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Back in 2005-6 I was working on autonomous off-road vehicles for the US Army, part of the far outer fringes of the [Future Combat System] (https://en.wikipedia.

Back in 2005-6 I was working on autonomous off-road vehicles for the US Army, part of the far outer fringes of the [Future Combat System] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Combat_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Combat_Systems). In our tests we found that MMWR had major speed limitations even with a leader-follower system (where the manned leader built terrain models as it was manually driven and shipped them to the followers which then tried to terrain-match the leader's MMWR images). We figured based on sensor range versus safe-stopping acceleration rates it was limited to about 30kph. We also had tremendous problems with dust etc. up in the air causing the radar to think it was a wall and panic stop. And further problems, since we were off-road, the radar LOVED puddles and any sort of standing water- it looked perfectly flat and so wanted to go there every time. Various attempts were made to compensate (some people tried sensor fusion with visual and IR cameras, which doing in real time is hugely hard, our team tried to do it by focusing on human-robot collaboration, but we never found a good way to adjudicate differences between human and robot, and if the human is always having to intervene anyway, the robot's not giving you much help). None of them were working when FCS was cancelled and our project focus shifted.

aaroninsf 4y ago
Thank you for sharing this real-world experience! It is precisely these sorts of really-very-hard challenges that have led me to conclude that "FSD" absent general AI is not plausible, unless you narrow the definition of FSD to mean something that can only be used in the 80% case. The thing that perplexes me is why the industry isn't chasing the 80% case, e.g. follow-the-leader cross country traffic on interstates... I always think, the interstate system is tailor made in so many dimensions (regulatory and physical) for roll out of limited but robust automation, and the number of highway miles there probably represent the vast majority of total miles driven... In shipping it seems you could be predicting and real-time sharing local conditions to allow for graceful exit from automation when required, and, avoid the situations where it was reasonably well. There's always the outliers, though... tumbleweeds, smoke, fog, bad actors...
- mandevil 4y ago
  Yeah, back then I also thought that a leader-follower convoying system would be implemented first (with local drivers for the last mile problem), because that system made sense and was straightforward- with good logistics software (to make sure that the leader is driving the farthest distance or connecting multiple leaders together) you could easily save 2/3 or more of your driver costs. Then a few years ago I talked to an actual software consultant to shipping companies, and asked him why none of that had happened in over a decade. He felt was that the companies were too fragmented for that. Most shipping companies are small companies, where basically the owners wife keeps a list of all of their shipping loads and destinations. Maybe Walmart has the access to capital to acquire that technology and the scale to profit from it, but he felt that no one else could. Which was why he left that field and went into industrial robotics, where the business case can actually close.
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
>since we were off-road, the radar LOVED puddles and any sort of standing water- it looked perfectly flat and so wanted to go there every time. I'm sorry, but the mental image of a AI driven humvee that gleefully enjoys playing in the mud made me laugh out loud.
- mandevil 4y ago
  Worse- it was a 15 ton Stryker ICV versus a mere 2.5 ton Humvee.
t0mas88 4y ago
But you were using radar for terrain mapping. Self driving road cars use cameras to follow lanes and radar to detect obstacles and other vehicles. Normal radar based adaptive cruise control you can buy in the majtory of je car brands today will do 180 kph (110 mph) and pick up other cars from over 200m away. So I think that setup is very different from the terrain mapping you were trying to do?

aaroninsf 4y ago

Thank you for sharing this real-world experience! It is precisely these sorts of really-very-hard challenges that have led me to conclude that "FSD" absent general AI is not plausible, unless you narrow the definition of FSD to mean something that can only be used in the 80% case. The thing that perplexes me is why the industry isn't chasing the 80% case, e.g. follow-the-leader cross country traffic on interstates... I always think, the interstate system is tailor made in so many dimensions (regulatory and physical) for roll out of limited but robust automation, and the number of highway miles there probably represent the vast majority of total miles driven... In shipping it seems you could be predicting and real-time sharing local conditions to allow for graceful exit from automation when required, and, avoid the situations where it was reasonably well. There's always the outliers, though... tumbleweeds, smoke, fog, bad actors...

mandevil 4y ago
Yeah, back then I also thought that a leader-follower convoying system would be implemented first (with local drivers for the last mile problem), because that system made sense and was straightforward- with good logistics software (to make sure that the leader is driving the farthest distance or connecting multiple leaders together) you could easily save 2/3 or more of your driver costs. Then a few years ago I talked to an actual software consultant to shipping companies, and asked him why none of that had happened in over a decade. He felt was that the companies were too fragmented for that. Most shipping companies are small companies, where basically the owners wife keeps a list of all of their shipping loads and destinations. Maybe Walmart has the access to capital to acquire that technology and the scale to profit from it, but he felt that no one else could. Which was why he left that field and went into industrial robotics, where the business case can actually close.

wing-_-nuts 4y ago

>since we were off-road, the radar LOVED puddles and any sort of standing water- it looked perfectly flat and so wanted to go there every time. I'm sorry, but the mental image of a AI driven humvee that gleefully enjoys playing in the mud made me laugh out loud.

mandevil 4y ago
Worse- it was a 15 ton Stryker ICV versus a mere 2.5 ton Humvee.

t0mas88 4y ago

But you were using radar for terrain mapping. Self driving road cars use cameras to follow lanes and radar to detect obstacles and other vehicles. Normal radar based adaptive cruise control you can buy in the majtory of je car brands today will do 180 kph (110 mph) and pick up other cars from over 200m away. So I think that setup is very different from the terrain mapping you were trying to do?