5 ms·

If they have a laser measurement of the road from before, couldn't they see that the level of water vs the expected road surface?

AnimalMuppet 5mo ago
If they have a pre-existing database of every road, sure. And if it's kept up-to-date at all times in all vehicles.
- mortenjorck 5mo ago
  Isn’t that the Waymo data model, though? They extensively pre-drive every new market, building dense volumetric maps of the entire service area before they begin service, so they essentially do have that database of every road (that they drive on).
  - filoleg 5mo ago
    Granted, I am not sure exactly how Waymo operates, but I thought that the extensive testing was mostly for legal reasons+just handling edge cases. I am saying this, because I noticed that they typically start with a low-tier restrictive permit to operate (with a rather small number of cars in the fleet). Then they run it for a year or two, iron out edge cases particular to a given city (e.g., climate particularities, crazy spaghetti junctions in ATL, etc.), and log a lot of data. Then they take that data, go to the city/state, say "we have all this data that demonstrates we were very above the board while running the test pilot program, we are safe, and now we want to expand out of a very limited test pilot program." And then it either goes well (Bay Area, LA, etc.) or goes off the rails for other reasons (often failing earlier for entirely unexpected reasons, like the pushback against it from taxi driver unions in NYC). My point being, I could be entirely wrong, but I don't think that they literally map every single inch of the road before being allowed to operate. I just don't see it as being possible in any large populated city, given how often things change there. Just in 3 years living at one apartment in Seattle, I had a road directly adjacent to me changed from 2-way to 1-way, and then had 3-4 lanes that were basically highway entrances/exits (a block away from me) created and the whole area being rerouted entirely.
    - flutas 5mo ago
      Waymo explicitly lidar scans and "HD maps" the area: https://waymo.com/blog/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-mapping/ https://waymo.com/blog/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map... Tesla is less "HD", they have standard maps like we all think of, and a lane level "see-ahead" system where they basically just grab a satellite image tile, and align it with what the car sees for "FSD".
      - cma 5mo ago
        Some of the Tesla robotaxi deployments have relied on HD maps too, or at least they were spotted extensively lidar mapping Austin.
        flutas 5mo ago
        Those vehicles with lidar roof racks are validation for "FSD" look up project rodeo for some news reporting (they also have cameras further up mounted on a pole to validate "FSD"s reprojection technique). Images of the cars screens show "project rodeo controls" is the only reason I say that we know these are validation vs mapping.
      - fragmede 5mo ago
        Waymo does high resolution scans, the question only they know the answer to is how well does their model do without them and on camera only. I bet it's way better than is publicly acknowledged.
    - asdff 5mo ago
      They actually do significant mapping. Where it operates currently it is not unusual to see this. It will be a waymo with a human driver operating someplace not currently in the waymo zone and clearly not en route to any maintenance facility either. Stuff like windy canyon roads with no thru access anywhere that are currently gated away, you might see a waymo with a human today. Waymo is not the only company making lidar maps right now either. I've seen UPS deliver trucks with retrofitted lidar scanners on the roof now. I've even seen this on a police car already, looked like a black rooftop industrial ventilator on a 2ft mast installed directly on the crown victoria roof.
- spankalee 5mo ago
  Waymo does have a database of every today they drive, but for this they don't need one. If the car comes to a road covered with water, and that road is in the database, and the water level appears low compared to the historical level of the road in the DB, then the car could cross. if the road is not in the DB, then a different decision might be made. This is similar to humans: you might make different decisions depending on whether you know the road well or not.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
tintor 5mo ago
Such detailed database of fine grained road geometry gets stale very quickly, due to road maintenance and road construction. In US highway lanes are shifted sideways frequently.
- dietr1ch 5mo ago
  But are they not continuously updating the road database with their fleet?
  - nomel 5mo ago
    For common routes, yes. For getting to John's house, where the path there sometimes floods, no.
    - harry8 5mo ago
      So the first waymo to get to this less used road to john’s will not have the data rather than every waymo that travels down a new highway, that then becomes a problem if it rains. One car with an issue of first coincides with rain on a less used road?
      - nomel 5mo ago
        Well, it's closer to: any car with stale data and sufficient water depth is a financial and PR disaster. These cars are not cheap, and a tiktok of someone being driven into the water is even more expensive!
        cma 5mo ago
        As soon as the car descends below what was mapped it should be able to know there is a discrepency. Satellite monitoring is also available for detecting extensive road work which they could use to invalidate and send out something to remap.
        5mo ago
kpw94 5mo ago
That seems a very risky assumption for any car (self driving or human driver) during flash floods. "Turn around don't drown": You think you know how deep it is under because you've taken that road many times before (or in your case you have historical laser measurement) But you don't know: - Maybe the road under fully collapsed - Maybe the flow of water is extremely strong, so you need to accurately estimate that too.
- cma 5mo ago
  Flow should be able to be done with vision, radar can as well: some bridges use surface flow monitoring radar.
- wombat-man 5mo ago
  I more meant that it could maybe see a significant difference in the road, and know to take caution, not to try to gauge the depth of a submerged roadway.
ex-aws-dude 5mo ago
That's so much extra complexity
jandrewrogers 5mo ago
You underestimate how frequently details like this change in the real world and how difficult it is to reliably integrate them into the mapping models with very low error rates. Aggregating this data in something close to real-time, verifying and corroborating that the change to the road model is real and correct, and then pushing those model updates to every vehicle that may need it almost immediately is not really a solved problem.

AnimalMuppet 5mo ago

If they have a pre-existing database of every road, sure. And if it's kept up-to-date at all times in all vehicles.

mortenjorck 5mo ago
Isn’t that the Waymo data model, though? They extensively pre-drive every new market, building dense volumetric maps of the entire service area before they begin service, so they essentially do have that database of every road (that they drive on).
- filoleg 5mo ago
  Granted, I am not sure exactly how Waymo operates, but I thought that the extensive testing was mostly for legal reasons+just handling edge cases. I am saying this, because I noticed that they typically start with a low-tier restrictive permit to operate (with a rather small number of cars in the fleet). Then they run it for a year or two, iron out edge cases particular to a given city (e.g., climate particularities, crazy spaghetti junctions in ATL, etc.), and log a lot of data. Then they take that data, go to the city/state, say "we have all this data that demonstrates we were very above the board while running the test pilot program, we are safe, and now we want to expand out of a very limited test pilot program." And then it either goes well (Bay Area, LA, etc.) or goes off the rails for other reasons (often failing earlier for entirely unexpected reasons, like the pushback against it from taxi driver unions in NYC). My point being, I could be entirely wrong, but I don't think that they literally map every single inch of the road before being allowed to operate. I just don't see it as being possible in any large populated city, given how often things change there. Just in 3 years living at one apartment in Seattle, I had a road directly adjacent to me changed from 2-way to 1-way, and then had 3-4 lanes that were basically highway entrances/exits (a block away from me) created and the whole area being rerouted entirely.
  - flutas 5mo ago
    Waymo explicitly lidar scans and "HD maps" the area: https://waymo.com/blog/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-mapping/ https://waymo.com/blog/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map... Tesla is less "HD", they have standard maps like we all think of, and a lane level "see-ahead" system where they basically just grab a satellite image tile, and align it with what the car sees for "FSD".
    - cma 5mo ago
      Some of the Tesla robotaxi deployments have relied on HD maps too, or at least they were spotted extensively lidar mapping Austin.
      - flutas 5mo ago
        Those vehicles with lidar roof racks are validation for "FSD" look up project rodeo for some news reporting (they also have cameras further up mounted on a pole to validate "FSD"s reprojection technique). Images of the cars screens show "project rodeo controls" is the only reason I say that we know these are validation vs mapping.
    - fragmede 5mo ago
      Waymo does high resolution scans, the question only they know the answer to is how well does their model do without them and on camera only. I bet it's way better than is publicly acknowledged.
  - asdff 5mo ago
    They actually do significant mapping. Where it operates currently it is not unusual to see this. It will be a waymo with a human driver operating someplace not currently in the waymo zone and clearly not en route to any maintenance facility either. Stuff like windy canyon roads with no thru access anywhere that are currently gated away, you might see a waymo with a human today. Waymo is not the only company making lidar maps right now either. I've seen UPS deliver trucks with retrofitted lidar scanners on the roof now. I've even seen this on a police car already, looked like a black rooftop industrial ventilator on a 2ft mast installed directly on the crown victoria roof.
spankalee 5mo ago
Waymo does have a database of every today they drive, but for this they don't need one. If the car comes to a road covered with water, and that road is in the database, and the water level appears low compared to the historical level of the road in the DB, then the car could cross. if the road is not in the DB, then a different decision might be made. This is similar to humans: you might make different decisions depending on whether you know the road well or not.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]

tintor 5mo ago

Such detailed database of fine grained road geometry gets stale very quickly, due to road maintenance and road construction. In US highway lanes are shifted sideways frequently.

dietr1ch 5mo ago
But are they not continuously updating the road database with their fleet?
- nomel 5mo ago
  For common routes, yes. For getting to John's house, where the path there sometimes floods, no.
  - harry8 5mo ago
    So the first waymo to get to this less used road to john’s will not have the data rather than every waymo that travels down a new highway, that then becomes a problem if it rains. One car with an issue of first coincides with rain on a less used road?
    - nomel 5mo ago
      Well, it's closer to: any car with stale data and sufficient water depth is a financial and PR disaster. These cars are not cheap, and a tiktok of someone being driven into the water is even more expensive!
      - cma 5mo ago
        As soon as the car descends below what was mapped it should be able to know there is a discrepency. Satellite monitoring is also available for detecting extensive road work which they could use to invalidate and send out something to remap.
        5mo ago

kpw94 5mo ago

That seems a very risky assumption for any car (self driving or human driver) during flash floods. "Turn around don't drown": You think you know how deep it is under because you've taken that road many times before (or in your case you have historical laser measurement) But you don't know: - Maybe the road under fully collapsed - Maybe the flow of water is extremely strong, so you need to accurately estimate that too.

cma 5mo ago
Flow should be able to be done with vision, radar can as well: some bridges use surface flow monitoring radar.
wombat-man 5mo ago
I more meant that it could maybe see a significant difference in the road, and know to take caution, not to try to gauge the depth of a submerged roadway.

ex-aws-dude 5mo ago

That's so much extra complexity

jandrewrogers 5mo ago

You underestimate how frequently details like this change in the real world and how difficult it is to reliably integrate them into the mapping models with very low error rates. Aggregating this data in something close to real-time, verifying and corroborating that the change to the road model is real and correct, and then pushing those model updates to every vehicle that may need it almost immediately is not really a solved problem.