4 ms·

Obviously, good public transportation across the entire US would alleviate the need for a lot of self driving. The reality is, that will never happen for anyone

Obviously, good public transportation across the entire US would alleviate the need for a lot of self driving. The reality is, that will never happen for anyone outside the immediate area of a large city. Embedding sensors everywhere suffers the same problem.

b112 4y ago
I think embedded sensors are easily fixed in high maintenance areas. In Canada, as with a lot of the US, the roads are asphalt. These tend to get resurfaced once a decade. All we need is a cheap rfid type device, with unique serial numbers, and they can just be dumped into the asphalt, at least a few per sq cm. Just mixed in, no specific placement, as long as the density requirement is met. This allows for redundancy too. After the road is done, a mapping device can drive along slowly, and map sensor location to road location, and create a database. This may seem like a lot of data, but you only need this data for the area you are in, and if we started today, it would be a few years before roads were created this way. Memory and storage grow constantly. My biggest concern is ists of some type. Anti-technologists, some radical *ist group, dragging some high em device behind them, to blow all the rfid devices. But anyhow, road sensors aren't that hard, or even expensive. Not compared to standard resurfacing costs, and that is done frequently enough that natural repair cycles can get things embedded.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I think mapping the roads is a problem that doesn't exist and not the hurdle to automate driving. You could do the same thing with a line of paint on the road and we already have those in most places. The real challenge is everything else that is happening on and around the roads.
- matwood 4y ago
  You made me curious: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3127/2006-3127.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3127/2006-3127.pdf There is almost 4 million miles (6.5 million kilometers) of roads in the United States, with just over 45,000 miles [73,000 kilometers (km)] composing the Interstate Highway System (fig. 2) (Federal Highway Administration, 2004). The total distance of U.S. roads combined could circle the Earth at the equator 160 times; the interstate highways, almost two times. The analysis shows that a total of approximately 1.5 billion metric tons (Gt) of aggregates, 35 million metric tons (Mt) of asphalt, 48 Mt of cement, and 6 Mt of steel is in place in inter- state highways. These estimates illustrate the large quantities of these materials used in the Interstate Highway System. This doesn't translate exactly to how much surface is covered, but I know locally all the highways are concrete. Also, placing sensors in 4M miles of roads is no small task.
  - b112 4y ago
    Interesting. There is a lot more ashpalt here, in Canada. I suspect it is due to frost, and "frost greaves", which can buckle and damage even concrete roads. Asphalt is cheaper, and replaced more often, so degradation due to frost greaves and such is not as fiscally damaging. But my entire point is, by placing sensors during normal resurfacing, it literally is a small task.

b112 4y ago

I think embedded sensors are easily fixed in high maintenance areas. In Canada, as with a lot of the US, the roads are asphalt. These tend to get resurfaced once a decade. All we need is a cheap rfid type device, with unique serial numbers, and they can just be dumped into the asphalt, at least a few per sq cm. Just mixed in, no specific placement, as long as the density requirement is met. This allows for redundancy too. After the road is done, a mapping device can drive along slowly, and map sensor location to road location, and create a database. This may seem like a lot of data, but you only need this data for the area you are in, and if we started today, it would be a few years before roads were created this way. Memory and storage grow constantly. My biggest concern is ists of some type. Anti-technologists, some radical *ist group, dragging some high em device behind them, to blow all the rfid devices. But anyhow, road sensors aren't that hard, or even expensive. Not compared to standard resurfacing costs, and that is done frequently enough that natural repair cycles can get things embedded.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
I think mapping the roads is a problem that doesn't exist and not the hurdle to automate driving. You could do the same thing with a line of paint on the road and we already have those in most places. The real challenge is everything else that is happening on and around the roads.
matwood 4y ago
You made me curious: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3127/2006-3127.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3127/2006-3127.pdf There is almost 4 million miles (6.5 million kilometers) of roads in the United States, with just over 45,000 miles [73,000 kilometers (km)] composing the Interstate Highway System (fig. 2) (Federal Highway Administration, 2004). The total distance of U.S. roads combined could circle the Earth at the equator 160 times; the interstate highways, almost two times. The analysis shows that a total of approximately 1.5 billion metric tons (Gt) of aggregates, 35 million metric tons (Mt) of asphalt, 48 Mt of cement, and 6 Mt of steel is in place in inter- state highways. These estimates illustrate the large quantities of these materials used in the Interstate Highway System. This doesn't translate exactly to how much surface is covered, but I know locally all the highways are concrete. Also, placing sensors in 4M miles of roads is no small task.
- b112 4y ago
  Interesting. There is a lot more ashpalt here, in Canada. I suspect it is due to frost, and "frost greaves", which can buckle and damage even concrete roads. Asphalt is cheaper, and replaced more often, so degradation due to frost greaves and such is not as fiscally damaging. But my entire point is, by placing sensors during normal resurfacing, it literally is a small task.