Sunday, November 29, 2015

Google On Road to Driverless Plus

Google is not working up to driverless, but to driverless real. It's all screen-based interaction with the vehicle. Except: Car meets pedestrian.

Google patents display the future

Better patent, software, engineering minds than mine are parsing through Google's recent patent applications to find that vehicles will be skipping the human altogether, except as a passenger. No steering wheel, no brake pedal, no gas pedal. Just room for a couple of passengers. I'm guessing the actual vehicles will come in different sizes for riding alone, riding with the kids, riding on extended vacation, or riding with groceries. 

Another Google patent seems to go low-tech to keep pedestrians safe. Instead of my imagined tech solution of a chip on every pedestrian - whether in the purse, backpack, or jacket - Google is trying out something more akin to school bus signs that pop out when the bus stops, something visual to WARN ANYONE close that a vehicle is moving and could pose a danger. So far, Google has included people with visual disabilities in its plans, so I am guessing it will do something to tweak this solution for people who are unable to see.

In the rear view mirror

Not that Google is at all complacent with its position in the driverless industry lead, but there are hungry innovators working hard. One example: A competition is to be hosted for autonomous race cars. These will also be battery powered. The name: Roborace. It is expected that self-driving races will be taking place at actual car races. Who will be the stars without drivers? The software engineers, the welders?

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Human vs. Machine - No Contest

In terms of reaction time, when quick thinking or braking is necessary, machines - including driverless vehicles - are way ahead of humans. What we require seconds for, to assess a situation and react, a driverless vehicle can currently do in tenths of a second. Think what it takes to barrel to a stop when traveling at 80 miles an hour.

This article explains the details in terms of safety of driverless versus human drivers.

And that driverless vehicle you eventually ride in might be a 3D printed vehicle., such as the one Local Motors is showing around. Ditto for the house you live in. More and more companies are getting in this game as well. A new term: Additive manufacturing. There's no waste in this polymer world. 

We might not have cars anymore, but you could use the garage for a giant 3D printer. That's not even a joke.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Florida to Use Driverless Road Inspection Vehicles

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL., will study driverless vehicles conducting road and airport inspections, and painting lane lines. The research will take place over 14 months to determine how well the vehicles perform in different conditions, such as rainy weather. 

The vehicles used will be Ford Escapes and they will be out there on normal roads.

The study is being performed under the auspices of the Florida Department of Transportation.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Michigan Nods to Past and Hesitantly Nod to Future

A drop in the bucket - $2.7 million. That's the size of a US Department of Energy grant to fund a University of Michigan study of driverless and connected vehicle energy consumption, human interaction, and vehicle speed and motion data. 

Ford Motor Company continues to ride ahead of the conventional auto manufacturers in terms of its visions for driverless vehicles and how personal transportation will be transformed in the next decade. Now Ford's CEO, Mark Fields, is proclaiming in public that driverless vehicles will be on the roads in four years, something even Google has not declared.

Ford is the first company to be testing its autonomous cars at M City in Michigan. M City is kind of like a movie set/fake city/set of driving patterns and obstacles/testing ground. You won't be seeing Ford bots in Mountain View.

However, Ford is NOT necessarily envisioning fully driverless in four years and the company is not embracing the taxi bot/Uber model of shared vehicles. Fields thinks one obstacle is carrying car seats. Okay, maybe he hasn't considered that those can also be shared as well. 

Volvo & Microsoft - Guys, Not Creative

The Volvo car still looks like a car. Oh boy, you can work or relax at a conventional, sleek, updated 1950s dashboard, sitting in a luxurious, 1990s Mercedes-like seat. Wow. Really? A first grader could have come up with something better. Did you consult any potential buyers? Did you think carsharing? Long-distance options for travelers? This was the outer boundary of Volvo innovation? You're kidding, right?

Oh, and Volvo states it has "reimagin[ed] the entire car experience." Not.

Like Downton Abbey for cars

Volvo's new car, to be tested on Swedish roads in 2017 - yes, that far from now - offers a rose-colored version of what we currently have, while adding safety features to make sure that drivers do not do a Tesla by turning on a self-driving feature when traveling on a road the car is unable to navigate on its own. This is PARTIALLY driverless - a necessary adjective that car manufacturers routinely exclude as these partial babies roll off the assembly line.



But the vision offered reminds me of Downton Abbey, The Remains of the Day, Upstairs, Downstairs, Gone With the Wind (an entirely different period and country, though still an apt comparison, I think) and the like - portraits of people clinging to a vanishing world. In those literary examples, some happily adopted electricity and cars, though they yearned for the trappings, customs, look, and culture of their wealthy, privileged lives to remain in place. 

Like such characters in literature, film, and TV, Volvo will soon find itself in a very different world than the 20th century one in which it prospered.

Another 20th century company on board



Microsoft, which has lost its image as a company in the forefront of innovation, is Volvo's partner. Gee. The only cool part is the retro-looking virtual goggles, reminiscent of the View-Master, that lets you pick out seating colors and upholstery fabrics. The View-Master, created in 1939, was popular in the Mad Men era, which is how this whole Volvo futurama car experience appears to me. Look at the guy in the moving image above, a modern-day Don Draper.

Someone else is busy

Elon Musk is out to hire software engineers in his quest for Tesla to be fully driverless in three years.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

For Person Who Is Sightless, Driverless = Everything

Okay, I cried. The video is sentimental, meant to show Hyundai as a caring company, giving a wonderful thrill to a boy who is blind. But what the video really demonstrates, for me, is the equality, independence, and the world that, I hope, will be opened up to people with all kinds of disabilities - the transportation challenged (or, rather the driving challenged) - when driverless vehicles become a readily available reality.



What the video also shows is how regular bumper cars can be replaced by something a bit more cerebral and less jarring. But I'm not a bumper car fan.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Challenges - Inside Baseball Technology, Labor, and ART

The chief of the British mail service has caught quite a bit of flack for her excitement about driverless trucks and drones. Labor responded harshly, not with actual facts about such technology, or with complaints about loss of jobs, but with brouhaha about the many challenges before driverless vehicles will be ready to roam the streets.

Personally, I think labor would be better off directly expressing its deep concern about jobs than attacking a high-ranking civil servant.  Like the trains and cars of the last two centuries, the driverless industry will vastly impact the next one. Labor should best concentrate on education and retraining for new jobs rather than vitriol.

Sensory limitations of driverless "eyesight"

The New York Times has a nice article that simply explains current obstacles to the widespread use of self-driving vehicles. Specifically, the article discusses what a vehicles "eyes" or sensors must "see" and be programmed to respond to. And, as the article points out, there will be surprises - and accidents - no matter how refined the technology. Most likely, far fewer accidents than with human drivers.

The article has an artistic focus as well, but, to be frank, it did not inspire me.

Now here is art

I  happen to like the look of cute rounded-rectangular driverless pods or bots or whatever you want to call the emerging class of self-driving vehicles, but there is a new shape on the horizon. A triangle, specifically a triangular self-driving bike that requires a human to pedal, but not to navigate. I'm thinking reading or watching a movie while pedaling and the techno-gizmo part of the tricycle decides where to turn and where to stop. Oh, and these are meant for bikeshare programs.


Very cool.

Pretty design counts

Google has a fun side and it is currently being expressed on the sides of its driverless cars. Cute designs resulted from a contest in California. Skyline, nature, people. So un-boring.

Outside design is not the only part of the driverless future that inspires. One writer talks of living in a driverless Winnebago, roaming around, sleeping while in traffic, not needing to be place specific. We can return to the nomadic lifestyle, but with our house vehicles always with us.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Car Companies' Plans Changing?

Toyota

Toyota is going big for driverless and developing robotic products as well, particularly for older adults. Lots of reports - articles and blog posts are everywhere - that the car company is investing one billion dollars - yes, billion. A new center, the Toyota Research Institute, is being created in Silicon Valley, near Stanford, to do the actual work. 

Ford

Ford is forgoing the head-in-sand/incremental approach of most conventional car companies. Like the driverless-or-bust approach of Google, for example, Ford is declaring that its completely self-driving vehicles will be on the roads in five years - so 2020. 

I have to say that I'm enjoying that these large companies are coming around to my personal point of view. Maybe I can get a cut. Okay, not likely.

Passengers Welcome

Where can normal people board driverless vehicles? Right now, in Greece. In a few months, add China, if a developer's plans come true.

Greece - yet another reason to travel there

Everyone is smiling on the driverless CityMobil2 bus on the roads of a city in Greece. Can't help thinking  - Look ma, no hands! After the pilot is over, what next? People already seemed tickled pink by the cute pod bus. Watch the video.




New for neighborhoods, I mean housing developments, in China

Safety, avoiding pesky human labor, and rational mobility within an enclosed community are the reasons why China's largest property development company is investing big time in driverless technology. Watch the video as the small pod - a six-seater - travels about. The same developer will be opening a hotel in 2017 with an all-robot staff. Solves the issue of a labor shortage.

Down under - plastic kangaroos, oh no

South Australia is trying hard to attract the emerging driverless vehicle industry and Volvo has arrived. Unfortunately, the first ride involved a collision between an inflatable kangaroo and a car with the South Australian transport minister, one Stephen Mullighan. 

Turns out the collision was human error. Had the driverless car been left to itself, the collision would have been avoided. But the human stepped in, or rather, touched the brake.

Now Volvo will be testing its vehicles in South Australia. They can even operate at night, hopefully avoiding actual marsupials. Volvo is - no joke - studying marsupials. 

Friday, November 6, 2015

Driverless = More Than Cars

Sidewalk drones

In terms of surface transportation, and avoiding the large topic of flying drones, there is a company, amusingly called Starship Technologies, that has invented a delivery drone that travels on sidewalks. This sidewalk drone will be "99 percent driverless," with a human at a remote location who will be able to step in to operate the drone.

Think Chinese food delivery without a human. The drone is approximately 40 pounds and can cross streets. I'm imagining R2D2.

Transit bots in a clean country

Switzerland is soon to be host to a new driverless transit service that will serve the tourist area of the Swiss city of Sion, population about 33,000. Small bot-like buses will start operation in the spring of 2016. Isn't the yellow and black design cute?


The bot bus service is the result of a collaboration between PostBus and BestMilePostBus is the leading Swiss provider of public bus service, but it also provides rural and regional bus transit in areas of France and Liechtenstein. 

BestMile's master plan

BestMile would like to see its bot buses not compete with existing transit, but providing first mile/last mile service. This is BestMile's first commercial contract. The company is also involved with CityMobil2 in Europe.  

First mile/last mile confounds traditional transit

Why is  important? If a person is far from the bus stop or the intersection nearby is not designed well for pedestrians, then that person will not use transit. But if a small bus or a bikeshare can safely transport the person for the first mile/last mile, then transit suddenly is a potentially attractive option.

In the US, the first mile/last mile problem is huge due to low-density suburbs and street networks unfriendly to pedestrians and bikers. Someone walking a few blocks should not have to confront a completely inaccessible, dangerous intersection, but that is the reality in much of the country. Bots, in my opinion, could be a partial solution. Improving the pedestrian street network would also go a long way. 

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Congress Is Interested

Pending federal legislation in the US includes provisions that directly mention autonomous vehicles, which refers to both driverless and partially self-driving cars and trucks - such as the Tesla we have been hearing about and watching videos of. Currently, there are no federal laws that explicitly address driverless technology and vehicles, but that is likely to change if the pending House* (of Representatives) version of the transportation bill** passes. I would put the odds at better than even on that.

House transportation bill goes driverless

Under the advanced technology section of the bill, is a provision allowing for - but not mandating - that DOT funds to be spent on projects related to large scale deployment of advanced technologies. Down deep this is enumerated further as autonomous vehicles, vehicle-to-vehicle systems, collision avoidance systems, and more. Safety technology is included as well, which, in my mind, would fit driverless systems.

Just a detail, but so far, funds for only three years of a six-year bill, have been identified.

Wait, there is more

Another House bill - entitled the Autonomous Vehicle Privacy Protection Act of 2015 (HR 3876) - provides for one thing alone and that one thing goes beyond privacy concerns.
The Comptroller General of the United States shall make available to the public a report that assesses the organizational readiness of the Department of Transportation to address autonomous vehicle technology challenges, including consumer privacy protections.
Not exactly restricted to privacy at all. Somebody harboring doubts about Department of Transportation? There is not yet a similar bill in the Senate.*** Only one member of the House has signed onto this bill, the member who introduced it, Representative Grace Meng of New York, a Democrat.

Senate transportation bill

The Senate transportation bill, known as the DRIVE Act (S 1647), and less likely to pass as is, in my opinion, does not include anything related to driverless vehicles - except in its definition of an intelligent freight transportation system, which expressly encompasses:
an innovative or intelligent technological transportation system, infrastructure, or facilities, including electronic roads, driverless trucks, elevated freight transportation facilities, and other intelligent freight transportation systems; (emphasis added)
So though the section ostensibly only relates to freight transportation, by its inclusion of roads and driverless trucks, it relates to all travel on roads. Arguably, driverless would count as intelligent as well, but most vehicles would not qualify as freight transportation.

One hint: There's always interesting tidbits in the definitions.

For anyone unfamiliar with the US legislative process

* House always refers to the House of Representatives, which is  the lower house of the US federal legislature. Each Congressman or woman has a two-year term, which, theoretically, means they are constantly running for reelection, but in reality means that most have safe seats.

** The word bill refers to a piece of legislation that is pending and has not yet become law.

*** The Senate is the upper house of the US federal legislature. Each of the 100 members, two from each state, no matter how large or how small in terms of size and population, serves six years. Though the members have six year terms, it seems they are always running for reelection because the competition is often contentious. (I hope I am using that word correctly, by the way.)

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Will Driverless Improve Accessibility for People with Disabilities?

The US National Council on Disability is frightened that the concerns of people with disabilities are not being taken into account in the development of driverless technology, vehicles, and infrastructure.

NCD issued a report listing its concerns and making recommendations so that people with disabilities will be involved in the creation of a driverless industry that is universally designed and fully accessible. Well, the report is somewhat incomplete in that it only conceives of driverless cars and does not adequately address driverless transit and other shared-use modes. But the report does rightly poo poo some legislators out there who believe we should stop funding transit improvements because driverless is around the corner. 

What is obvious is that NCD wants to avoid yet another generation of common vehicles that people in wheelchairs, people with visual or auditory impairments, and people with cognitive disabilities are unable to use. Continued isolation of people with disabilities is what NCD is seeking to avoid.

Main concerns

The report focuses on:
Accessibility
Affordability
Privacy
Federal funding
Division between state and federal regulation


In terms of the current capability, the NCD report is a bit behind, which is unavoidable in a technology world in which improvements happen week to week and reports go through several layers of review before being issued. Still, the report points out valid concerns.

Privacy and affordability are universal topics of interest. We should all be concerned about privacy, but, arguably, that ship has already sailed, as it were, when most of us are carrying smartphones that have information about our whereabouts at any particular moment. As for affordability, I would have preferred that NCD had acknowledged that the best opportunities for driverless affordability will be transit and shared-use taxi bots. The report does not focus enough on the developments in urban mobility that demonstrate that traditional car ownership and large transit buses are not the only options.

Recommendations

It is worth just looking at the report's recommendations because that is the heart of this publication. The report calls for some kind of Congressionally-mandated process of consultation between the Access Board, representing people with disabilities, and manufacturers/developers of driverless technology and vehicles. NCD also calls for a non-discrimination policy and it makes some federal-funding-related requests.

NCD wants to change a system in which only those physically and mentally able can be designated as operators of vehicles. In the driverless world, perhaps the whole idea of human operators will be outmoded. Humans will be choosing destinations and even changing minds on the destination during the ride.

What the report is best at illustrating is the second-class transportation that we currently make available for people with disabilities and it declares out loud that we need to avoid this same mistake with driverless technology and vehicles, be they private cars, taxi bots, or large transit.

Currently, many people with disabilities are unable to drive, leaving them out of the most available and convenient mode of transportation in the US - the privately owned car in which each person travels alone. There are many things wrong with this model, including inaccessibility and unaffordability. NCD should be hailed for being sufficiently forward thinking to make its recommendations BEFORE driverless travel becomes publicly available and even manufactured.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Snow, Obstructed Corners? No Problema Aqui

Up until now driverless naysayers have raised weather, especially, as a big obstacle. Not that I don't believe weather must be accounted for to ensure safe driverless services, but the technology is advancing so rapidly that I'm confident that weather and other challenges will be resolved.

And they are being resolved.

In Australia, a company by the name of Cohda Wireless has tackled two such challenges: weather and physical obstructions.

Rain, snow, sleet, and ...

Cohda has developed a sensor that can see through obstructions, be they trees or buildings at corners, and snow floating through the air, as well as other weather conditions. The system uses radar - radio waves that bounce off of any surface and, like magic, can also detect the speeds of other vehicles. The technology can be used in current generation traditional cars as well. 

Two articles about this, one with a quick summary and no details about the technology, and the other a somewhat detailed description

Honestly, I am in no position to judge the technology and I like my technology to work without my need to understand it, BUT the weather challenge and others, such as buildings and pedestrians, are often cited as reasons why driverless will not happen. Technology, whether I comprehend it or not, tends to solve such problems, especially where lots of money can be made.