5 ms·

> No guarantee of a timely response from remote operators or backend services. > Therefore, all safety-critical decisions must be made by the onboard computer

> No guarantee of a timely response from remote operators or backend services. > Therefore, all safety-critical decisions must be made by the onboard computer alone. Why is the requirement that all safety-critical decisions must be made on board, versus the seemingly-simplifying assumption that only some or most decisions would have to be made on board, because a remote operator or backend service could be available a lot of the time? It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to have a single operator remotely monitoring multiple vehicles that are autonomous under ideal conditions (driving along a straight road in good weather) and then taking over when necessary. Let's say you would only use such a system for major routes with solid satellite visibility, not last-mile routes hauling heavy equipment on a dirt road in the boonies, or something like that. Maybe this wouldn't work, but it's not obviously ridiculous to me, so I wonder why he just starts out saying the truck most be fully autonomous with no human ever in the loop.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago
Ya, I wonder the same thing. In an extreme case it seems like you could build dedicated repeaters/cell phone towers/something along specific stretches of highway, and then start testing along just that stretch with remote operators on call. I suspect remote operators are cheaper than devoted drivers, potentially making a profit from that transition alone, and also collect training data to develop full autonomy.
- Vecr 3y ago
  You need at least a minute to get into the context and have full situational awareness, to imagine what it would be like as a remote driver with less lead time than that, think about a scenario where you suddenly wake up with your hands on the wheel, with no idea where you are and no idea what's going on, except the situation is probably bad.
  - cornholio 3y ago
    Any kind of remote assistance will most likely not include steering the truck in real time over the internet. Rather, things like "unknown obstacle on the road, can't continue", with the operator instructing it to just run over that empty cardboard box. All realtime safety decision-making should have safe autonomous fallbacks, a human cannot be expected to drop in and take charge in seconds. The entire level 3 / 4 "semiautomation" market is a bunch of make believe.
- kevinchen 3y ago
  Cell networks are even longer lead time and more capital intensive than autonomous driving ;) even if we only consider the fcc + local permitting time, it already makes this option difficult.
  - eru 3y ago
    Satellite internet is fast becoming cheap enough and good enough.
Faark 3y ago
> and then taking over when necessary Yes, and that has to be safely possible. From my reading, the article has no problems with remote operators giving command. The truck just also needs the ability to both safely execute them and come to some safe state by itself if necessary commands don't arrive [in time]. The interesting question is how complicated those safe states are to realize. Just hitting the breaks on a freeway seems hardly acceptable. Generally, this being harder than for cars in cities is a core conclusion of the article.
pedalpete 3y ago
This is the route May Mobility https://maymobility.com/ https://maymobility.com/ is taking with their AVs. I'm not sure where they're at now, but (I believe) they started by servicing old-age communities where the trips went to a few known destinations in low density areas. If the AV ran into an issue, it could tele-help and have a human operator take over. Completely makes sense that you could have a person monitoring multiple AV trucks and take over driving when needed.
kevinchen 3y ago
Author here. At the mean time between failures needed to exceed human performance, the uptime of the network connection quickly becomes a limiting factor. It’s possible to pick only routes that have great cell coverage but this limits commercial viability.
- eru 3y ago
  Satellite internet is fast becoming good enough and cheap enough. As an additional safeguard, you can make your trucks go into 'safety' mode when connection becomes spotty or when too many operators become too busy with other trucks. 'Safety mode' could mean slowing down the trucks or even stopping some of them. And in general, letting the autonomous systems err on the side of caution more often.
  - kevinchen 3y ago
    I believe the MTBF argument still applies to Starlink. Regarding the minimal risk condition / fallback behavior, a central point of the article was that slowing or stopping are almost always unacceptable on freeways because of the speeds involved
    - eru 3y ago
      You wouldn't want to stop suddenly as your fallback behaviour, when too many operators are busy.
  - rdtsc 3y ago
    A centralized control like that coupled with a stop as a safe default would be a very juicy attack target. Want to cripple a city / country or create some chaos? Just jam or hack the control system.
    - eru 3y ago
      You can already try to jam GPS, and many people will be lost. But jamming GPS is both highly illegal, and a high powered jammer is relatively easy to track down.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago

Ya, I wonder the same thing. In an extreme case it seems like you could build dedicated repeaters/cell phone towers/something along specific stretches of highway, and then start testing along just that stretch with remote operators on call. I suspect remote operators are cheaper than devoted drivers, potentially making a profit from that transition alone, and also collect training data to develop full autonomy.

Vecr 3y ago
You need at least a minute to get into the context and have full situational awareness, to imagine what it would be like as a remote driver with less lead time than that, think about a scenario where you suddenly wake up with your hands on the wheel, with no idea where you are and no idea what's going on, except the situation is probably bad.
- cornholio 3y ago
  Any kind of remote assistance will most likely not include steering the truck in real time over the internet. Rather, things like "unknown obstacle on the road, can't continue", with the operator instructing it to just run over that empty cardboard box. All realtime safety decision-making should have safe autonomous fallbacks, a human cannot be expected to drop in and take charge in seconds. The entire level 3 / 4 "semiautomation" market is a bunch of make believe.
kevinchen 3y ago
Cell networks are even longer lead time and more capital intensive than autonomous driving ;) even if we only consider the fcc + local permitting time, it already makes this option difficult.
- eru 3y ago
  Satellite internet is fast becoming cheap enough and good enough.

Faark 3y ago

> and then taking over when necessary Yes, and that has to be safely possible. From my reading, the article has no problems with remote operators giving command. The truck just also needs the ability to both safely execute them and come to some safe state by itself if necessary commands don't arrive [in time]. The interesting question is how complicated those safe states are to realize. Just hitting the breaks on a freeway seems hardly acceptable. Generally, this being harder than for cars in cities is a core conclusion of the article.

pedalpete 3y ago

This is the route May Mobility https://maymobility.com/ https://maymobility.com/ is taking with their AVs. I'm not sure where they're at now, but (I believe) they started by servicing old-age communities where the trips went to a few known destinations in low density areas. If the AV ran into an issue, it could tele-help and have a human operator take over. Completely makes sense that you could have a person monitoring multiple AV trucks and take over driving when needed.

kevinchen 3y ago

Author here. At the mean time between failures needed to exceed human performance, the uptime of the network connection quickly becomes a limiting factor. It’s possible to pick only routes that have great cell coverage but this limits commercial viability.

eru 3y ago
Satellite internet is fast becoming good enough and cheap enough. As an additional safeguard, you can make your trucks go into 'safety' mode when connection becomes spotty or when too many operators become too busy with other trucks. 'Safety mode' could mean slowing down the trucks or even stopping some of them. And in general, letting the autonomous systems err on the side of caution more often.
- kevinchen 3y ago
  I believe the MTBF argument still applies to Starlink. Regarding the minimal risk condition / fallback behavior, a central point of the article was that slowing or stopping are almost always unacceptable on freeways because of the speeds involved
  - eru 3y ago
    You wouldn't want to stop suddenly as your fallback behaviour, when too many operators are busy.
- rdtsc 3y ago
  A centralized control like that coupled with a stop as a safe default would be a very juicy attack target. Want to cripple a city / country or create some chaos? Just jam or hack the control system.
  - eru 3y ago
    You can already try to jam GPS, and many people will be lost. But jamming GPS is both highly illegal, and a high powered jammer is relatively easy to track down.