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One day they could possibly teleop cars autonomously (streaming sensor data to servers through the starlink terminals, then processing and sending output data b
by sdan 7y ago
One day they could possibly teleop cars autonomously (streaming sensor data to servers through the starlink terminals, then processing and sending output data back to the cars through the starlink terminals). Obviously latency is a huge factor in this, but it could be possible.
- deelowe 7y agoI think starlink is aiming for latency on par with terrestrial solutions (e.g. sub 30 ms rt).
- tlrobinson 7y agoInteresting possibility. I don't think it would make sense for teleop to be the normal mode of operation, since it would consume a ton of bandwidth, but maybe they could use human teleoperators to handle occasional edges cases between "level 3" and "level 5" autonomy, in particular for the autonomous ride-sharing network. They could colocate the teleoperators at Starlink ground stations to minimize latency, and prioritize teleop traffic.
- debatem1 7y agoMy initial reaction was to make a joke about this, but the math is on point. At the speed of light latency to/from the satellite (3.5ms) and a vehicle speed of 60mph, that's about 4 inches of vehicle travel. Sounds pretty great-- probably better than almost any human driver. At terrestrial latency (30-60ms), thats a few feet, maybe nearing 10. You're still in the margin for human reaction times. Doubling that to account for compute latency and such is actually still in the noise for car brakes available today. Cool how far things have come.