Machine learning gets semi conscious... Waymo, Daimler vow to bring self-driving trucks to American highways
- Reference: 1603883408
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/10/28/waymo_daimler_ai/
- Source link:
Daimler is the oldest name in German automotive engineering, and its US-based trucking arm Daimler Trucks said on Tuesday that it's collaborating with Waymo on its Freightliner Cascadia line of big rigs. Last year, the Euro giant invested in Torc Robotics, a self-driving startup based in Virginia that's more oriented towards the defense industry than Waymo is.
"In recent years, we have achieved significant progress on our global roadmap to bringing series-produced highly automated trucks to the road," [1]said Martin Daum, chairman of the board of management of Daimler Truck AG.
"With our strategic partnership with Waymo as the leader in autonomous driving, we are taking another important step towards that goal. This partnership complements Daimler Trucks' dual strategy approach, of working with two strong partners to deliver autonomous L4 solutions that are seamlessly integrated with our best-in-class trucks, to our customers."
The partnership aims to build level-four automated trucks, which would use AI to perform all the necessary functions needed to drive autonomously for a whole trip, theoretically. It'll still need a human driver to take over when necessary, for safety and regulatory reasons.
Self-driving truck boss: 'Supervised machine learning doesn't live up to the hype. It isn't C-3PO, it's sophisticated pattern matching' [2]READ MORE
Neither company announced a strict deadline for when autonomous convoys of trucks expect to hit the roads. Waymo only said its self-driving software would be rolling out to US customers "in the coming years".
"At Waymo, we're developing a fully autonomous L4 stack, which means the Waymo Driver is responsible for the entire driving task at all times, with no human required in the loop," a spokesperson told The Register .
"Our Driver-as-a-Service model will first be focused on highway driving and also handle driving on a limited amount of surface streets to depots, whether that's an LTL terminal or warehouse or distribution center." LTL stands for "less-than-truckload shipping" and describes small freight carriers that hold over 150lb (68kg) of goods.
The Alphabet-owned Google spin-off has entered into multiple partnerships with automakers, mostly dealing with smaller cars rather than trucks. It has been testing its self-driving software in trucks for a while, however. Waymo has been testing bulkier delivery trucks in highways across California, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico since 2017. ®
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[1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/daimler-trucks-and-waymo-partner-on-the-development-of-autonomous-sae-level-4-trucks-301160552.html
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/23/ai_roundup_march20/
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Autonomous defence
Time to join the elevator operators and strike
Re: Autonomous defence
Talking to a call centre in Mumbai is luxury!
This is a Google product we're talking about. They don't do call centres or any kind of customer contact at all. There'll be a button on the app for "find my missing truck". You'll press it and it'll either work or give an incomprehensible error message.
You'll then be forced to search the internet to find any help if that fails. And no Google site will have anything. But if you're lucky - a search will reveal a support email address hidden deeply in the internet equivalent of a locked filing cabinet in a disused toilet with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard."
You'll email that, and two days later get an automated response saying that if you've lost your truck, you simply press the "find my truck" button on the app.
Re: Autonomous defence
"a support email address hidden deeply in the internet equivalent of a locked filing cabinet in a disused toilet with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard.""
Ah. I was wondering if the goo kids were ever going to do anything with DejaNews.
Re: Autonomous defence
Could be worse, they could have named it TorcTorc.
Maximum Homerdrive
The future, as predicted over 20 years ago, has arrived. Almost.
Self Driving Vehicles & Fusion?
For at least 50 years Fusion has been touted as being ready for production in about 20 years but it has made it. Self driving vehicles might be the same thing, its only x years away but it never quite gets there.
What could possibly go wrong with a 20t vehicle, with a limited turning circle and long braking distance, operating completely autonomously?
I mean so long as your not crossing the road at night whilst walking a bicycle. Or being a police car blocking one of the lanes complete with flashing lights and witches hats. Or being a semi trailer crossing across the highway, that just happens to somehow look like a cloud (OK that one was Tesla Autopilot and not fully automated, but even so, it speaks to the level of the tech...).
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong with a 20T vehicle driven by Bubba on Truckers-Brand(tm) amphetamines with a couple of beers busy texting
Our Driver-as-a-Service model will first be focused on highway driving and also handle driving on a limited amount of surface streets to depots
This makes much more sense as a first step for semi-autonomous vehicles than taxis.
"Duel"
Life imitating art.
Don't upset the trucks. Respect a semi -- ooo-er, missus.
A bit of sanity
"Our Driver-as-a-Service model will first be focused on highway driving and also handle driving on a limited amount of surface streets to depots, whether that's an LTL terminal or warehouse or distribution center." A tiny bit of sanity in a domain dominated by nuttiness of Muskian proportions. Highway driving -- specifically on expressways is a far simpler problem than driving on surface streets. Basically it would seem to amount to match your entry speed to traffic and make sure you have a big enough hole for your vehicle. Once on the expressway, stay in the slow lane. Stay at or below the speed limit. Follow at a safe distance. Pull over if you see flashing lights in back of you. DON'T HIT ANYTHING!!! If you don't understand the situation, pull into the breakdown lane, stop and call for help. There are still a LOT of problems. Toll booths, Construction areas. Weigh stations. Port of Entry checks. livestock on the highway. Really bad weather, etc, etc, etc. But they can likely be handled.
I'm actually impressed with Waymo. The rest of the automobile industry ... not so much.
But who is liable?
One unanswered question about this (or about autonomous vehicles in general) is who is liable for any incidents? Limiting this to the US (as this is a US company talking about doing trials in the US), will the truck maker be liable in the event of accidents? The truck operator?
As Tesla's Autopilot has shown, even highway driving has edge-cases. A fire engine (or police car) may be stopped in your lane, and not visible until the vehicle in front swerves at the last minute. The road-markings may be worn or obscured. The sensors may be fooled.
For haulage vehicles, the question of the load also arises. Who is responsible for loading it safely, and securing the load? Who is liable if it shifts, or falls off onto the highway? At the end of the highway, the autotruck pulls off, and a human driver arrives. Must he re-inspect the load (and assume liability) before moving off?
With a driver, the law is clear: the driver is liable. Would a vehicle manufacturer really risk assuming that liability? The US courts have made it very clear that manufacturers can't just budget for some accidents (the Pinto case). So testing of software and hardware would need to be exceptionally rigorous, thorough and well-documented. "Move fast and break things" is unlikely to be acceptable as a development philosophy.
And if it does go to a court, expect all the documentation to be examined very thoroughly. "You can't see that, it's commercially valuable" is unlikely to hold up.
Would you invest in a company with that level of risk?
Great news
Fingers crossed it works
Automated white van driver
Tailgates you in the fast lane of the motorway
Parks on double yellow lines
Blocks narrow roads
Fails to give way at intersections
Does not indicate when turning corners
Drives straight through pedestrian crossings
Identifies female pedestrians - automatically sounds horn and flashes lights
Comes with subscription to 'The Sun'
Level 4 Automation is insufficient
The partnership aims to build level-four automated trucks, which would use AI to perform all the necessary functions needed to drive autonomously for a whole trip, theoretically. It'll still need a human driver to take over when necessary, for safety and regulatory reasons.
Great, so the safety mechanism for a 16-Ton truck at highway speed is a person who for the last 4 hours has been sleeping, reading a book, watching a movie, or doing who knows what else because the thing drives itself 95% of the time, and is then expected to instantly and reliably take over the split second after the AI goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ?
Anything less than Level 5 Autonomous vehicles are unacceptable IMO. I mean, what's the point of a self-driving car if I randomly and unexpectedly have to take over driving due to some sort of emergency that the AI can't handle?
Maximum Overdrive
Stephen King invented the idea of self-driving trucks years ago.
Now the carnage can be our own fault.
Re: Maximum Overdrive
I'm pretty certain that Killdozer! was written by Ted Sturgeon before that hack King was an itch in his daddy's pants.
Autonomous defence
Systems may be necessary considering there are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US.
I imagine some of them may be less than happy about being replaced with a black box.
I noticed in the article the Waymo are now talking Driver as a service now, I can imagine a truck owner talking to a call centre in Mumbai while looking for a lost unresponsive truck that is supposed to be in Chicago. Good luck with that