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Starsky engineer here. We spent a few days getting all of our emergency procedures in place and testing all fail-safe aspects of our system on the road in prepa

Starsky engineer here. We spent a few days getting all of our emergency procedures in place and testing all fail-safe aspects of our system on the road in preparation of the run. We've done unmanned runs before (also in Florida), but at much lower speed and with a vastly less sophisticated emergency system. Happy to answer any questions

cbanek 7y ago
First off, congrats! I think self driving trucks have a lot of promise and would really change the American economy. I'm curious as to the ways that the self driving problems in trucks might be different to the problems of self driving cars. For example, with heavy trucks, your braking distance must be a lot larger than a normal car. So things like following distance must be different. Also having to worry about skidding and the direction the trailer might move. Also, I imagine that you have to be pretty careful about cars cutting you off. It seems to happen all the time on the road, and is more dangerous than people give it credit for.
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  In case anyone isn't reading the article, these aren't "autonomous self-driving" trucks. They're remotely controlled trucks. Though I think Starsky has some longer-term goals of making some highway portions autonomous.
  - eldavido 7y ago
    (Starsky engineer here) That's a blurry line. We think of it like a spectrum running from hands-on-the-wheel, manual actuation of the brake/throttle/etc. to full autonomy. The middle parts are "supervision" where the human isn't manually pushing the pedals, but might, for instance, tell the truck to take an exit, or slow down, and the truck can do all the acceleration/braking, lane changes, etc on its own. This pattern of "supervised autonomy", where you automate the low-level (and safety critical) parts, but leave the higher-level decision-making up to humans, has surprisingly broad applicability. That's part of why I'm excited to work here.
- DanFeldman 7y ago
  > I'm curious as to the ways that the self driving problems in trucks might be different to the problems of self driving cars. For example, with heavy trucks, your braking distance must be a lot larger than a normal car. So things like following distance must be different. Also having to worry about skidding and the direction the trailer might move. Right on the money. If you slam on the brakes on a truck, you and your trailer can jack-knife, sending the trailer the wrong direction. It's a more complicated controls problem than in a car as well! > Also, I imagine that you have to be pretty careful about cars cutting you off. It seems to happen all the time on the road, and is more dangerous than people give it credit for. I've spent hundreds of hours in our truck over the last 3 years and my god drivers are absolutely terrible around trucks. You have an incredible view of the road from up on high in a semi, and the spatial awareness compared to a sedan is way better, so the crazy maneuvers happening around us seem a lot crazier. In California trucks can only go 55 mph, so we get a lot of folks (even in normal driving) trying to speed around us during merges on/off highways.
  - erobbins 7y ago
    > In California trucks can only go 55 mph lol :)
    - DanFeldman 7y ago
      Well, legally...
      - erobbins 7y ago
        Understood :) I had this idea myself but had no real way of pulling it off. I have believed for a long time that the real wins in autonomous vehicles would come from long haul trucking, but the last mile problem would really seal the deal. I'm excited to see you guys succeed :)
      - DrScump 7y ago
        I'd recommend being careful about making flippant remarks on public forums lest some future litigious asshole try to make hay out of it. But on point: on I-5, for one example, I've encountered semis doing 80+ MPH in loose groups and not at all unsafely. It wouldn't take many semis doing only 55 to make life miserable for many of your colleagues and competitors, especially if they face driving-hour limits and logging constraints that you don't. Has that issue been hashed out internally?
bedosh 7y ago
Are you worried about (cargo-)theft? The way I imagine it: - (assumption) it takes less criminal energy to steal something when no human observer is around - lonely road in the middle of nowhere - well known driving behaviour means it is easy to stop (overtake, then slow down to a halt?) - enable mobile phone jammer (optional) - take cargo
- mdorazio 7y ago
  I feel like the risk of this is lower than that of rail car theft (find a place where the train slows down, hop on it, steal stuff, leave before it gets to a depot. Or alternatively disconnect the last car and take everything).
  - stackola 7y ago
    >disconnect the last car and take everything That's no fun for the ICE 20 miles out.
- burkaman 7y ago
  Wouldn't that work pretty well with a human driver? I don't think most truck drivers are going to risk their life for their cargo. If you block a truck in with a couple cars and block them from calling 911, they'll just try to protect themselves and maybe try to film you if they're brave.
- kbenson 7y ago
  Some things might be easier for the thief, but others I imagine harder. Multiple on-board backup locations of numerous video sensors means unless the entire vehicle is torched (and even then), some evidence of the people who carried out the theft will probably survive. When talking about autonomous platforms, a jammer might no longer be sufficient. If communication is lost, how hard is it to launch a drone (or multiple) whose job it is to keep visual contact with the vehicle while increasing distance, and relay the feed up when communication is re-established (how large an area does a jammer affect?). There are ways to mitigate these defenses/logging (reduce all unique visuals, stop vehicle in tunnel), but also ways to minimize those mitigations. I'm not sure it's any easier than when a human is present to defend the goods.
whynolove 7y ago
Are there any worries around drivers being more careless with driving since their own live is not in danger like it would be while actually in the truck?
- lallysingh 7y ago
  I think the regular sleep well compensate compared to truck drivers.
leemac 7y ago
This is exciting technology! My father in-law is a trucker, although nearly retired. He's fascinated by the developments made by you guys. I'm not entirely familiar with the industry and day-to-day of a trucker, but I'd imagine you'd need some "on the ground" personnel, at least initially, to perform tasks such as fueling on long hauls. Aside from this, it'd be interesting to see how quickly you can go coast-to-coast without a human needing a break/sleep.
- DanFeldman 7y ago
  Well if your father in law is looking for a different pace of driving have him check https://www.drivestarsky.com/ https://www.drivestarsky.com/. With regards to fueling, there are a good amount of fuel stops around the country that will do "concierge" services for fueling up the truck, giving it a wash, etc. There's some infrastructure in place for when we need to get there.
  - leemac 7y ago
    Interesting stuff. I'll certainly tell him about this. He's been talking about retirement for some time (early-to-mid 60's) but he's a workaholic like my own father. He's always had a challenging time finding trucking jobs that are local in the Vermont area, but should an opportunity arise where he can drive anywhere closer to home, I think his ears will perk up.
mdorazio 7y ago
How are you guys planning to handle the paperwork, inspection, and liability hand-off tasks typically done by truck drivers today? People at the depots on either side, virtual sign-offs/inspections, or what?
- DanFeldman 7y ago
  Great question. We're now public[1] with the news that we're operating a trucking company, and by headcount a significant amount of starsky employees are truck drivers. Part of how we're approaching the trucking business is to automate as much of it as possible, including all this invoicing, bill of lading movement, automatic payments, doc signing, unloading/loading, and dispatch. It's pretty easy for a carrier like ourselves to decide how to manage this business process, so we have carte blanche to work with our shipping partners on novel solutions. They're also interested in transparency and speed of transaction, and especially interested in being able to work with a truck that is easily traceable. There are modern shipping depots that have robotic unloading, but also a significant portion of freight is unloaded by the people manning the shipping/receiving offices of our freights' end destination. [1] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/starsky-robotics-sees-truckers-as-essential-to-future-of-driverless-trucking https://www.freightwaves.com/news/starsky-robotics-sees-truc...
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    That's great, thanks for the answer. Looking forward to seeing you guys continue to innovate in this space.
markstos 7y ago
What is the failure mode when connectivity with the truck is lost or jammed?
- MegaButts 7y ago
  I would love an answer to this, as I believe this is why this approach is fundamentally flawed and why others are not pursuing it.
  - pardavis 7y ago
    Page 8 of this PDF has a table of failure modes: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/599d39e79f59ae00017e2107/5c1be1791a7332594e0ff28b_Voluntary%20Safety%20Self-Assessment_Starsky%20Robotics.pdf https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/599d39e79f59ae00017e2107/5c1...
    - MegaButts 7y ago
      Thanks for the link. This basically says in that scenario (which I did not see specifically mentioned in my admittedly cursory glance) is to just hit the brakes...and then since there's nobody in the truck and there's no wireless signal it's just stuck there until someone goes there in person or the cell signal comes back up.
      - tintor 7y ago
        What if signal is lost while the truck is performing an unprotected left turn, in front of oncoming traffic with right of way? Braking in that situation will not be safe. ... during lane change? ... on highway?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        Dylan16807 7y ago
        The pdf is pretty helpful! Outside of total system failure, it will try to find a shoulder, and if it can't do that it will gradually come to a stop inside its lane.
jacquesm 7y ago
What is your liability situation in case of injury or fatalities of other users of the road?
- eldavido 7y ago
  (Starsky engineer here) IANAL, however, a lot of road activity is regulated state-to-state in the US. It turns out to be a really fascinating regulatory problem. To get a flavor of what we're dealing with, we've had some concerns from law enforcement officials that our tele-op drivers need to be sober, and that officers need some mechanism for administering a field sobriety test to someone who may not even be in the jurisdiction. IMHO, there needs to be a federal solution to some of this. If it becomes common that vehicles and equipment are operated across state lines, it will become increasingly difficult to comply with every state's rules. That said, unlike some other companies, we are very committed to honoring both the letter and spirit of the law. Our view is that this is an important moment for US civic engagement where industry, labor, insurance, vehicle manufacturers, and the public need to come together and work it out. We explicitly are not taking a "move fast and break things" attitude toward legal compliance.
  - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
    >and that officers need some mechanism for administering a field sobriety test to someone who may not even be in the jurisdiction. I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually have to end up getting police to stay on site with the drivers for this scenario. Sobriety tests not withstanding, your non-security staff probably won't go tackle a teleoperator if they cause a bad accident and try to flee.
    - serf 7y ago
      >I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually have to end up getting police to stay on site with the drivers for this scenario. that's ridiculous given that similarly important situations happen all over the tech sector, and there are no such police escorts. I understand the issue, but there aren't any police to tackle rogue actors all over the place. At some point we rely on trusting a professional to be a professional, with retroactive punishment being the ultimate deterrent. Unless Starsky is hiring people anonymously without payroll or background checks, the identity of the person who flees will be known -- at which case the criminal justice system kicks in and attempts to apprehend and prosecute. Put another way : Do you often get police escorts on your drive to the grocery store? My first hacky technical solution? Put a breathalyzer on the teleoperation terminal. A high count calls up some supervisors and disallows the use of the terminal. No cops needed. Is this practical? Is it responsible? No, probably not -- but it's nowhere near as impractical or irresponsible as wasting hours of on-site police during all hours of operation.
taneq 7y ago
Looks very interesting! I think you have the right approach, doing an "easy" thing safely to start with. Have you experimented with stereo cameras for telepresence? How does it compare with multiple fixed cameras?
petra 7y ago
Best of luck! An automation/teleoperation seems like a great solution for this problem. Why aren't more teams doing that ?
woodrowbarlow 7y ago
how bandwidth-hungry is teleoperation?
- eldavido 7y ago
  (Starsky engineer) It takes a ton of data. Hundreds of GB/month. I'd provide more specific info but don't have it in front of me at the moment.
  - uncoder0 7y ago
    Would be curious to know the rough bitrate during teleop. If you can and don't mind sharing.
userbinator 7y ago
Do you have any thoughts about the "sudden hand-off" problem, i.e. when the "autopilot disconnects" and the human has to suddenly take over and make a decision in the next fraction of a second? This is difficult enough even with the driver in the vehicle, and remote control can only add latency.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Why would this ever happen? The failsafe will probably be "hazard lights go on, truck immediately brakes and pulls over", not "goes into super manual mode over slow link".
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    This is assuming it knows how to pull over while it simultaneously doesn't know how to drive on its own. The assumption "it always knows how to pull over" is similar to "it always knows how to drive forward." They're not the same, but you need validation for either.
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      At least European driving regulations are made in a way that allows you to stop right in the middle of the road in case of danger, except for highways of course - where the problem is significantly easier.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      It knows how to drive on its own on the freeway and only needs humans to drive it off the freeway, no?
      - MegaButts 7y ago
        That's the goal. The problem is it literally has to be 100% perfect for this to work, which is an insanely difficult barrier which has never really been done before in robotics. To call it ambitious would be the most generous way to describe it.
DrScump 7y ago
Do you support triples in those states that allow them?
DrScump 7y ago
How do you handle refueling?

cbanek 7y ago

First off, congrats! I think self driving trucks have a lot of promise and would really change the American economy. I'm curious as to the ways that the self driving problems in trucks might be different to the problems of self driving cars. For example, with heavy trucks, your braking distance must be a lot larger than a normal car. So things like following distance must be different. Also having to worry about skidding and the direction the trailer might move. Also, I imagine that you have to be pretty careful about cars cutting you off. It seems to happen all the time on the road, and is more dangerous than people give it credit for.

seltzered_ 7y ago
In case anyone isn't reading the article, these aren't "autonomous self-driving" trucks. They're remotely controlled trucks. Though I think Starsky has some longer-term goals of making some highway portions autonomous.
- eldavido 7y ago
  (Starsky engineer here) That's a blurry line. We think of it like a spectrum running from hands-on-the-wheel, manual actuation of the brake/throttle/etc. to full autonomy. The middle parts are "supervision" where the human isn't manually pushing the pedals, but might, for instance, tell the truck to take an exit, or slow down, and the truck can do all the acceleration/braking, lane changes, etc on its own. This pattern of "supervised autonomy", where you automate the low-level (and safety critical) parts, but leave the higher-level decision-making up to humans, has surprisingly broad applicability. That's part of why I'm excited to work here.
DanFeldman 7y ago
> I'm curious as to the ways that the self driving problems in trucks might be different to the problems of self driving cars. For example, with heavy trucks, your braking distance must be a lot larger than a normal car. So things like following distance must be different. Also having to worry about skidding and the direction the trailer might move. Right on the money. If you slam on the brakes on a truck, you and your trailer can jack-knife, sending the trailer the wrong direction. It's a more complicated controls problem than in a car as well! > Also, I imagine that you have to be pretty careful about cars cutting you off. It seems to happen all the time on the road, and is more dangerous than people give it credit for. I've spent hundreds of hours in our truck over the last 3 years and my god drivers are absolutely terrible around trucks. You have an incredible view of the road from up on high in a semi, and the spatial awareness compared to a sedan is way better, so the crazy maneuvers happening around us seem a lot crazier. In California trucks can only go 55 mph, so we get a lot of folks (even in normal driving) trying to speed around us during merges on/off highways.
- erobbins 7y ago
  > In California trucks can only go 55 mph lol :)
  - DanFeldman 7y ago
    Well, legally...
    - erobbins 7y ago
      Understood :) I had this idea myself but had no real way of pulling it off. I have believed for a long time that the real wins in autonomous vehicles would come from long haul trucking, but the last mile problem would really seal the deal. I'm excited to see you guys succeed :)
    - DrScump 7y ago
      I'd recommend being careful about making flippant remarks on public forums lest some future litigious asshole try to make hay out of it. But on point: on I-5, for one example, I've encountered semis doing 80+ MPH in loose groups and not at all unsafely. It wouldn't take many semis doing only 55 to make life miserable for many of your colleagues and competitors, especially if they face driving-hour limits and logging constraints that you don't. Has that issue been hashed out internally?

bedosh 7y ago

Are you worried about (cargo-)theft? The way I imagine it: - (assumption) it takes less criminal energy to steal something when no human observer is around - lonely road in the middle of nowhere - well known driving behaviour means it is easy to stop (overtake, then slow down to a halt?) - enable mobile phone jammer (optional) - take cargo

mdorazio 7y ago
I feel like the risk of this is lower than that of rail car theft (find a place where the train slows down, hop on it, steal stuff, leave before it gets to a depot. Or alternatively disconnect the last car and take everything).
- stackola 7y ago
  >disconnect the last car and take everything That's no fun for the ICE 20 miles out.
burkaman 7y ago
Wouldn't that work pretty well with a human driver? I don't think most truck drivers are going to risk their life for their cargo. If you block a truck in with a couple cars and block them from calling 911, they'll just try to protect themselves and maybe try to film you if they're brave.
kbenson 7y ago
Some things might be easier for the thief, but others I imagine harder. Multiple on-board backup locations of numerous video sensors means unless the entire vehicle is torched (and even then), some evidence of the people who carried out the theft will probably survive. When talking about autonomous platforms, a jammer might no longer be sufficient. If communication is lost, how hard is it to launch a drone (or multiple) whose job it is to keep visual contact with the vehicle while increasing distance, and relay the feed up when communication is re-established (how large an area does a jammer affect?). There are ways to mitigate these defenses/logging (reduce all unique visuals, stop vehicle in tunnel), but also ways to minimize those mitigations. I'm not sure it's any easier than when a human is present to defend the goods.

whynolove 7y ago

Are there any worries around drivers being more careless with driving since their own live is not in danger like it would be while actually in the truck?

lallysingh 7y ago
I think the regular sleep well compensate compared to truck drivers.

leemac 7y ago

This is exciting technology! My father in-law is a trucker, although nearly retired. He's fascinated by the developments made by you guys. I'm not entirely familiar with the industry and day-to-day of a trucker, but I'd imagine you'd need some "on the ground" personnel, at least initially, to perform tasks such as fueling on long hauls. Aside from this, it'd be interesting to see how quickly you can go coast-to-coast without a human needing a break/sleep.

DanFeldman 7y ago
Well if your father in law is looking for a different pace of driving have him check https://www.drivestarsky.com/ https://www.drivestarsky.com/. With regards to fueling, there are a good amount of fuel stops around the country that will do "concierge" services for fueling up the truck, giving it a wash, etc. There's some infrastructure in place for when we need to get there.
- leemac 7y ago
  Interesting stuff. I'll certainly tell him about this. He's been talking about retirement for some time (early-to-mid 60's) but he's a workaholic like my own father. He's always had a challenging time finding trucking jobs that are local in the Vermont area, but should an opportunity arise where he can drive anywhere closer to home, I think his ears will perk up.

mdorazio 7y ago

How are you guys planning to handle the paperwork, inspection, and liability hand-off tasks typically done by truck drivers today? People at the depots on either side, virtual sign-offs/inspections, or what?

DanFeldman 7y ago
Great question. We're now public[1] with the news that we're operating a trucking company, and by headcount a significant amount of starsky employees are truck drivers. Part of how we're approaching the trucking business is to automate as much of it as possible, including all this invoicing, bill of lading movement, automatic payments, doc signing, unloading/loading, and dispatch. It's pretty easy for a carrier like ourselves to decide how to manage this business process, so we have carte blanche to work with our shipping partners on novel solutions. They're also interested in transparency and speed of transaction, and especially interested in being able to work with a truck that is easily traceable. There are modern shipping depots that have robotic unloading, but also a significant portion of freight is unloaded by the people manning the shipping/receiving offices of our freights' end destination. [1] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/starsky-robotics-sees-truckers-as-essential-to-future-of-driverless-trucking https://www.freightwaves.com/news/starsky-robotics-sees-truc...
- mdorazio 7y ago
  That's great, thanks for the answer. Looking forward to seeing you guys continue to innovate in this space.

markstos 7y ago

What is the failure mode when connectivity with the truck is lost or jammed?

MegaButts 7y ago
I would love an answer to this, as I believe this is why this approach is fundamentally flawed and why others are not pursuing it.
- pardavis 7y ago
  Page 8 of this PDF has a table of failure modes: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/599d39e79f59ae00017e2107/5c1be1791a7332594e0ff28b_Voluntary%20Safety%20Self-Assessment_Starsky%20Robotics.pdf https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/599d39e79f59ae00017e2107/5c1...
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. This basically says in that scenario (which I did not see specifically mentioned in my admittedly cursory glance) is to just hit the brakes...and then since there's nobody in the truck and there's no wireless signal it's just stuck there until someone goes there in person or the cell signal comes back up.
    - tintor 7y ago
      What if signal is lost while the truck is performing an unprotected left turn, in front of oncoming traffic with right of way? Braking in that situation will not be safe. ... during lane change? ... on highway?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        The pdf is pretty helpful! Outside of total system failure, it will try to find a shoulder, and if it can't do that it will gradually come to a stop inside its lane.

jacquesm 7y ago

What is your liability situation in case of injury or fatalities of other users of the road?

eldavido 7y ago
(Starsky engineer here) IANAL, however, a lot of road activity is regulated state-to-state in the US. It turns out to be a really fascinating regulatory problem. To get a flavor of what we're dealing with, we've had some concerns from law enforcement officials that our tele-op drivers need to be sober, and that officers need some mechanism for administering a field sobriety test to someone who may not even be in the jurisdiction. IMHO, there needs to be a federal solution to some of this. If it becomes common that vehicles and equipment are operated across state lines, it will become increasingly difficult to comply with every state's rules. That said, unlike some other companies, we are very committed to honoring both the letter and spirit of the law. Our view is that this is an important moment for US civic engagement where industry, labor, insurance, vehicle manufacturers, and the public need to come together and work it out. We explicitly are not taking a "move fast and break things" attitude toward legal compliance.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
  >and that officers need some mechanism for administering a field sobriety test to someone who may not even be in the jurisdiction. I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually have to end up getting police to stay on site with the drivers for this scenario. Sobriety tests not withstanding, your non-security staff probably won't go tackle a teleoperator if they cause a bad accident and try to flee.
  - serf 7y ago
    >I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually have to end up getting police to stay on site with the drivers for this scenario. that's ridiculous given that similarly important situations happen all over the tech sector, and there are no such police escorts. I understand the issue, but there aren't any police to tackle rogue actors all over the place. At some point we rely on trusting a professional to be a professional, with retroactive punishment being the ultimate deterrent. Unless Starsky is hiring people anonymously without payroll or background checks, the identity of the person who flees will be known -- at which case the criminal justice system kicks in and attempts to apprehend and prosecute. Put another way : Do you often get police escorts on your drive to the grocery store? My first hacky technical solution? Put a breathalyzer on the teleoperation terminal. A high count calls up some supervisors and disallows the use of the terminal. No cops needed. Is this practical? Is it responsible? No, probably not -- but it's nowhere near as impractical or irresponsible as wasting hours of on-site police during all hours of operation.

taneq 7y ago

Looks very interesting! I think you have the right approach, doing an "easy" thing safely to start with. Have you experimented with stereo cameras for telepresence? How does it compare with multiple fixed cameras?

petra 7y ago

Best of luck! An automation/teleoperation seems like a great solution for this problem. Why aren't more teams doing that ?

woodrowbarlow 7y ago

how bandwidth-hungry is teleoperation?

eldavido 7y ago
(Starsky engineer) It takes a ton of data. Hundreds of GB/month. I'd provide more specific info but don't have it in front of me at the moment.
- uncoder0 7y ago
  Would be curious to know the rough bitrate during teleop. If you can and don't mind sharing.

userbinator 7y ago

Do you have any thoughts about the "sudden hand-off" problem, i.e. when the "autopilot disconnects" and the human has to suddenly take over and make a decision in the next fraction of a second? This is difficult enough even with the driver in the vehicle, and remote control can only add latency.

StavrosK 7y ago
Why would this ever happen? The failsafe will probably be "hazard lights go on, truck immediately brakes and pulls over", not "goes into super manual mode over slow link".
- MegaButts 7y ago
  This is assuming it knows how to pull over while it simultaneously doesn't know how to drive on its own. The assumption "it always knows how to pull over" is similar to "it always knows how to drive forward." They're not the same, but you need validation for either.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    At least European driving regulations are made in a way that allows you to stop right in the middle of the road in case of danger, except for highways of course - where the problem is significantly easier.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    It knows how to drive on its own on the freeway and only needs humans to drive it off the freeway, no?
    - MegaButts 7y ago
      That's the goal. The problem is it literally has to be 100% perfect for this to work, which is an insanely difficult barrier which has never really been done before in robotics. To call it ambitious would be the most generous way to describe it.

DrScump 7y ago

Do you support triples in those states that allow them?

DrScump 7y ago

How do you handle refueling?