4 ms·

Remote truck driving sounds like a scary job, driving a heavy vehicle capable of causing major fatal accidents, via tech that could lag or drop out at any time,

Remote truck driving sounds like a scary job, driving a heavy vehicle capable of causing major fatal accidents, via tech that could lag or drop out at any time, with none of the tactile feedback that you normally get from a vehicle? What does the interface look like? 2D screens (no depth perception), or something more VR-like with stereoscopic vision and head tracking?

onion2k 7y ago
You can see a version (maybe old) of the UI in this video - https://youtu.be/rFEmj6Wks7c https://youtu.be/rFEmj6Wks7c
- DanFeldman 7y ago
  There are updated videos of our UI floating around the internet. This one is pretty recent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtOhbMSv5c&amp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtOhbMSv5c&amp Excuse the mood lighting, we're experimenting with eye-strain on the remote drivers.
  - hobofan 7y ago
    The mood lighting is not the main problem, cutting back and forth between two completely different viewpoints (feet- and eye-level) is. Especially in a 360 video where you are trying to transport the feeling that the driver is basically sitting it truck, this seems very counter-productive to your point.
    - lallysingh 7y ago
      Sounds like a great VR application
      - mdorazio 7y ago
        Theoretically, yes. But I'd be concerned about fatigue and stress of having a current-gen headset on people all day long. Seems like 3D screens might be a better solution until headsets get lighter / more comfortable.
        lallysingh 7y ago
        Good point. They could try a CAVE environment, or only do it for the precise parts (e.g., reversing).
  - mbbutler 7y ago
    It doesn't look like the drivers get any tactile feedback from the wheel or the seat. Am I correct in that understanding?
  - eldavido 7y ago
    Starsky engineer here. We are actively hiring developers to work on this system (we call it "tele-operation" internally). I'm currently (this afternoon) working on driving the latency of the communication in this system down even further by stripping it down to bare socket programming. We'd love to meet anyone who's done RTS games, first-person shooters, or anything else that involves keeping moderate amounts of state synchronized over medium-latency networks. :)
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Highly recommend pilfering folks from Riot Games’ engineering team based on chats with folks there. Solving similar problems.
    - ncallaway 7y ago
      I've done a small amount, but mostly as hobbyist stuff. If you haven't looked at it already, Glen Fiedler has a great series on game networking on his Gaffer on Games blogs that covers a lot of those topics in ways that were really helpful for my implementations. https://gafferongames.com/tags/networking/ https://gafferongames.com/tags/networking/ It looks like his site is down, but it's also available on the internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190405204744/https://gafferongames.com/tags/networking/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190405204744/https://gafferong.... It's all fairly high-level stuff, and I'm sure it mostly just retreads ground that you're familiar with, but I thought the explanations were all super-clear and helped crystallize a lot of thoughts that I already had but hadn't focused that well.
    - bluescrn 7y ago
      RTS games are potentially one of the simplest cases for online multiplayer - a deterministic lockstep approach is possible, and you don’t send state over the network, just actions (e.g. ‘move group 1 to x,y’). And as unit control is indirect, an RTS can tolerate a few tenths of a second of latency much better that many game genres
- joering2 7y ago
  Truly incredible project that I would never wanted to work on because when it suceed, all drivers can go look for another job. The video is nice to see a professional driver even in his orange vest driving truck ten thausand miles away. And once he is done he shuts down his laptop and walks to the room next door, where his wife cooks dinner to play with their kid. Right? If reality of automatization learnt us anything so far, is that all these people will be fired almost overnight, and the huge hangar of $2/hour Phillipino “drivers” will be hired to most drive most likely multiple trucks at once, because why the hell not to divide screen in four. The only good thing is that we are some 10-15 years away from full implementation, but if I were you I would not look for long and prosperous career as a truck driver.
  - uponcoffee 7y ago
    I think the <insert minority/foreign country here> will steal our jobs narrative doesn't really work here. This will cut jobs, yes, but as a latency/redundancy sensitive application jobs servicing this will be geolocked to 'hubs' of some form. Like air traffic control, but for trucks.
  - eldavido 7y ago
    > The only good thing is that we are some 10-15 years away from full implementation, but if I were you I would not look for long and prosperous career as a truck driver. (I work at Starsky) That's one way to say it. Another is that the industry is suffering from a major lack of qualified drivers. Earlier this week, we announced our operation of a commercial trucking company in addition to our autonomous R&D group. We're getting better-than-average employee retention by offering employee-drivers a career path out of long-haul driving if they want it. Even so, we've heard tons of stories from our drivers about poor working conditions at other companies, and people quitting after only 3-4 months. For whatever reason, trucking skews older. Younger people just don't want to do it. Which is fine, except that groceries, diapers, and everything you order from Amazon won't get delivered by itself.
    - DenisM 7y ago
      [...] Another is that the industry is suffering from a major lack of qualified drivers [...] we've heard tons of stories from our drivers about poor working conditions at other companies, and people quitting after only 3-4 months. [...] Which one is it - shortage of drivers, or poor treatment of drivers? You can't have both, look at the software engineers for an example of actual shortage.
jimktrains2 7y ago
Agreed; it sounds scarier than a fully autonomous vehicle. Driving is a very tactile activity, but I'd also worry about lag, network congestion, network outages, &c.

onion2k 7y ago

You can see a version (maybe old) of the UI in this video - https://youtu.be/rFEmj6Wks7c https://youtu.be/rFEmj6Wks7c

DanFeldman 7y ago
There are updated videos of our UI floating around the internet. This one is pretty recent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtOhbMSv5c&amp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtOhbMSv5c&amp Excuse the mood lighting, we're experimenting with eye-strain on the remote drivers.
- hobofan 7y ago
  The mood lighting is not the main problem, cutting back and forth between two completely different viewpoints (feet- and eye-level) is. Especially in a 360 video where you are trying to transport the feeling that the driver is basically sitting it truck, this seems very counter-productive to your point.
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    Sounds like a great VR application
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      Theoretically, yes. But I'd be concerned about fatigue and stress of having a current-gen headset on people all day long. Seems like 3D screens might be a better solution until headsets get lighter / more comfortable.
      - lallysingh 7y ago
        Good point. They could try a CAVE environment, or only do it for the precise parts (e.g., reversing).
- mbbutler 7y ago
  It doesn't look like the drivers get any tactile feedback from the wheel or the seat. Am I correct in that understanding?
- eldavido 7y ago
  Starsky engineer here. We are actively hiring developers to work on this system (we call it "tele-operation" internally). I'm currently (this afternoon) working on driving the latency of the communication in this system down even further by stripping it down to bare socket programming. We'd love to meet anyone who's done RTS games, first-person shooters, or anything else that involves keeping moderate amounts of state synchronized over medium-latency networks. :)
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Highly recommend pilfering folks from Riot Games’ engineering team based on chats with folks there. Solving similar problems.
  - ncallaway 7y ago
    I've done a small amount, but mostly as hobbyist stuff. If you haven't looked at it already, Glen Fiedler has a great series on game networking on his Gaffer on Games blogs that covers a lot of those topics in ways that were really helpful for my implementations. https://gafferongames.com/tags/networking/ https://gafferongames.com/tags/networking/ It looks like his site is down, but it's also available on the internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190405204744/https://gafferongames.com/tags/networking/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190405204744/https://gafferong.... It's all fairly high-level stuff, and I'm sure it mostly just retreads ground that you're familiar with, but I thought the explanations were all super-clear and helped crystallize a lot of thoughts that I already had but hadn't focused that well.
  - bluescrn 7y ago
    RTS games are potentially one of the simplest cases for online multiplayer - a deterministic lockstep approach is possible, and you don’t send state over the network, just actions (e.g. ‘move group 1 to x,y’). And as unit control is indirect, an RTS can tolerate a few tenths of a second of latency much better that many game genres
joering2 7y ago
Truly incredible project that I would never wanted to work on because when it suceed, all drivers can go look for another job. The video is nice to see a professional driver even in his orange vest driving truck ten thausand miles away. And once he is done he shuts down his laptop and walks to the room next door, where his wife cooks dinner to play with their kid. Right? If reality of automatization learnt us anything so far, is that all these people will be fired almost overnight, and the huge hangar of $2/hour Phillipino “drivers” will be hired to most drive most likely multiple trucks at once, because why the hell not to divide screen in four. The only good thing is that we are some 10-15 years away from full implementation, but if I were you I would not look for long and prosperous career as a truck driver.
- uponcoffee 7y ago
  I think the <insert minority/foreign country here> will steal our jobs narrative doesn't really work here. This will cut jobs, yes, but as a latency/redundancy sensitive application jobs servicing this will be geolocked to 'hubs' of some form. Like air traffic control, but for trucks.
- eldavido 7y ago
  > The only good thing is that we are some 10-15 years away from full implementation, but if I were you I would not look for long and prosperous career as a truck driver. (I work at Starsky) That's one way to say it. Another is that the industry is suffering from a major lack of qualified drivers. Earlier this week, we announced our operation of a commercial trucking company in addition to our autonomous R&D group. We're getting better-than-average employee retention by offering employee-drivers a career path out of long-haul driving if they want it. Even so, we've heard tons of stories from our drivers about poor working conditions at other companies, and people quitting after only 3-4 months. For whatever reason, trucking skews older. Younger people just don't want to do it. Which is fine, except that groceries, diapers, and everything you order from Amazon won't get delivered by itself.
  - DenisM 7y ago
    [...] Another is that the industry is suffering from a major lack of qualified drivers [...] we've heard tons of stories from our drivers about poor working conditions at other companies, and people quitting after only 3-4 months. [...] Which one is it - shortage of drivers, or poor treatment of drivers? You can't have both, look at the software engineers for an example of actual shortage.

jimktrains2 7y ago

Agreed; it sounds scarier than a fully autonomous vehicle. Driving is a very tactile activity, but I'd also worry about lag, network congestion, network outages, &c.