4 ms·

> the little cars maximize their speed while keeping themselves stable and under control. Mostly. You let an optimizer do its work within whatever constraints

> the little cars maximize their speed while keeping themselves stable and under control. Mostly. You let an optimizer do its work within whatever constraints you want, it will nose out a solution. If the goal is to maximize speed without regard to fuel and rubber consumption, power slides are in the cards. No need to "teach" or "learn". Math works.

aab0 10y ago
Math works - but which math? Therein is the rub.
kctess5 10y ago
I've worked with autonomous control for RC cars, and it's not that easy. The math is very fuzzy in highly dynamic an non-linear environments. That approach works in nice controlled environments, but will fail badly when assumptions about linearity and the effect of control decisions start to break down. Also with any open loop control model that takes dynamics into account, the state space is so large that planning at a high enough rate is a serious computational challenge. As vehicle speeds increase, the computation becomes a very hard problem.
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
I agree, this does appear somewhat overhyped. And those powerslides are far from impressive-looking. If it was revolutionary, I think they'd have pitted this against a skilled human opponent. But, AFAICT, the best autonomous racecars (scale or full size) are still far from beating a human. Audi did this big thing a few months back with an autonomous RS7 versus a pro racing driver in same weight/spec RS7 [1]. The human absolutely killed the autonomous car, beat it by over nine seconds on a sub-two-minute lap at Sonoma. If you translate that into Top Gear race track times set by the Stig, it's like the difference between a Bugatti Veyron and the fastest Mercedes E-class. [1] http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27200/819-roa-2015-12-01-the-analysis-man-vs-machine-67-5/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27200/819-roa-2015-...
- bigiain 10y ago
  Yeah, but us humans have been improving top level competition laptimes by tenths or hundredths of seconds a year at best. How quickly do you suppose the machines are going to improve over a few years or decades? (Last night's fastest lap in the MotoGP race at Mugello was 5 hundredths slower than the class lap record set back in 2013. Admittedly there've been rule changes, but the humans aren't getting much faster.))
  - mac01021 10y ago
    Given a particular car/bike with a particular set of tires on a particular track, Newton’s laws impose a theoretical limit on lap time. I don't know how close to that limit the best humans have come, but it wouldn't surprise me too much to find that it's within a second or two.
- chongli 10y ago
  But, AFAICT, the best autonomous racecars (scale or full size) are still far from beating a human. What kind of race car are the humans driving? Does it have electronic stability control? Anti-lock breaks? Power steering? Automatic transmission? These are just a few of the many innovations that make it easier for a human to drive more easily at a high level of performance. The line between autonomous and human-operated cars is blurry.
  - Bromskloss 10y ago
    It's common for race cars not to have any of those.
    - guscost 10y ago
      And if I'm not mistaken professional race drivers are faster without autonomous stability systems running, because consumer-grade traction control "plays it safe" so to speak. Could a traction control/autonomous steering system be designed to push the envelope and risk losing traction as effectively as (or far more effectively than) a pro driver? Almost certainly, but I'm not sure how hard of a problem that will be.

aab0 10y ago

Math works - but which math? Therein is the rub.

kctess5 10y ago

I've worked with autonomous control for RC cars, and it's not that easy. The math is very fuzzy in highly dynamic an non-linear environments. That approach works in nice controlled environments, but will fail badly when assumptions about linearity and the effect of control decisions start to break down. Also with any open loop control model that takes dynamics into account, the state space is so large that planning at a high enough rate is a serious computational challenge. As vehicle speeds increase, the computation becomes a very hard problem.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago

I agree, this does appear somewhat overhyped. And those powerslides are far from impressive-looking. If it was revolutionary, I think they'd have pitted this against a skilled human opponent. But, AFAICT, the best autonomous racecars (scale or full size) are still far from beating a human. Audi did this big thing a few months back with an autonomous RS7 versus a pro racing driver in same weight/spec RS7 [1]. The human absolutely killed the autonomous car, beat it by over nine seconds on a sub-two-minute lap at Sonoma. If you translate that into Top Gear race track times set by the Stig, it's like the difference between a Bugatti Veyron and the fastest Mercedes E-class. [1] http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27200/819-roa-2015-12-01-the-analysis-man-vs-machine-67-5/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27200/819-roa-2015-...

bigiain 10y ago
Yeah, but us humans have been improving top level competition laptimes by tenths or hundredths of seconds a year at best. How quickly do you suppose the machines are going to improve over a few years or decades? (Last night's fastest lap in the MotoGP race at Mugello was 5 hundredths slower than the class lap record set back in 2013. Admittedly there've been rule changes, but the humans aren't getting much faster.))
- mac01021 10y ago
  Given a particular car/bike with a particular set of tires on a particular track, Newton’s laws impose a theoretical limit on lap time. I don't know how close to that limit the best humans have come, but it wouldn't surprise me too much to find that it's within a second or two.
chongli 10y ago
But, AFAICT, the best autonomous racecars (scale or full size) are still far from beating a human. What kind of race car are the humans driving? Does it have electronic stability control? Anti-lock breaks? Power steering? Automatic transmission? These are just a few of the many innovations that make it easier for a human to drive more easily at a high level of performance. The line between autonomous and human-operated cars is blurry.
- Bromskloss 10y ago
  It's common for race cars not to have any of those.
  - guscost 10y ago
    And if I'm not mistaken professional race drivers are faster without autonomous stability systems running, because consumer-grade traction control "plays it safe" so to speak. Could a traction control/autonomous steering system be designed to push the envelope and risk losing traction as effectively as (or far more effectively than) a pro driver? Almost certainly, but I'm not sure how hard of a problem that will be.