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Self-driving car on Moscow streets after snowfall [video]
- mizzao 9y agoNext up...self-driving car dashcam videos!
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIf anyone was going to focus on making sure their self-driving car could drive in snow, it'd be the Russians. Mind you, self-driving when snow has coated all your landmarks is definitely impressive, but the title made me think it'd be driving in snow. Which it isn't. The roads are, what we'd call in Chicago, "clear". The car is not driving in/on snow or ice in this scenario, which is something I do regularly every winter.
- walrus01 9y agoCanadian perspective: This is very clear. Much more challenging is something like a multi-lane highway where the road markings have completely disappeared under snow. I'll be impressed when it can drive from Hope into the BC interior in winter in conditions that a human driver can handle with winter tires and possibly studs, but no need for chains. https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=coquihalla+highway&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=coq...
- brianbreslin 9y agoOh man I've driven through canada to blue mountain during a blizzard. That was scary. I really have to wonder how computer vision will account for that. Or similarly torrential downpours here in the Tropics.
- jimmy1 9y agoI don't think CV ever will account for that. I always have thought the answer is going to be somewhere between great technology, and infrastructure to support it. We need "smart" roads.
- joshvm 9y agoUltimately I think it'll have to be smart highways. You could embed a coded marker in the centre of each lane which the car can pick up using RF (e.g. an induction loop). This plus other constraints like GPS, visual-inertial odometry, etc should be enough to localise and remain safely within a lane boundary even if it's invisible. This would work fine through a layer of snow - some of the more expensive ski jackets have built in loops for detection in case of avalanches.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt's hard to see how we could get from where we are right now, infrastructure-wise, to there, at least here in the US. We can barely keep our roads driveable in some places, much less modernized with the latest in smart beacons and such.
- tonylemesmer 9y agoYes. Smooth, flat, pothole free tarmac would be nice.
- joshvm 9y agoIt wouldn't necessarily need to be in-road, but there are numerous places where you could adapt. For instance, cats-eyes in the UK (retro-reflective markers) are placed on virtually all motorways at lane boundaries and the car could look for a signature from them (I imagine at night, autonomous cars already use them as a feature for lane boundary detection). Nobody bats an eyelid about re-setting cats-eyes every time a bit of road is replaced. You could also put boundary markers on either side of the road, in the central reservation or something similar. The idea would to put the smart tech in the car. What's going at the roadside could be made very cheaply and integrated into existing features without needing to rip up the entire road. Other countries have toll highways which are well maintained, that's another option for installation. I don't see this happening in rural/country lanes, the cost would be obscene (but again, we do liberally use reflectors in the UK). I also don't see this as a panacea, it would simply be a backup in horrendous weather.
- biesnecker 9y agoTo be fair to computers I’m not sure human vision accounts for that, we just get lucky and fall prey to survivor bias :-)
- dmix 9y ago> Good thing about radar is that, unlike lidar (which is visible wavelength), it can see through rain, snow, fog and dust - Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/753843823546028040 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/753843823546028040 Radar has been used on snowploughs to avoid rocks/curbs/etc buried in the snow (article from 2004): http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040302/full/news040301-2.html http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040302/full/news040301-2.htm... Ford developed a LIDAR algorithm that can "detect" snow flakes and still be effective, this video shows driving in real snow: https://qz.com/637509/driverless-cars-have-a-new-way-to-navigate-in-rain-or-snow/ https://qz.com/637509/driverless-cars-have-a-new-way-to-navi... Computers can provide near "perfect" speed/traction ratios based on active road conditions... which humans are merely estimating based on "feel", without instant direct feedback from the wheel traction sensors, combined with whatever (potentially limited) winter driving experience they have. Computers can also "remember" any specific location of the route from hundreds of thousand of other rides in the past and of other cars on the road communicating in real time. In 5yrs I'd expect to prefer putting my trust in any self-driving car on winter roads over a human any day...
- emmelaich 9y agoPerhaps better. LIDAR can distinguish between clear, solid and semi-clear (snow and slush).
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoRadar doesent care about water (at street distances).
- dev_throw 9y agoPerhaps self driving cars might never support highways in places with inclement conditions to begin with, which is totally fine. I agree with the other commenter about "smart" highways with embedded markers to let the vehicle know its position despite rain/snow/mud.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt's only "fine" if you don't live in places with inclement conditions, and everyone's talking about how we're gonna ban cars that aren't self-driving. ;) And if there is self-driving zones, and non-self-driving zones, you better believe I still expect my normal car to work if I drive it from Chicago down to San Francisco.
- kosmet 9y agoI'd be impressed if I see a self-driving car making a left turn in a crowded junction without a specific left-turn signal at LA. The only way to turn left in such roads is to make an illegal turn after the signal just becomes red. I wonder how the self-driving car would do in such a situation.
- walrus01 9y agoIn vancouver the general rule in dense traffic seems to be that two cars can left-turn through a stale orange light, right as the light is changing and before the opposing traffic has a chance to start rolling into the intersection from their newly green light. Sometimes only one car, if the timing works out that way. Three is almost certainly too many. The ability of a car to judge the light timing requires near 180 degree vision and head pivoting on the part of a driver.
- sidyom 9y agoIdeally, isn't the point to have only autonomous vehicles and these situations become obsolete?
- kosmet 9y agoMaybe after all cars become autonomous. Earlier there will be a hybrid period where both manned and unmanned cars drive together I think. Even all cars become autonomous, the problem will still be hard I believe. Hard coded rules may solve the problem but relying on communication and cooperation will not be easy.
- Piskvorrr 9y agoAnd computer-driven pedestrians, too - the car had to stop multiple times for turning left/right across a pedestrian crossing which was green at the time. (If you have watched the video, you have seen that most potentially dangerous situations did not originate from cars.)
- WillPostForFood 9y agoTurning after the light turns red isn’t illegal, it is what you are supposed to do to clear the intersection. Otherwise you’d be sitting there blocking traffic.
- allenscope5 9y agoAccurate GPS and a well mapped area can give the car a precise road lane when snow is present.
- simias 9y agoThat's assuming a very accurate GPS in very good conditions. You also need to be sure that there aren't any road works that would temporarily change the lines. Seems a bit risky to commit 100% to the GPS for that.
- Piskvorrr 9y agoThat's easy if you're not, say, in a winding, narrow, deep canyon, such as you might find in a mountain pass. Which is, for related reasons, the same place you'll find the heaviest snow cover. Also for related reasons, "well mapped areas" are around where people live, as opposed to - again - places where you could expect uncleared snow. "Works great near my house, might accidentally kill you if you try to ride it outside the happy path" is somewhat underwhelming.
- starpilot 9y agoWell, there's also Detroit.
- mozumder 9y agoRochester NY is probably the best place in the world for actual snow driving. Daily snowfall during the winter due to lake-effect snow. It's where I trained to drive a rear-wheel drive Camaro. Very useful place.
- berbec 9y agoThe difference between what most of New York considers undriveable and Rochester considers "normal Tuesday" is amazing. Three inches on the ground going to get your garbage plate is considered part for the course.
- emmelaich 9y agoNot only that, but the contrast between road and non-road is even clearer with the snow. Which may make the auto driving easier.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThe main challenge here for cars to overcome is that many, like Google's, are heavily based on centimeter-accurate 3D mapping data. (I am not sure where Yandex's sit on this.) So giant piles of snow often means that all of your reference points on your fancy 3D map of the road are now obscured by piles of snow, and you still have to be able to position the car well enough that you know when to look for stoplights, crosswalks, and the like.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoIs it possible some kind of algorithm could be used to reveal the hidden detail beneath the snow?
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt'd be incredibly complex. You'd not only need to factor in the height of the snow, but how snow plows are likely to push and pile up said snow. The edges of the roads after a snowfall are quite varied in landscape as plows unevenly shove piles of snow off the road.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jpindar 9y agoYeah, as a New Englander, that's not what I call driving after a heavy snowfall.
- megaman22 9y agoYeah, that's nothing, judging by the amount of snow on the parked cars and roofs of houses, there's an inch or two of snow. Maybe "Self Driving car on Moscow streets after a light flurry"
- ckdarby 9y agoIf that is after a heavy snowfall they need to test in Canada.
- avmich 9y agoMaybe it's also after cleaning streets right after heavy snowfall? :) For snow-covered roads we'll have to wait for reports from, say, Chelyabinsk. Or Tomsk, or Novosibirsk...
- randomdata 9y agoI expect this point of contention is that the snowfall wasn't all that heavy. In Canada we typically don't think of snowfall as being heavy until you're pushing 30cms (12 inches) in a single snowfall event. Indictors suggest that they'd be lucky if they received 5cms in this single event, and have no more than 30cms from all of the snowfall events the city has received.
- falcolas 9y agoOr the "heavy snowfall" was immediately followed by a 10° heatwave. Usually that's the only way we get black city streets after a snowfall in the northern US.
- solomatov 9y agoThere're no such snowfalls in Moscow like it happens on East Coast or Eastern part of Canada.
- konart 9y agoPeople often forget that while Moscow is in Russia - this is not Syberia or something. We have a bit more snow than Berlin usually and a bit lower temperature.
- lnanek2 9y agoI'd love for it to be true, but it's tough to believe that's real. There's one point where a pedestrian is standing in the snow on the road just to the side of where the car would pass: https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow?t=35s https://youtu.be/Bx08yRsR9ow?t=35s Wouldn't any pedestrian detection decide the person in the road has priority and stop and let them cross? It isn't capable of reading a person's intention to stand there vs. cross or not. The title claims it supports interactions with pedestrians, and the video does seem to show it pausing in the middle of a turn once for a pedestrian in the road, but that could be easily faked by having the driver still using manual breaks.
- EScott11 9y agoFrom what I can tell it looks like the pedestrian’s vector is heading away from the car (right to left) for a few frames before he pauses. Couldn’t a level 5 model infer intentionality in a direction based on the way the pedestrian was walking?
- stefan_ 9y agoThat is the kind of premature optimization humans make that ends up with crashes. It's automated, there is no fatigue, there is no irrational feeling of losing time or being rushed or pressured by drivers behind over what would be a few seconds safely stopped and of no consequence to the overall travel time.
- stefan_ 9y agoI thought 1:50 was a lot more concerning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx08yRsR9ow&feature=youtu.be&t=110 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx08yRsR9ow&feature=youtu.be... That pedestrian is already in the street and they momentarily stutter then pass the pedestrian with very little room. That and the way the steering seems super sensitive to various snow remainders on the side of the street. It's almost as if it's controlling for its position relative to the snow instead of picking a mostly straight trajectory.
- deadA1ias 9y ago
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoThis is heavy snowfall? It looks like only an inch or two.
- mitjak 9y agoI want to see AI trained to drive like people in Russia: https://i.imgur.com/wDhO25d.gif https://i.imgur.com/wDhO25d.gif
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Defolter 9y agoNo, please, we need AI, which will make road a bit less dangerous. We have such an anecdote: when you cross the road in Russia, you have to look not only left and right, but also up.
- neutered_knot 9y agoIf you look closely the car is driving in circles. They revisit the same roads many times in just a few block radius.
- kurthr 9y agoI also noticed that it was driving 25... I assumed that was 25 km/hr, which is pretty darned slow (15mph) even on snowy city streets. However, it could be that they're running the car in US mph instead?
- alkonaut 9y agoI think it's 25km/h but those streets are pretty narrow and filled with pedestrians. Normal speed limits on those streets is 30km/h so driving between 20 and 30 seems right.
- konart 9y agoIt was 25-33km\h, yeah. But you can't drive faster than 40 in this kind of area legaly. And the top cap for the city is 60 (except for things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Ring_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Ring_Road, you can also go to 80 when overtaking and many people abuse this rule to go ~80 all the time)
- Piskvorrr 9y agoI would consider anyone driving more in a single-lane street lined with cars and pedestrians on both sides insane - robot car or not. This is a city, not a racecourse.
- gaurx003 9y agoCompared to here in Minnesota, those roads look very clean - no drifting snow, no dry salt lines, no black ice.
- bmer 9y agoAnyone else find it strange how still the one hand in view is? It never moves...
- adventured 9y agoIt moves at 17 seconds in, at 44 seconds in, 1 min 51 seconds in, etc. I'm guessing the driver was intentionally holding his hand there with effort, ready to grab control of the wheel if necessary.
- chemodax 9y agoMost of the trip speed is 25 km/h, while speed limit in Moscow is 60 km/h.
- dmix 9y agoThe speed limit on narrow side roads is 60km/hr? I find that hard to believe...
- rimliu 9y agoIt's the default for urban areas, so unless the limit is specifically lowered it's 60 km/h.
- alkonaut 9y agoThe actual speed "limit" on those streets is definitely no higher than 30km/h, regardless of what the signs say. If I drove 60 there I hope I'd lose my license for reckless driving.
- konart 9y ago>while speed limit in Moscow is 60 km/h. Only when you are outside of apartments' territory. http://pddmaster.ru/pdd/pravila-dorozhnogo-dvizheniya-dlya-zhiloj-zony-i-dvorovoj-territorii.html http://pddmaster.ru/pdd/pravila-dorozhnogo-dvizheniya-dlya-z...
- vpribish 9y agotechnically correct title (the best kind!) - but clickbaity because everyone wants to see a serious test of self-driving on snow-covered, icy roads, ideally with actually blinding, falling snow - at night. This is, if anything, even easier than a non-snowy drive because of the high contrast between the completely clear road and the snow-dusted sidewalks. The dream that the developers, the media, and many of us share is to change the world by making driving a thing people do not do. Matching a human driver in the most treacherous conditions is a major, and unmet milestone. This is a misleading post.
- sthistrhn55 9y agoLittle closer https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7hUut7Hsgys https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7hUut7Hsgys
- web007 9y agoHave you ever seen someone driving in snow anywhere south of Pennsylvania in the US? This tech, as-is, could probably save millions in damage on minor or one-car accidents in snowy aftermath. Even if it snows once or twice a year, somehow everyone forgets how to drive safely in the snow and Every.Single.Time there is snow the world just stops. Unrelated to this video, I was impressed with my Subaru EyeSight performance in a whiteout rainstorm. I could tell what was going on - barely, with the wipers at full tilt - and my auto-cruise worked without a hitch at > 50MPH for several minutes straight. It's definitely hit-or-miss though, since sometimes it gets confused on a bright overcast day at 25MPH.
- Piskvorrr 9y agoSurvivor bias - literally.
- Jyaif 9y agoWhy do people think that driving on snow/ice is going to be a challenge? Compared to recognizing the cars, lights, pedestrians, and their intention, that's pretty straightforward.
- alkonaut 9y agoBecause it's harder to orientate when you can't see the street markings, see the street signs, when your cameras are snowed over. If you tried parking a new BMW after a snow storm and looked out the rear camera you know what I mean. Basically they have to do all they normally do but just the equipment they need to keep cameras and lidars without snow either costs an extra fortune, OR the passengers will have to start their ride by carefully wiping all sensors. If there is heavy snowfall, you'll probably have to clean them during the trip too. Roads that are usually 2 lanes become 1 lane when snow accumulates enough. People improvise to get where they want anyway - the 2 lanes at the traffic light which are normally one lane for turning and one for straight - is now just 1 lane for both turns and straight because of accumulated snow. The AI would need to observe other drivers (and pray they aren't all AI drivers) because stored map info will not work. As a driver you have to be able to guess whether something that looks like a 1ft ridge of snow is actually passable drift powder snow, or a frozen barrier of ice that will damage the car or get you stuck if you drive through it.
- cesarb 9y ago> but just the equipment they need to keep cameras and lidars without snow either costs an extra fortune Sorry if I'm being ignorant (where I live, below 20°C is really cold weather, and the lowest it gets is around 10°C, which I don't recall ever seeing), but wouldn't heaters be enough?
- alkonaut 9y agoI’m not sure what would be required (currently few manufacturers get this right). Heaters take a long time to clear ice when starting if the car has a lot of snow and ice on it. VW has a good solution for their rear camera which is actually hidden under a hatch (the VW emblem) so it’s protected when unused. I’m picturing that future autonomous cars will need this type of solution for many sensors, similar to the “flip up headlights” of some 80s cars. Not least because lidars are also very expensive so you may not want them easy to grab from a parked car.
- tw04 9y agoI'm sorry - this isn't a "heavy snowfall" in Moscow. It's just barely a dusting. That isn't even an inch of accumulation. Being able to self-drive when there is black pavement to be seen isn't impressive in the least. Show me a self-driving car functioning in white-out conditions (which is what Moscow faces on a regular basis, as does a large portion of the US) and I'll be impressed. This: http://bgr.com/2018/02/06/moscow-snow-russia-winter-storm/ http://bgr.com/2018/02/06/moscow-snow-russia-winter-storm/ Is what it looked like ~two weeks ago. Show me your self-driving car in THAT.
- taylored 9y agoIn fact this scenario is easier than no snow, since road edges are so clearly defined
- keldaris 9y agoThen it should be easy to show a self-driving car working in those conditions. Somehow, despite this argument coming up in virtually every discussion of this kind, nobody's done it yet.
- tw04 9y agoWhat are you talking about? Ford demonstrated this 2 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vShi-xx6ze8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vShi-xx6ze8
- keldaris 9y agoDid they ever release any substantial information in that regard? The video just shows a few cars slowly driving around empty streets with barely any snow.
- dmvaldman 9y agoIn Soviet Russia, car drives you.
- jijojv 9y agoWoW - This looks more real than than the Tesla FSD which many have been scammed into buying which is years away.
- gnode 9y agoFully self driving cars are essentially here, except for needing an alert driver to take over when they steer into oncoming traffic. When you have Tesla drivers who wedge oranges into the steering wheel to trick the car into believing someone is holding it, Tesla are going to want to make their system robust before rolling it out.
- M_Bakhtiari 9y agoI wonder how it handles those erratic Ladas flying at you from all directions.
- EADGBE 9y agoWould love to see how it performs before the plows reveal the pavement. This isn’t as impressive as I was led to believe. Those roads are completely exposed!
- thriftwy 9y agoIt's actually area around Yandex's main Moscow campus, Red Rose. I have walked there countless times when we went out for dinner.
- pvaldes 9y agoI hope that this is not the normal speed of the video. It looks a dangerous situation for pedestrians to me, specially in urban roads and streets.
- Tolika 9y agoThere's a 4x indicator in the top right corner.
- pvaldes 9y agoFew, for a moment I though that driving like at 100Km/h in a narrow slippy street navigating random pedestrians was a cultural thing from Moscow. The video deserves a second view, with a proper BSO :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bx20cflBBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bx20cflBBk
- tyingq 9y agoThe hardest human equivalent in New England in my youth, was a 4 way stop at the peak of a steep hill. Would have loved to seen this scenario with the self driving car.
- timvisee 9y agoI like how the car alows down a lot when squeezing through tight gaps
- seeekr 9y agoSo this video features a self-driving car developed by Yandex. Does someone have insight into why so many big tech companies seem to all be in agreement that developing self-driving cars is an area they need to be pursuing? Is it mostly everyone looking at what Google is doing and replicating that? Or is it the getting swept up by the Uber hype? Or is working on self-driving car software just such a natural extension to what these tech companies have been doing all along in their main areas of expertise anyway? (I feel like this question must have been brought up a number of times already, since these projects have been going on for a while by now.)
- lokopodium 9y agoYandex runs an Uber-like service in Russia, would make total sense to get driverless cars.
- nmbr213 9y agoThey actually did a sort-of merger for post-Soviet territory https://yandex.ru/blog/company/130717 https://yandex.ru/blog/company/130717 https://www.uber.com/ru/blog/future-uber-yandex/ https://www.uber.com/ru/blog/future-uber-yandex/
- konart 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yandex.Taxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yandex.Taxi
- golergka 9y agoI live in the neighborhood; these streets are all around Yandex headquarters. It's one of the best districts in the whole city, streets rigorously cleaned, very light traffic and surprisingly cultured drivers. Even after recent record-breaking snowfalls, these streets were very clear short after. Would love to see them trying to drive anywhere else in the city though.
- Piskvorrr 9y agoWonder what's that thing at 1:40 ;) "at turn, wipers suddenly full tilt for no apparent reason, person gives input to the right paddle" - yes, I know that control normally sends CAN messages for wiper operation in all modern cars, and that it wouldn't make sense to release a video with overt manipulation of the system; I have been conditioned to look for side channels though, and this is technically a human giving a driving-related input. But seriously, what does the car need the wipers for? All the sensors are outside anyway, no?
- undersuit 9y agoThe wipers are needed for when a human needs to take control and if a human needs to suddenly take control they need to have the wipers already working recently.