6 ms·

I'm surprised that self-driving technology is focusing on replacing the driver as an autonomous actor, processing visual and radar/lidar signals in order to kno

I'm surprised that self-driving technology is focusing on replacing the driver as an autonomous actor, processing visual and radar/lidar signals in order to know about its surroundings. I've always thought we'd get further faster by having automobiles also talk to other vehicles nearby, and design roads to support the computer driven vehicles. Two examples are: 1) If the vehicle is talking to the cars in front of it, it can know they are braking before it senses that visually. Also, the vehicles can speed up in a gridlock scenario more in unison, like a train. 2) On the interstate, markers in the pavement can be specifically designed for computer sensors rather than human eyeballs. Also, cars can draft together to save fuel.

bostonpete 10y ago
As others have mentioned, vehicle-vehicle communication only works if you trust the other vehicles. This sort of thing is almost certainly coming for fleets of trucks though (Google "truck platooning"), where a known set of vehicles can communication with each other.
Conlectus 10y ago
I think that concern over malicious communicators will at least slow this down. If not implemented correctly, it could give hackers a dangerous amount of control over traffic.
leereeves 10y ago
The first self-driving cars will have to coexist with humans driving old cars without such communications.
Matthias247 10y ago
The reason is that there are and for the foreseeable future will be things that are not networked. Lots of legacy cars, bicycles, pedestrians, trains. In some areas probably even animals on the road. If cars don't work in these environments they are pretty much useless.
helthanatos 10y ago
And when an old vehicle can't be driven on the road? I can't see laws to prevent old vehicles for at least 40 years... You can still not wear a seatbelt if your car was manufactured without one, so I would think anything complementing only autonomous vehicles would be met with public outcry.
rjsw 10y ago
Car manufacturers were discussing this kind of thing about 15 years ago. We were working on diagnostic and emissions checking standards but there was the expectation that we would be able to make use of secure network links to cars at some point in the future. The question at the time was which would come first. Would a requirement to do emissions testing under real-world conditions push the introduction of radio networks that could also be used for cars to talk to each other or would the road-train type applications be the initial use case.
BurningFrog 10y ago
That is happening too, but it's an independent technology that can also be very useful in human driven vehicles. https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/09/connected-cars/ https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/09/connected-cars/
the_duke 10y ago
While networked cars are interesting, there is also a massive security issue here. Hackers will easily figure out a way to spoof the communication, and could play with traffic. There are mitigations for most issues, but it's a complex topic. Just imagine some scenarios: -) Spoof an emergency break advisory that causes tailing cars to also do an emergency break. (could be mitigated by first observing that cars in front are actually slowing down before breaking) -) Spoof a command from a smart traffic light at an intersection to stop immediately for police / other emergency traffic. (need to check if traffic light is actually red) -) Spoof speed restrictions issued by a smart highway traffic jam prevention system. -) A system for police to force a car to stop immediately and pull over, eliminating car chases. Just spoof this signal and stop anyone you want. (mitigate by checking if there is a police car trailing you, and ignore otherwise). And so on... A way around would be to maintain a national database with public keys for each registered vehicle, and make cars only accept those keys. But that would be hard to maintain and still hackers could just get a hold of some PK. In the end, the driving system will always have to correlate such car 2 car communication with observations it makes itself. And an autonomous system can react almost immediately anyway. So coordination doesen't give you all that much. -- There are some useful ideas though, like: -) Traffic lights can announce an ideal speed for a route, taking into account traffic and traffic light timings, so you can optimize throughput and minimize fuel consumption
- shanusmagnus 10y ago
  All good points. Seems like you could get around it by using these other-car communications as noisy signals and weighting evidence against the world as the car sees it, e.g., if you get a spoofed emergency brake advisory, and the car's own percepts suggest there's no reason to brake, the resultant action may be to not brake. The signal from the other car[s] becomes just another feature.
  - learningman 10y ago
    Considering the millions of miles driven each day, even if the networked signal wasn't heavily weighted, a spoofed emergency brake advisor signal could still do significant damage.
brixon 10y ago
The effort is focused where the money is. Car companies will sell these cars and make a profit. States have a hard time keeping dumb roads in good condition, they have no money to make roads smart or keep them repaired.
Animats 10y ago
It's interesting that this NHTSA statement doesn't mention car-to-car communications at all. There are parties pushing for that, but Google's Urmson was against it. His point is that the troublesome roadway obstacles, from kids to road debris, won't be on the net. So you have to have good sensors, and they can see other cars just fine.

bostonpete 10y ago

As others have mentioned, vehicle-vehicle communication only works if you trust the other vehicles. This sort of thing is almost certainly coming for fleets of trucks though (Google "truck platooning"), where a known set of vehicles can communication with each other.

Conlectus 10y ago

I think that concern over malicious communicators will at least slow this down. If not implemented correctly, it could give hackers a dangerous amount of control over traffic.

leereeves 10y ago

The first self-driving cars will have to coexist with humans driving old cars without such communications.

Matthias247 10y ago

The reason is that there are and for the foreseeable future will be things that are not networked. Lots of legacy cars, bicycles, pedestrians, trains. In some areas probably even animals on the road. If cars don't work in these environments they are pretty much useless.

helthanatos 10y ago

And when an old vehicle can't be driven on the road? I can't see laws to prevent old vehicles for at least 40 years... You can still not wear a seatbelt if your car was manufactured without one, so I would think anything complementing only autonomous vehicles would be met with public outcry.

rjsw 10y ago

Car manufacturers were discussing this kind of thing about 15 years ago. We were working on diagnostic and emissions checking standards but there was the expectation that we would be able to make use of secure network links to cars at some point in the future. The question at the time was which would come first. Would a requirement to do emissions testing under real-world conditions push the introduction of radio networks that could also be used for cars to talk to each other or would the road-train type applications be the initial use case.

BurningFrog 10y ago

That is happening too, but it's an independent technology that can also be very useful in human driven vehicles. https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/09/connected-cars/ https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/09/connected-cars/

the_duke 10y ago

While networked cars are interesting, there is also a massive security issue here. Hackers will easily figure out a way to spoof the communication, and could play with traffic. There are mitigations for most issues, but it's a complex topic. Just imagine some scenarios: -) Spoof an emergency break advisory that causes tailing cars to also do an emergency break. (could be mitigated by first observing that cars in front are actually slowing down before breaking) -) Spoof a command from a smart traffic light at an intersection to stop immediately for police / other emergency traffic. (need to check if traffic light is actually red) -) Spoof speed restrictions issued by a smart highway traffic jam prevention system. -) A system for police to force a car to stop immediately and pull over, eliminating car chases. Just spoof this signal and stop anyone you want. (mitigate by checking if there is a police car trailing you, and ignore otherwise). And so on... A way around would be to maintain a national database with public keys for each registered vehicle, and make cars only accept those keys. But that would be hard to maintain and still hackers could just get a hold of some PK. In the end, the driving system will always have to correlate such car 2 car communication with observations it makes itself. And an autonomous system can react almost immediately anyway. So coordination doesen't give you all that much. -- There are some useful ideas though, like: -) Traffic lights can announce an ideal speed for a route, taking into account traffic and traffic light timings, so you can optimize throughput and minimize fuel consumption

shanusmagnus 10y ago
All good points. Seems like you could get around it by using these other-car communications as noisy signals and weighting evidence against the world as the car sees it, e.g., if you get a spoofed emergency brake advisory, and the car's own percepts suggest there's no reason to brake, the resultant action may be to not brake. The signal from the other car[s] becomes just another feature.
- learningman 10y ago
  Considering the millions of miles driven each day, even if the networked signal wasn't heavily weighted, a spoofed emergency brake advisor signal could still do significant damage.

brixon 10y ago

The effort is focused where the money is. Car companies will sell these cars and make a profit. States have a hard time keeping dumb roads in good condition, they have no money to make roads smart or keep them repaired.

Animats 10y ago

It's interesting that this NHTSA statement doesn't mention car-to-car communications at all. There are parties pushing for that, but Google's Urmson was against it. His point is that the troublesome roadway obstacles, from kids to road debris, won't be on the net. So you have to have good sensors, and they can see other cars just fine.