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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

#401

Post by Rapzid »

makeitdouble wrote: post #263
Rapzid wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driver fatigue is taken way more seriously than it used to be and measures and laws have been put in place to minimize it by forcing maximum driving and minimum resting periods. So, ignoring the fact that society doesn't just get together every year and decide to let people die, I'd say it's absolute cynical hyperbole to say society is "letting truckers die".

"Taken way more seriously" is a step on the spectrum. Where did we put the cursor ? At the point where the cost vs the number of deaths kinda makes sense. I think it's a poisonous to ignore that tradeoff and wash our hands of the whole issue. It's like eating meat ignoring where it came from. That doesn't mean we all take extreme positions and become vegetarians, but it's not something we can completely ignore saying…

It's hyperbole and cynical to say we are "letting truckers die" and also that we "ignore that tradeoff and wash our hands of the whole issue".

Neither are true in any useful, productive sense. It's pure cynicism and myopic.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#402

Post by hinkley »

c0nfused wrote: post #177
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great idea and the first I've heard of it. Set a maximum weight of 5,000 lbs for an ordinary license. Minivans will come in just under the line. Small SUVs like the CRV or RAV4 will be allowed, as will small trucks like the Ford Maverick. Indeed, most of those vehicles are under 4,000 lbs. Even some larger SUVs like the Honda Pilot or (just barely) the Toyota 4runner get under the bar. Even a low-specced F-…

I actually think we should also include a hood height limit. I would be for a CDL for any vehicle that is tall enough that an aver age pedestrian standing on the street cannot see over the hood. I'm over 6 feet tall and I regularly have trouble doing this as a pedestrian in the USA. I can only imagine how it is to be smaller.

Absolutely. Those iconic 70’s car profiles will never be seen again because they suck pedestrians under the car and kill them. Trucks have some loopholes for this.

Even the Cooper Mini had to get taller about 10 years ago so the hood angle wouldn’t flip people head first into the windshield. And for side impact ratings. Those two are why the mini is so huge now. (I parked my midsized sedan next to a countryman the other day and when I came back I staggered and rolled my eyes because it is 20% bigger than my car in height and almost in width. Wtf).

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#403

Post by Dylan16807 »

ars wrote: post #384
Dylan16807 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a flat surface a truck and a car using the same tire compound should have identical stopping distances. Well according to the article they don't have identical stopping distances, so let's figure out what would fix it. > The issue comes when you are going downhill. That just changes the angle of gravity. Why would it affect trucks and cars differently? I thought the point was that going downhill exacerbates diff…

> so let's figure out what would fix it. For one thing an 18 wheeler has 10 brakes, not 18. So that's an obvious thing to fix. > Why would it affect trucks and cars differently? The weight of the truck acts as an acceleration force when going downhill. The tire friction of a car and truck is the same - but then the truck has extra force trying to accelerate the vehicle when it's downhill.

> For one thing an 18 wheeler has 10 brakes, not 18. So that's an obvious thing to fix.

That sounds like it would make a huge difference, yes.

> The weight of the truck acts as an acceleration force when going downhill. The tire friction of a car and truck is the same - but then the truck has extra force trying to accelerate the vehicle when it's downhill.

So does the weight of the car. I don't understand this logic. Every pound that's giving you acceleration is also giving you extra tire friction.

A car and a truck should theoretically lose the same number of meters per second squared of stopping force when going down a hill. If the truck started with weaker brakes then it loses a bigger percentage of stopping force, exacerbating the already-existing problem, but if you find a truck and a car with equal stopping distance on flat ground then they should have equal stopping distance on a slope, shouldn't they?

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#404

Post by kevinchen »

eru wrote: post #320
kevinchen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. At the mean time between failures needed to exceed human performance, the uptime of the network connection quickly becomes a limiting factor. It’s possible to pick only routes that have great cell coverage but this limits commercial viability.

Satellite internet is fast becoming good enough and cheap enough. As an additional safeguard, you can make your trucks go into 'safety' mode when connection becomes spotty or when too many operators become too busy with other trucks. 'Safety mode' could mean slowing down the trucks or even stopping some of them. And in general, letting the autonomous systems err on the side of caution more often.

I believe the MTBF argument still applies to Starlink.

Regarding the minimal risk condition / fallback behavior, a central point of the article was that slowing or stopping are almost always unacceptable on freeways because of the speeds involved

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#405

Post by jeffparsons »

jackvalentine wrote: post #272
jeffparsons wrote: post #189

I didn't expect fully autonomous trucking to be here yet. What I did expect, however, is semi-autonomous many-trailer trucks/convoys, because it's a much simpler technical problem that still offers enormous efficiency gains. Let's get a little bit crazy and imagine something very different from what we have today, but still only requiring a single driver. One truck cab at the front. Individual trailers have their own…

Your average road train which has restrictions on which roads it can drive on is 3 trailers. 4 trailer trains exist with far stricter limitations. I just don’t see a 12 trailer 140m long road train with wires strung between the bits being feasible in any way on a road that has other, untrained users on it.

Okay, let's ditch the wires and put a battery pack in each trailer skate. If that limits range too much, we can figure out some kind of clever charging or fast battery swap solution. (None of the reasons for the failure of battery swap in passenger cars apply to trucking, AFAIK.)

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#406

Post by ZeroSolstice »

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…

What sources do you have to cite on development costs and regular maintenance? Autonomous trucking is an add-on to existing trucks which are already being built regularly. We already perform road maintenance and account for it in local, state, and federal budgets as it services more vehicle's and destinations than just "autonomous trucks."

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#409

Post by ehnto »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #306
ehnto wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Why is it weird?

It's certainly not a US only problem. My city tore up all it's rail and now there are houses in the way so we can't put it back. On top of that, labour and materials are so expensive we probably couldn't afford it anyway.

Thanks for showing me that project, I had not heard of it. I am also excited to watch what Bright Rail are doing and if that translates into a country wide approach to high speed rail.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#410

Post by creer »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #362
creer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many places in the US, the road system is already insufficient. Certainly completely insufficient in California. There is no space for self-truck traffic to move significantly slower than driven-truck traffic. Either self-trucks can safely reach speed parity or there is much less space for them. Another response mentions there are easy routes that could be self-trucked first. That would work.

Does driving at 50mph decrease throughput compared to 65mph? By how much? Can we overcome that with a somewhat reduced following distance between self-driving trucks, since they can coordinate braking? (or at the very least they can respond to brake lights in front of them near-instantly) When I think of "completely insufficient California roads" I think of traffic that's already going a lot slower than 50mph.

Haha yeah.

But no, I was thinking of places like interstate 5 (the main north south freeway) which is often a struggle of trucks passing trucks and cars passing trucks and cars passing cars in a completely absurd 2 lanes of traffic in each direction. Nominally 70 / 55 speed limit but nobody drives at these speeds.

And this is one place where a few trucks driving slower than the other trucks would certainly cause extra mayhem.

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