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Unmanned grocery delivery is underway in Arizona
- mooman219 8y agoMy primary concern with autonomous vehicles is crime and abuse. People are going to vandalize, damage, destroy, and salvage these vehicles. There's already little being done about this in manned vehicles, so what's going to be done for unmanned vehicles?
- i_am_proteus 8y agoIf they're deployed in areas with continuous LTE coverage, robust anti-tamper measures are entirely feasible. Cameras (which most autonomous vehicles have for perception) will witness and record the crime (and should be able to upload the footage in near-real-time). Stealing an unmanned vehicle-- and getting away with it-- should be very difficult.
- zaroth 8y agoGlitter bombs and fart spray.
- lozaning 8y agoWe've got one of these that roam around our corporate campus: https://www.knightscope.com/knightscope-k5/ https://www.knightscope.com/knightscope-k5/ Visitors like to walk up and take selfies with it, but no one messes with the thing because it's uploading 360 HD footage to some control center somewhere. Some drunk guy tackled the one that roams the company that makes thems parking lot. He was promptly arrested based on all the excellent, well lit HD footage of his whole run up and contact with the robot.
- JadeNB 8y ago> Stealing an unmanned vehicle-- and getting away with it-- should be very difficult. As witnessed by the difficulty people have dealing with package thieves, "getting caught doing it" is unfortunately different from "not getting away with it", even when 'it' is illegal.
- yayana 8y agoLooks freaky, which is part of the UPS truck model. No used market, no willingness by the owner to buy used parts. They could still make it too easy to vandalize on a whim, but AFA theft, it is probably better than owning a Toyota.
- Bombthecat 8y agoProbably the same as in any dystopian book. Sentry guns on top or inside.
- ceejayoz 8y agoWe've already got unmanned vehicles all over the place - in parking spots. Surely they'd be easier targets for vandalism etc. than a moving unmanned vehicle with a bunch of cameras recording?
- olyjohn 8y agoAre regular ride-sharing cars vandalized and parts stolen off of them? I see lots of Reach One BMWs and Mercedes parked on the streets. Car To Gos, etc. Not sure this will really be any different.
- fipple 8y agoThere are 100 million non autonomous cars which do get vandalized, damaged, destroyed, and salvaged, but not at a rate which has obviated the concept.
- freehunter 8y agoUSPS mail trucks sit on city streets unattended every day while the carrier walks house to house, leaving the truck chock full of people's paychecks, Amazon boxes, money orders, credit cards, and tons of valuables. And they don't get stolen or robbed often enough for USPS to do anything about it. There are plenty of ways for criminals to commit super easy crimes without autonomous vehicles being in the mix, but somehow society continues to function.
- icelancer 8y agoVandalizing mail service trucks carries quite a bigger punishment than Philadelphia citizens destroying an autonomous robot (which happened some time ago), in fairness. People know not to screw with the Postmaster General.
- IshKebab 8y agoThat's because the delivery person isn't far away so there's a decent risk of getting caught. If you know nobody is coming to save the robot for 20 minutes...
- Animats 8y agoDamaging automated infrastructure will reduce your social credit score. You won't be able to get into the automated convenience store. Won't be able to buy a plane ticket or a high-speed rail ticket. Won't be able to get a loan. Won't be able to get into a good school. Won't be able to get a vehicle license for a congested area. All this is operational now in parts of China. They've finally figured out how to automate karma.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- i_am_proteus 8y agoI like that their delivery vehicle isn't any bigger than it needs to be. An interesting idea out of this: if self-driving vehicles reduce the collision rate, road vehicles can (for some applications) get much lighter. Part of why cars are so big and heavy is safety (along with optionality for cargo and high speeds over mediocre roads). Shedding the steel safety cage could lead to improved fuel economy, which would result in a tremendous reduction in carbon output if scaled.
- supertrope 8y agoKind of like how drones are smaller and cheaper than fighter bombers.
- traek 8y agoIt's a chicken-and-egg problem. You'd want to be among the last people on the road to adopt a lighter car, because being in a lighter car while other people are still in heavy cars makes it much more likely for you to get killed in the event of a collision. I wonder if it will take legislation to solve.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago> You'd want to be among the last people on the road to adopt a lighter car, because being in a lighter car while other people are still in heavy cars makes it much more likely for you to get killed in the event of a collision. There are many reasons to adopt a lighter car. Collision safety isn't one of them, but if that was your only concern you'd be insane to have a car at all.
- intertextuality 8y agoThe problem is that for many people (in the US), a car is simply a necessity. And car safety is an important part of that. A lighter car would fare poorly against an older, heavier car in the case of a collision. Therefore, the lighter car is less safe. That's why it's a chicken and egg problem. No one wants to be in a less safe car when there are so many accidents (and deaths from them) every year.
- samstave 8y agoI have often thought: Why isnt there an unmanned transport infrastructure which could be built between endpoints. Take Hyperloop as a model-example. Instead of hyperlooping people about - why not only freight? Imagine a mini-hyperloop enclosed tube about 10-feet in diameter, which has delivery sleds between hubs, which interconnect... Then do a 20' diameter tube with sleds, and you have a trucking system which can be managed with BGP level routing experience...
- walrus01 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_Yor... Everything old is new again. As to why it's not currently done, if somebody comes up with a significantly lower cost method of doing purely underground construction (cut and cover trenching), directional drilling or small tunnel boring that doesn't cost a huge amount of money per linear meter, they'll become a gazillionaire. Not just "loops" but all electric, gas, water, sewer and telecom utilities will clamor for the tech.
- samstave 8y agoHaha - Yeah - thats the basis. Whats funny is when I was twelve years old - I designed a magnetic lev train built in a balsa-wood frame circle, with a cabin which was suspended in the tube-frame... I was really pissed when Musk came out with hyperloop in that I was like "Any twelve year-old can design this!" :-)
- niftich 8y agoThere's been a theory circulating around for a while that Musk's Boring Company is well-positioned to construct utility tunnels, and their seeming focus on transportation is essentially a loss-leader PR effort to drum up support from investors and the general public. Utility tunnels aren't exciting enough on their own, but there's a fair bit of money to be made in that industry. Musk has been long mum on the subject but he recently said, at a National League of Cities event in Los Angeles on 2018-11-08 [1][2], that's he's open to the idea. Of course, the big issue with tunneling, and construction projects in general, is often utility relocation, and not necessarily knowing where other utilities and surprises lie ahead of time. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2018/11/09/its-not-all-hyploops-elon-musks-boring-co-wants-to-dig-your-citys-next-sewer/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2018/11/09/its-not-... [2] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/11/elon-musk-on-double-decker-freeways-permitting-and-building-sewers/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/11/elon-musk-on-double-dec...
- philip1209 8y agoA killer feature
- shadykiller 8y agoI wonder why most autonomous vehicle projects are piloted in Arizona ? loose regulations ?
- dllu 8y agoGood weather
- olyjohn 8y agoThis and no hills... which means you have lots of options for routes, because everything's on a damn near perfect grid. Which also makes most of the situations the car encounters much simpler. No strange 5 way stops, no angled or offset intersections. Not even any curves to have to navigate. More opportunity to make 3 rights instead of a left, which these cars seem to be struggling at.
- dtwest 8y agoSince when does Arizona have no hills? Most states in the US are flatter than Arizona.
- kazinator 8y agoPossibly, the flat image might come from Arizona being flat where a large number of the people live, like Phoenix and its outskirts. Grandparent's "damn near perfect grid" comment also jives with the layout of much of Phoenix.
- benatkin 8y agoPhoenix has interesting geography. I struggled to describe it, so I checked Wikipedia, which has this succinct description: "Other than the mountains in and around the city, the topography of Phoenix is generally flat, allowing the city's main streets to run on a precise grid with wide, open-spaced roadways." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Geography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Geography
- 8y ago
- tree_of_item 8y agoA quick thought: when a customer enters the code and the doors open, can they somehow mess with other people's food? How do they prevent this?
- guynamedloren 8y agoLooking at the photos: the vehicle itself is tiny, as is the cargo space for groceries. There are two cargo areas with separate doors, so presumably each customer's delivery could have an isolated cargo space. I could imagine this concept scaled up to van size or even truck size, integrated with something like a refrigerated amazon locker. Exciting stuff!
- Animats 8y agoNot quite. The unmanned delivery vehicles will be followed by a “shadow car,” which will be driven by a human with the ability to stop or control it. There was a Silicon Valley startup called Starship Technologies which had a little robot vehicle running around downtown Redwood City sidewalks making deliveries. It was always followed by a guy watching it.
- funkymatt 8y agosame thing in san jose, they eventually did go fully autonomous this summer though. those dumb robots used to get stuck on curbs all the time.
- jcrei 8y agoThe guy following it (and also remote "pilots") are/were part of a training program for the eventual deployment of self driving delivery robots. The startup is from Tallinn, Estonia, with offices in several locations
- Animats 8y agoThe same guy for four months?
- black_puppydog 8y agoI sense the plot for a tech drama, when he gets too attached but the project is axed...
- daveFNbuck 8y agoI saw multiple people in both Redwood City and Palo Alto.
- IshKebab 8y agoYeah I don't think we have had any truly autonomous land vehicles released into the wild yet. Any company that claims to do it had better provide proof.
- xefer 8y agoI have to imagine that one of the perhaps unintended side effects of lots of driverless vehicles buzzing around is that they'll act as a kind of traffic calming mechanism. I assume these things will have to obey speed limits and traffic laws to the letter.
- konschubert 8y agoI'm really hoping for that.
- soared 8y agoThe biggest reason I support self-driving cars is because on a bicycle you really see how often drivers roll through stops signs, don't use blinkers, and break traffic laws. 100% selfish reasoning, but less human drivers makes the road safer for cyclists (assuming robots use their blinkers).
- duxup 8y agoI would like to see self driving bicycles, for the same reason ;) Not trying to get into a bike vs car debate, they're all fine with me... but man some bikers I come across are just flying through intersections / stop signs too. Scares the hell out of me when I'm driving.
- soared 8y agoNo disagreement here, plenty of idiots on bikes too!
- TulliusCicero 8y agoYeah, there are absolutely assholes in every mode. It's just that assholes in cars are a lot more dangerous than assholes who are biking or walking.
- IshKebab 8y ago
- timonoko 8y agoWhen I read the Bob Shaws book "Vertigo" in 1979 about personal flight-vest, I designed navigation rules of all aerial vehicles big and small. It is as follows: If the vehicle is X meters from the ground, the only allowed direction is (X mod 360) degrees, and the only possible speed is X/10 meter per second. Hence the vehicle moves along helical path until it reaches the only height where the desired speed and direction is allowed. There cannot be any major collisions only some slight grazes. Ingenious, nicht wahr? The problem of what is the "ground level" and how passenger jets behave is beyond this brief introduction.
- Qwertystop 8y agoOther problems: - It may not be possible to arrange landing areas in the desired direction - Vehicles may not be able to make sufficiently tight turns - Fixed-wing vehicles cover quite a large vertical distance, especially when rolling as they turn due to wingspans. There's plenty of room for converging paths, and your rules may not allow enough leniency to avoid such paths. A "slight graze" that takes off half a wing is not acceptable. - Parallel lines converge on the surface of the world. Two planes flying due north (X is a multiple of 360) may collide at or near the poles.
- scarmig 8y ago> Parallel lines converge on the surface of the world The scheme can be trivially modified to deal with this, once you've figured out a way to create a smooth tangent vector field on a 2-sphere.
- jakob223 8y agoChoose the points of non-smoothness to be in the Bermuda triangle. Everyone knows it's not safe to fly there.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoThe Bermuda triangle is an extremely heavily traveled area.
- konschubert 8y ago> He said a vehicle at the demonstration didn’t drive because its battery had died. I don't know what is worse: If that's true or if it's a lie.
- dmode 8y agoAnother overhyped autonomous deployment. Just a gimmick like the "autonomous" Lyft ride I had in Vegas, where the car had two people instead of one in a regular run of the mill yellow cab
- 2bitencryption 8y agothese overhyped autonomous deployments are how we slowly progress to accurately-hyped autonomous deployments.
- ourmandave 8y agoWho is Kroger and Nuro's insurance carrier on this if something bad happens? What's the liability if their autonomous grocery kart runs over someone?
- tokyodude 8y agoI think this is one of those examples of how unless regulated there will be 10x more cars on the road if/when self driving cars are ubiquitous. Lots of people envisioned less cars because the with self driven cars the current use of cars can be covered by less cars but self driven cars enable more uses. Send your kids to their friends. Grandma goes shopping. Need to borrow a drill pop it in car. Want to run a local cake store. Deliver the cakes in the cars. Right now in my city there are billboard trucks that drive around. I can imagine 10x more of them. And of course with no driver and lots of competition prices will come down. Why take public transport when I can be delivered door to door for less. I enjoy public transport here in Tokyo and I'm happy for the excersize I get walking to and from the station but, for example my office is a 20 minute walk from my apartment. I usually walk it but if it's raining or too hot I've used the Taxi app to have a taxi pick me up and drive me that short distance. The cheaper, easier, and faster (time to pickup) things get the more likely I'll take advantage of that more often.
- sdrothrock 8y ago> The cheaper, easier, and faster (time to pickup) things get the more likely I'll take advantage of that more often. I think this balances out naturally though in (y)our situation -- there's limited space for taxis near the station, so if a lot of people are taking taxis, the benefit of taking a taxi approaches zero unless the benefit is "sit" rather than "save time." A good example of this is rainy days or typhoons. So in the other cases you list, I wonder if it might not be self-balancing there as well -- as the roads get congested, the benefit of popping a drill into a car to send to a friend or whatever will approach zero as the costs rise due to congested roads.
- tokyodude 8y agoI think you're saying the problem is as more people take taxis the lines for them get longer at the station. But I don't need to wait in that line if I'm going door to door. As for congestion, if all the cars are AI maybe they can pack a few X more cars on the streets? Not saying I like that idea
- 8y ago
- jamisteven 8y agoIve been following grocery delivery automation since the days of "Publix direct" back in the late 90's in Seattle. I believe it was microsoft that partnered with them to order groceries straight from a smart fridge, the MS Home had one of these. I was recently reading an article on Bill Smith, CEO of Shipt which was acquired by target for 550 Million a year back. What I could not for the life of me figure out, was how that company was profitable, they charge 99$ a year, for unlimited grocery delivery, how is that profitable? After looking at their glassdoor entry, I believe its due in part to labor rates being very low which wont be sustainable in the long term and I believe is why he sold to Target. Anyhow, this automated delivery by NURO could be something although a bit ahead of its time, as cities just arent ready for autonomous vehicles just yet. I dont see why the grocery stores havent caught onto this though, and adopted a take-out system only where orderes are placed online and robots put the orders together, for bulk pickup. The battle of grocery stores isnt the time to pick up the groceries, but the time it takes to shop for what you need, parking, checkout out.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoUnmanned, but "shadowed" by a car with humans. The autonomous vehicle industry excels in one thing, for sure: moving the goalposts.