wheel pressure and temperature sensors-- plus scheduled maintenance checkups and that problem mostly goes away. There are also numerous examples of adaptive control systems landing aircraft after major failures (quadcopters with 3 props, planes with 1 wing) that humans can't handle. You bring up good di…
> True, but that's skill most drivers don't have. [...] after major failures (quadcopters with 3 props, planes with 1 wing) that humans can't handle. These are decent examples, but don't most of them only account for the safeyy of the controlled vehicle itself? I mean, it's impressive that a quad copter can land itself after a partial failure, but can it do it over a crowded city? With a hazardous load? Can the contr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars have it simpler than planes etc too. In particular they can always fail safe by stopping - something that isn't applicable to planes. Other complexities aren't present either due to the 2d nature of roads - for example car software doesn't have to worry about stalls, coffin corner or similar. I believe that self driving cars will primarily be owned by companies with fleets of them, rather than individual ownersh…
they can always fail safe by stopping Not if you're in a highway.
Self driving cars are going to upend this industry (eventually). Many mining companies are actively working on getting their mining equipment to be automated to do the riskier jobs without risking drivers. The same ideas apply here. Remove the driver and suddenly you have a truck that runs deliveries 24/7 and only stops to refuel and get serviced. One would hope that as the technology gets more sophisticated the numb…
I don't know what gps resolves to but it's definitely not down to the foot that's required for some of the hairy situations truckers encounter on the road and our visual learning technology is terribly insufficient for even the most basic road conditions much less your average New England construction zone.
Even google cars can't handle weather or potholes or unpredictable situations well. From what I read they had to be coded for very specific paths around San Fran and any unpredictability would cause them trouble.
A more likely scenario in my mind is Drone trucks. Why can't a trucker head to the office drive his truck from his desk then go home at night?
Combine that with some gps autopilot and/or magnetic strips in the road as a guide and that's totally realistic even with todays technology.
These are more likely scenarios.
Edit: even cooler would be autonomous or drone blimps carrying cargo!
http://rt.com/news/aeroscraft-revolutionary-airship-cargo-18...
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Cars have it simpler than planes etc too. In particular they can always fail safe by stopping - something that isn't applicable to planes. Other complexities aren't present either due to the 2d nature of roads - for example car software doesn't have to worry about stalls, coffin corner or similar. I believe that self driving cars will primarily be owned by companies with fleets of them, rather than individual ownersh…
they can always fail safe by stopping Not if you're in a highway.
A plane can't just let go of all control surfaces. Heck it can't even leave them where they are. It must do something and always must provide some degree of control. A flying plane is moving at several hundred miles an hour and cannot stop.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars currently run on millions of lines of software. Airlines run on even more. Medical equipment is heavily run by software. Software already runs our lives, and worrying about the quality of the underlying software is a strawman. When was the last time a code bug took out a car or an airliner? Some industries have very stringent requirements and QA processes to make sure the code is bug free and can't kill people.…
>> When was the last time a code bug took out a car or an airliner? Apparently infrequently but it does happen a lot of people end up dying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_inciden... "The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985 is the single-aircraft disaster with the highest number of fatalities: 520 died on board a Boeing 747. The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression from…
If you're looking for something that could be software related try Air France Flight 447, though even that is ultimately pilot error. You could also use Ariane 5 flight 1, where a software problem caused vehicle failure.
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It's not really the vehicles. It's the loading docks, the fueling stations, the truck scales and all the rest of the infrastructure that supports trucking. All of those are going to need to have "automated truck" support as well, not to mention, when an 18 wheeler blows out a tire, you need some skills to bring the truck to a successful stop, but even more skills and equipment to effect the repair. Mining operations…
> All of those are going to need to have "automated truck" support as well Do they? The trucks don't need to automate 100% of tasks for initial implementation, the first ones will be driverless in-between cities (or driver-nap in-between cities) with manned fueling, loading docks, scales, etc. This will require some changes, but I don't think it will be too much of an issue to move toward full-serve gasoline service…
If you want them to be economically competitive, then yes.
The largest current expense is the driver salary, mostly due to the low quality of the working conditions and extended stays away from your "home." If you're still carting people around in the truck, then you will have a difficult time competing with large personnel and technology expenses.
What I'm trying to suggest is that a fully automated nation-wide delivery service is going to be exceptionally difficult and will take a long time.
This is mostly from the perspective of OTR/long-haul transportation. You'll likely see faster adoption on smaller scales such as in-city delivery services like grocery delivery and the like. It will blossom outward from there but it's still going to be a very long process.