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So I've heard that weather was not compatible with driverless vehicles. However I haven't seen what happens when they are in heavy snow or rain. And, I'm sure

So I've heard that weather was not compatible with driverless vehicles. However I haven't seen what happens when they are in heavy snow or rain. And, I'm sure I'm misunderstanding the problem but couldn't electric cars with a motor per wheel be able to detect a slipping or loss of traction in an individual tire and slow it down?

abathur 8y ago
I don't think it's as much about compatibility as it is about trying to focus effort on easiest cases first.
Washuu 8y ago
The issue is detecting the lines and edges of the road after it snows. Snow just makes it all an inconsistent white matte texture. Even human drivers have issues with it. Heavy rain at night time can obscure road features to both humans and cameras.
- michaelchisari 8y ago
  If we did large infrastructure projects in the U.S. anymore, we could fit existing roads and highways with technology meant to communicate better with self-driving vehicles. Our existing road signage and markings were made for humans. Instead of training software to use them, why not add ones it can better understand?
  - Shivetya 8y ago
    We could simply mandate it that all "express" lane projects be marked to ease use of self driving cars. express lane is the new word for toll lanes. we could even convert HOV lanes to support self driving cars provided they are in that mode. the benefit is early adopters are more likely to pay for express lanes if that includes being able to go nearly hands free the whole drive and it is in a controlled environment with very limited access points. which brings up something else. how to communicate to others that a car is under the control of the onboard systems. we have DRLs and third brake lights. So something at both ends?
  - mrep 8y ago
    No idea on the cost of this but I always thought it would be neat if we had heated roads (you can get your driveway heated). That would solve the ground visibility problem, the need for snowplows/salt and save tons of money that is normally spent on cleaning up/repairing accidents. It also might get rid of potholes caused by freezing ice saving on maintenance.
    - function_seven 8y ago
      > No idea on the cost of this Driveway systems require about 35W per square foot when operating. Imagine a 36' wide road, and you're looking at around 6MW per mile. That's a lot.
      - bluedino 8y ago
        Add more power and have the roads charge the car like in F-Zero
      - PeterisP 8y ago
        It may be done if there's a cheap mass source of e.g. geothermal energy. IIRC the main streets on Reykjavik, Iceland are heated this way to avoid cleaning snow, but that's because they're pretty much sitting on top of volcanoes.
  - function_seven 8y ago
    You know how the account, transit, and check numbers along the bottom of a paper check use that weird OCR font? And are printed with magnetic ink? That's what we should do with road signs and lane markings. Make them resemble the current ones somewhat, but also be optimized for a computer to recognize them even in extreme conditions. Not only with wider differentiation between signs of different types, but also using radio, UV, infrared, or magnetic cues. Lanes could be painted with metallic pigments for example. Even when snow covers the edges of the roadway, the car could read those lines and center itself. All of this would be a change to what we already do. No need for extra equipment or drastic changes in infrastructure. Just update how existing signs and road markings are made.
    - realbarack 8y ago
      I agree with you that this is a route which deserves investigation. My question is, how difficult is it to make something which works "even in extreme conditions"? I would guess that it's really difficult, particularly when one takes into account deterioration (asphalt needs to be maintained constantly, these things probably would be too) and monitoring. That said, I don't know much about this space so maybe I'm just overestimating the difficulty here.
    - voxadam 8y ago
      > You know how the account, transit, and check numbers along the bottom of a paper check use that weird OCR font? And are printed with magnetic ink? You're talking about MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) and the E-13B font.
  - Fricken 8y ago
    Part of the whole point behind mapping everywhere the vehicles go is so they can mark ahead of time the locations of signage and lights, lane markings etc. Now whether there's a bunch of Vehicle to infrastructure sensors all over the place, or carefully curated internal maps, there will inevitably still be unmarked changes in road conditions, so Robotaxis will still need to be able to recognize changing signage and lane markings, along with all the other dynamic elements on the road.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    There is work going on in that space, but I'm guess it will come to my local roads no sooner than a decade after it would have been useful: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/vehicle-to-infrastructure-V2I-or-V2X https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/vehicle-to-infrastr...
  - gaius 8y ago
    technology meant to communicate better with self-driving vehicles. It would 100x cheaper and better to just fit tracks and have trams. Not nearly as sci-fi of course but infinitely more practical and useful, if the goal is efficient mass transit for non-drivers The whole self-driving thing only makes sense if it is cheaper than retro-fitting all the infrastructure. If it isn’t there is literally no point in it, just stick with human self-drivers and drivers-for-hire.
- Fricken 8y ago
  Here's a little gif Waymo posted, showing how they use Machine Learning techniques to filter out noise from snow that their sensors pick up: https://mobile.twitter.com/Waymo/status/994091703379415042/video/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/Waymo/status/994091703379415042/v...
nicoburns 8y ago
I think the big problem is visibility. I don't think anyone's suggesting the problem is insurmountable. Merely that cars trained only in good weather are unlikely to work well in poor weather conditions.

abathur 8y ago

I don't think it's as much about compatibility as it is about trying to focus effort on easiest cases first.

Washuu 8y ago

The issue is detecting the lines and edges of the road after it snows. Snow just makes it all an inconsistent white matte texture. Even human drivers have issues with it. Heavy rain at night time can obscure road features to both humans and cameras.

michaelchisari 8y ago
If we did large infrastructure projects in the U.S. anymore, we could fit existing roads and highways with technology meant to communicate better with self-driving vehicles. Our existing road signage and markings were made for humans. Instead of training software to use them, why not add ones it can better understand?
- Shivetya 8y ago
  We could simply mandate it that all "express" lane projects be marked to ease use of self driving cars. express lane is the new word for toll lanes. we could even convert HOV lanes to support self driving cars provided they are in that mode. the benefit is early adopters are more likely to pay for express lanes if that includes being able to go nearly hands free the whole drive and it is in a controlled environment with very limited access points. which brings up something else. how to communicate to others that a car is under the control of the onboard systems. we have DRLs and third brake lights. So something at both ends?
- mrep 8y ago
  No idea on the cost of this but I always thought it would be neat if we had heated roads (you can get your driveway heated). That would solve the ground visibility problem, the need for snowplows/salt and save tons of money that is normally spent on cleaning up/repairing accidents. It also might get rid of potholes caused by freezing ice saving on maintenance.
  - function_seven 8y ago
    > No idea on the cost of this Driveway systems require about 35W per square foot when operating. Imagine a 36' wide road, and you're looking at around 6MW per mile. That's a lot.
    - bluedino 8y ago
      Add more power and have the roads charge the car like in F-Zero
    - PeterisP 8y ago
      It may be done if there's a cheap mass source of e.g. geothermal energy. IIRC the main streets on Reykjavik, Iceland are heated this way to avoid cleaning snow, but that's because they're pretty much sitting on top of volcanoes.
- function_seven 8y ago
  You know how the account, transit, and check numbers along the bottom of a paper check use that weird OCR font? And are printed with magnetic ink? That's what we should do with road signs and lane markings. Make them resemble the current ones somewhat, but also be optimized for a computer to recognize them even in extreme conditions. Not only with wider differentiation between signs of different types, but also using radio, UV, infrared, or magnetic cues. Lanes could be painted with metallic pigments for example. Even when snow covers the edges of the roadway, the car could read those lines and center itself. All of this would be a change to what we already do. No need for extra equipment or drastic changes in infrastructure. Just update how existing signs and road markings are made.
  - realbarack 8y ago
    I agree with you that this is a route which deserves investigation. My question is, how difficult is it to make something which works "even in extreme conditions"? I would guess that it's really difficult, particularly when one takes into account deterioration (asphalt needs to be maintained constantly, these things probably would be too) and monitoring. That said, I don't know much about this space so maybe I'm just overestimating the difficulty here.
  - voxadam 8y ago
    > You know how the account, transit, and check numbers along the bottom of a paper check use that weird OCR font? And are printed with magnetic ink? You're talking about MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) and the E-13B font.
- Fricken 8y ago
  Part of the whole point behind mapping everywhere the vehicles go is so they can mark ahead of time the locations of signage and lights, lane markings etc. Now whether there's a bunch of Vehicle to infrastructure sensors all over the place, or carefully curated internal maps, there will inevitably still be unmarked changes in road conditions, so Robotaxis will still need to be able to recognize changing signage and lane markings, along with all the other dynamic elements on the road.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  There is work going on in that space, but I'm guess it will come to my local roads no sooner than a decade after it would have been useful: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/vehicle-to-infrastructure-V2I-or-V2X https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/vehicle-to-infrastr...
- gaius 8y ago
  technology meant to communicate better with self-driving vehicles. It would 100x cheaper and better to just fit tracks and have trams. Not nearly as sci-fi of course but infinitely more practical and useful, if the goal is efficient mass transit for non-drivers The whole self-driving thing only makes sense if it is cheaper than retro-fitting all the infrastructure. If it isn’t there is literally no point in it, just stick with human self-drivers and drivers-for-hire.
Fricken 8y ago
Here's a little gif Waymo posted, showing how they use Machine Learning techniques to filter out noise from snow that their sensors pick up: https://mobile.twitter.com/Waymo/status/994091703379415042/video/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/Waymo/status/994091703379415042/v...

nicoburns 8y ago

I think the big problem is visibility. I don't think anyone's suggesting the problem is insurmountable. Merely that cars trained only in good weather are unlikely to work well in poor weather conditions.