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Where's the lane? Self-driving cars confused by shabby U.S. roadways
- droithomme 11y agoCompanies using inadequate software and sensors blame roads for engineering failure.
- fndjdh 11y agoI'm not sure that's the case. In the greater Seattle area, roads have deteriorated to the point where it can be difficult to spot road markings even as an experience driver, and it's not unheard of for the markings to be completely worn away. I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but roads are painfully underfunded here.
- mchahn 11y ago> roads have deteriorated to the point where it can be difficult to spot road markings even as an experience driver Yes, but apparently self-driving systems are doing a worse job than humans. But this only means the AI isn't quite there yet. I say AI, not sensors, because their vision is probably already better than human's.
- DanFeldman 11y agoIt's a combination of sensors and AI. You'd be surprised by how low quality (wrt framerate & resolution specifically) the sensors used in production autonomous features/vehicles are. See mobile-eye's papers and products: http://www.mobileye.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/StereoAssist.pdf http://www.mobileye.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/StereoAss...
- mchahn 11y agoThe newest reference date in that paper is 2009 so I suspect the paper itself is a bit old. I really doubt that video would be other than state-of-the-art when the whole system is so expensive. Edit: Also that company makes add-on collision detection products. That is a different application than auto-driving.
- DanFeldman 11y agoI worked on these cars this summer at GM. I can't say what model of camera sensors we used for obvious reasons, but the resolution and framerate were not too far off from what Mobileye has in that paper!
- gamegoblin 11y agoI always run into this issue in downtown Seattle. There are a few places (and one major one I can think of on 5th) in which the roads do this: |0|1|2|3| _| | | | | / / / / _ / / / / |1|2|3| |1|2|3| |1|2|3| |1|2|3| Unfortunately, the diagonals are marked incredibly poorly, so most drivers starting in lane N will go straight and end in lane N-1. So if you drive according to the law in lane 1, you would almost certainly get sideswiped eventually by someone going straight in lane 2. I suspect an AI driver would be astute enough to see the poorly marked lines, but most humans aren't! So the AI would frequently get sideswiped here.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoNon-self-driving cars are often similarly confused. While there are situations a human can handle that a self-driving car can't as easily, many situations confound both, and necessitate cautious driving and a careful lookout in case you're not actually in your lane (or another vehicle isn't in theirs).
- maxxxxx 11y agoDriving in LA I often have trouble finding the lane. Either there are no markings or there are several markings of different fadedness. In rain it's even worse. You just take your best guess :-)
- manigandham 11y agoWhere in LA are you driving? It definitely isn't that bad to be "often"...
- maxxxxx 11y ago405 north in the rain is fun. Even better in the dark :-). Or just 5 north all through the LA area.
- mdorazio 11y agoMost of LA in the rainy dark is absolutely terrible. There are no raised markers or reflectors for lane dividers, so combined with the often faded lines and reflections of headlights, it's impossible to tell where the lanes are. Most drivers (myself included) just kind of slow down and say "this seems like about the right place...".
- btilly 11y agoA fun one is when the road itself has grooves that the paint mostly follows. I naturally follow the grooves until I realize that the lane just drifted sideways on me. There is a spot on the 405 S around Culver City that this used to happen regularly to me at.
- outworlder 11y ago"Shabby roadways"? If there was ever a case of "first world problems", this is it. Frankly, US roadways are really good. I was amazed by the amount of signage present, not to mention the pavement itself. Yes there are imperfections. But when was the last time you tore apart your car's axle due to inability to avoid the 20th gaping hole you ran across in just one way of your commute? You want shabby roads? Go to third world countries. That's the real test for self-driving cars.
- fndjdh 11y agohttps://xkcd.com/1232/ https://xkcd.com/1232/ You can replace "exploring other planets" with poor roadways, wealth inequality, or whatever else you would like.
- trhway 11y agoanybody can just youtube for "russian road accidents" and imagine a self-driving car in those situations. Wrt. responsibility/insurance - when it comes to post-accident "discussion" would self-driving car come with a walking robot who can use baseball bat and fence using metal wheel wrench? I'd venture to guess that deluxe version which would use handgun instead of the bat would find a lot of customers among Chechens living in Moscow.
- Rangi42 11y agoDo the third-world countries you're thinking of enforce traffic laws? Because I expect that an autonomous car could safely navigate an unmarked road if it were just paying attention to its destination and avoiding obstacles, not obeying detailed regulations.
- outworlder 11y agoExpect that they don't. Or if they do, not consistently.
- capote 11y agoIt's pointless to compare the United States with third world countries. You should be holding it to much higher standards. I myself compare the United States with our peers in Western Europe, Japan, Korea, etc. In this scope, our roadways are actually kind of sad, especially when you factor in how much we spend on them and double-especially when you factor in that we don't have solid railroads. Our highways are generally paved really thin (compare to: German highways) and they end up cracking and breaking all the time. I've never driven between two cities on an Interstate highway without being slowed down by construction work. Also, just from day to day observation: I live in Chicago and everywhere I walk, the streets look disastrous. They're broken apart, and some of them are half-repaired with concrete chunks sticking out (check out LaSalle and Randolph)--on some streets it's a miracle to me some cars get through without a flat tire. We are a tremendously successful and advanced country. There is clearly a very big problem with the state of our roads.
- rconti 11y agoHere's a tweet I sent to the City of San Carlos about 4 weeks ago. Fortunately they've since remedied it. This is Holly (Redwood Shores Parkway) looking west towards an overpass over 101. If it's not clear, 2 lanes come over the overpass towards where I shot the photo from. An offramp from 101 North terminates where the white pickup is. This has always been a terrible merge. 2 lanes come across the freeway, and the offramp is a new 'added' lane, but the striping/bott's dotts between the #1 and #2 lane coming down from the overpass are virtually nonexistent. There are cracks in the road (the dark marks) where the lane markings should be. It was always a big risk because cars in the right lane coming over the overpass used to just drift over into the offramp's new lane, and half the cars coming down the offramp didn't know they had a new lane, so they'd just STOP at the end of the ramp. THEN the City, in its infinite wisdom, decided to fix none of these problems, but instead add a striped bike lane that cuts across the offramp. Absent lane markings to follow, drivers in the right lane would just follow the dashed bike lane and force themselves into the offramp's new lane. I witnessed at least 5 near collisions in the several minutes I was there taking photos. They've since SOMEWHAT improved the markings between #1 and #2 lanes, but the bike lane markings are much more substantial and people still tend to follow them. Also, it still tends to confuse people using the offramp. But this is an endemic problem; I bike commute and often a bike lane switches sides of a car lane in the middle of an intersection. It's the traffic version of "Step 1: right lane. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!" Or "good luck, hope you come out on the other side of the intersection alive. https://twitter.com/reidconti/status/705866795417075712 https://twitter.com/reidconti/status/705866795417075712
- cballard 11y agoTo be clear - this is a bike lane on a road with onramps? Uh, what? There aren't even bollards (in the part without an onramp, obviously) or any semblance of protection.
- maxerickson 11y agoIt's the surface street side of the ramp there in the photo. Here's the approx location: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=37.51639&mlon=-122.25424#map=17/37.51639/-122.25424 http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=37.51639&mlon=-122.25424#... The photo is taken looking towards the freeway, showing the offramp. A typical bike lane in the US is made out of paint, the lack of protection isn't noteworthy.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoNotably absent from cast of complainers: Google.
- Bjorkbat 11y agoAt the same time I'm pretty sure they also commented that self-driving cars might be 30 years away during an event at SXSW this year.
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoI really liked the Rolls Royce CEO's comment on their self-driving tech: "Oh, we invented that 111 years ago. We call it a chauffeur." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-01-06/rolls-royce-ceo-record-sales-year-may-spur-suv http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-01-06/rolls-royce-...
- mdorazio 11y agoThe talk by Chris Urmson is often misconstrued like this. The 30 years statement is for when self-driving cars will be able to completely replace human drivers in basically all situations and all locations. This is very different than how long it will take for self-driving cars to replace human drivers in some situations and some locations. Most people in the industry are still expecting self-driving cars to be able to operate on normal roads in CA and some other favorable locations within 5ish years, which makes sense given the current state of the tech. In 6 years Google has gone from no self-driving car at all to many self-driving cars logging over 1.3 million miles with a single minor fenderbender of questionable fault. Given another 5 years to develop the tech, train the software, and expand the corner cases, there's no reason to think you won't be able to hail a robocab in San Jose in 2021.
- hyperion2010 11y agoThis is one of those cases where the engineers aren't going to be able to cheat and force the world to conform to their model of reality. I await the "falsehoods programmers believe about roads." If you actually want to build autonomous cars there are a whole host of assumptions that you have to throw out. To give only one example: are all roads paved?
- timClicks 11y agoWell, in New Zealand we have some beaches that are legally classed as roads so I guess the answer is no.
- leemailll 11y agoNinety mile beach? Then we have to wish automatic cars have a Jeremy Clarkson mode
- timClicks 11y agoThat's the most well known one. Point Road, Nelson was the one that really caught me out though. It looks significantly different between Satellite and Map modes: https://www.google.co.nz/maps/place/Point+Rd,+Monaco,+Nelson+7011/@-41.3054633,173.2082118,349m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x6d3b9373f8202f37:0x6625601c7e1b927e https://www.google.co.nz/maps/place/Point+Rd,+Monaco,+Nelson...
- arethuza 11y agoOn the subject of transport uses for beaches - there is an airport here in Scotland that uses a beach as a runway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barra_Airport_%28Scotland%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barra_Airport_%28Scotland%29 It does have scheduled flights - but the schedule has to take account of the tides.
- yread 11y agoThere are also plenty of ice roads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_road
- eyeinthepyramid 11y agoI personally wouldn't want to be in a car that didn't work if the lane lines were faded. Apparently all terrorists will need in the future to cause mass mayhem is a can of paint.
- nucleardog 11y agoWhy wait for them to fade when you can cause much more directed mayhem by painting new lines that lead the vehicle somewhere unsafe.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Cshelton 11y agoUhh...many HUMAN drivers are confused by U.S. roadways...I've been in many places where the lane is more about following the car in front of me as there are no well visible markers. Kind of like when it snows, the lane is the two tire tracks, who cares where the actual lane is haha.
- liquidwax 11y agoIf they are confused by US roadways, they'll melt when they come to India and see this - http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00397/2008033159380401_397767e.jpg http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00397/20080331593...
- sumedh 11y agoSurvival of the fittest.
- e40 11y agoHa! I was waiting for this! I was on a multi-lane road recently and I couldn't see the lane delimiters. They had faded to the point they were no longer visible. It required a lot of concentration to avoid hitting cars near me and it was quite disconcerting.
- irixusr 11y ago"Where's the lane?" I've often asked that myself dear robot. Welcome, you're now truly a fellow driver
- colanderman 11y agoHow can you head a multinational automobile engineering company and not be aware of this most basic shortcoming of your product?
- icebraining 11y agoWho says he wasn't aware? Most likely, he wasn't aware that the specific place where they were planning the demo didn't have markings.
- peterwwillis 11y agoSeriously? Just use all the sensors you've got to determine the edges of the road, divide the width of the road in half, and the right-half is the direction you're traveling in. Based on the size of this half, determine number of lanes. Create a virtual box so the car stays in the space of where the right-most lane should be. No need to read road markings to stay in lane. edit Nevermind, I forgot that not all roads have an even number of lanes in both directions (even considering single turning lanes and medians). But absent a median or any markings at all, the above is a relatively safe bet. I'm sure they could build a set of heuristics to accommodate the exceptions. Humans have spatial vision, so we should also be able to create cameras that can make out objects floating in free space (such as traffic lights), piece out their components, and compare them to a set of common criteria to determine its intent, the way humans basically do.
- jakelarkin 11y agoat a certain point, fast approaching, we should start optimizing road markings for electronic sensors over human sight. How costly would it be to strip the middle of every lane with a small magnet or RFID that could detected by vehicles and even convey static metadata, such as mile maker, speed limit, number of lanes, distance to next stop light etc.
- gozur88 11y agoI would think radio towers with GPS-like positioning information would be cheaper and better, particularly since they could include other information like road conditions.
- csense 11y agoI want to know how they plan for self-driving cars to work in snow.
- intopieces 11y agoTesla's system uses the information about the road gathered when the snow was not present. Teslas are very popular in Norway.
- sanoli 11y agoWhat?? You want to sell a self-driving car but you want it to be a good driver only in pristine, well-marked roads?? What kind of half-assed solution is that? Well, now that I think about it, the car could determine if the road wasn't good enough and tell you to take over, but then you'd have to be ready to do it and not busy reading a novel or talking with your mother on the phone, so it would defeat the purpose of doing the driving a bit. Anyway, I'll bet the only real solution will be to make the ai better. Just as with airplanes, you can't hal-ass something like this and blame it on lack of road paint, it would be too dangerous (you know, with airplanes, how they're so safe because otherwise they'd be so dangerous).
- derekp7 11y agoThe solution to this problem, at least for the foreseeable future, is to have the autopilot only active when the car is on a certified autonomous road. This would have to be a legal definition, in which road construction would de-certify that road section, and the certification continuously updated via the autonomous cars themselves. As soon as cars start seeing degraded conditions they update a central database, which alerts other cars to switch to manual mode well before entering that road section.
- pm24601 11y agoO.k. so lets say the roads got nice stripes. What about: 1) Under rainy conditions? 2) Heavy snow fall? 3) Incompletely plowed roads? 4) Roads under construction - i.e. partially striped and the little flags that haven't been completely moved around between road realignments? Do you mean to tell me Alpha Go can beat a human at Go but can't be trusted not to drive a car into a ditch? It is nice to know that the way we avoid the singularity is with confused road markings :-)
- smackfu 11y agoI saw this in Honolulu last week: http://i.imgur.com/WIdrgiG.png http://i.imgur.com/WIdrgiG.png I assume the extra "markings" are related to a road repair, but I couldn't imagine a worse situation for a self-driving car.
- justaaron 11y agoso that's even in a fairly rich "developed" country...hello the rest of the worlds roads aren't generally any better... this is exactly the moment when I ponder "why the hell is this whole automatic-self-driving-car thing being pushed so hard generally?" it seems like a rather absurd and silly effort to begin with... what's wrong with a bloody system of maglev propelled capsules being shot through tubes, or the train, or a normal car you drive with a steering wheel, accellerator pedal, and brakes?
- npunt 11y agoThis is why we need self-driving road paving trucks first. Kinda serious, especially for filling potholes.