
Startup Idea: Robot Cars - aston
http://blog.kirigin.com/robot-cars
======
askar_yu
>>> "Public perception and policy-maker overreaction are real concerns, but as
a startup, you don’t need to be as concerned"

I don't have any credentials to speak on the subject, but it seems that
robotic cars is an area where traditional startup advices along the lines of
"move fast" has to be taken very cautiously. I also believe that Google being
paranoid about first robotic car killing someone is very much justified.
Rightly so.

~~~
ufmace
I'm guessing that a big part of that is the combination of the potential for
huge damages, and how big and public Google already is. One nasty accident
followed by an ugly, drawn-out lawsuit could cause huge financial and PR
damage to them. On the other hand, if you're a small start-up with no
reputation to protect and not much capital to lose/go after, then worst case,
you don't lose anything more than what's already been put into the single-
purpose business.

~~~
notahacker
I'm not convinced lawmakers won't be convinced to go after individual company
executives for reckless endangerment, negligence, manslaughter or whatever
else they can dream up.

 _Especially_ if, Ford Pinto style, they've publicly stated that [for
financial/reputational reasons] they shouldn't be as concerned about safety as
another market participant, or that they should should aim to be "only just"
better than fallible human drivers _who frequently are held accountable for
their fallibility_.

I wouldn't want to be on the design team of a robotic car the first time it
hits a child, even if the child acted in a reckless and unpredictable way that
even a human mind would have been unlikely to anticipate and the software had
demonstrated a far superior safety record to human drivers overall.

~~~
pjc50
Drivers are rarely punished more than trivially for their fallibility; even
gross negligence gets quite a big pass.

The model case is probably the ongoing Toyota "unintended acceleration" case,
in which it appears that poor software engineering really did contribute to
fatal accidents. It's likely to cost Toyota a lot but not reach through to the
design team.

------
pg
There's a startup in the current batch using exactly this approach. In fact
I'm pretty sure it's the friend he mentions at the end.

~~~
sown
Are they looking to hire specialists in the robotics field or would they take
generalist?

That is, if I get my roomba create to use slam, particle filters, etc, as an
engaged spectator, would that be OK?

Even if it's not, I'm doing it anyways. :p

------
11thEarlOfMar
A market that keeps coming back to me, don't laugh, is self driving RVs. A
family of four could go to sleep in Chicago and wake up in Memphis. Spend the
day tooling around Memphis, then hit the hay and wake up the next day in
Miami.

No hotel costs, food costs could be the same as eating at home, no air fare or
air travel hassle.

I suppose you'd have to wake up in the middle of the night to re-fuel, but
hey, grab a midnight snack while you're at it.

It'd be the cheapest and safest way to tour a large area.

~~~
Houshalter
That's interesting, but by far the largest market is trucks, taxis, and
delivery. I don't know why everyone is focusing on consumers when it's
basically just a convenience.

~~~
RandallBrown
Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes a truck driver and
it turns out that the trucks already drive themselves?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive)

------
stackcollision
I don't think robotic cars will ever happen, and I'll explain why.

Let's look at the recent MetroNorth railroad accident. Immediately afterwards,
people were inevitably throwing around the idea of "why do we need train
drivers at all?". The reason we need drivers is to satisfy a fundamental human
misconception:

A while back, the DC Metro installed an automated train control system, with
the intent of making the system independent of human operators. They flipped
the trains onto automatic, and for a while everything ran fine. Then, one day,
a sensor failed and one train plowed straight into the back of another at full
speed while it was sitting in the station. That was the end of automatic train
control in DC.[1]

Keep in mind that railroad traffic is a much more controlled environment than
the open road.

Everyone knows that people make mistakes. We're (mostly) all engineers here,
and we understand that technology is also flawed, like its creators. However,
the public at large has this opinion that technology is magic; computers
_don't_ make mistakes. The second that belief is proven wrong, people are
immediately afraid of it.

Maybe one day a few robot cars will make it onto the road. But then someone is
going to get killed by one. And despite these robotic cars having a stellar
record up until their first accident, especially when compared to their human-
operated counterparts, they will be taken off the road so fast your head will
spin.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2009_Washington_Metro_trai...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2009_Washington_Metro_train_collision)

~~~
chuckwnelson
I agree that people think computers are magic and as soon as one fails they
get out their pitchforks, but I disagree that automated cars will never
happen. It will happen just more slowly.

The changes will be gradual and they have already happened to a degree.
Automatic brakes have already been implemented, more expansive GPS is
happening. Next I could see an expansion on cruise control.

Its a combo between marketing new features and iterating on current
technology.

I think the invention of the automated car will be a gradient, not a sudden
occurrence.

~~~
RandallBrown
There are already cars today with adaptive cruise control and lane correction.
On a highway, the car essentially drives itself. I imagine that with 10 or 20
years of incremental improvements we'll see something that's very close to a
completely self driving car.

------
ivankirigin
I mentioned this at the end of the post, but if you want to work on a company
building this _right now_ , then just email me: ivan.kirigin@gmail.com

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Sent along my resume. Amusingly, I have just started actively looking for a
job in robotic cars, and Google was the only place I knew of to apply!

~~~
therobot24
there is also Telsa, Ford, GM, Toyota, Chrysler, Honda, ..., Oshkosh (not the
clothes), John Deere, ..., and even the military - all of which are actively
investing in robotic cars

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Tesla, yes. The others likely have too much to lose and are too large for me -
I like a position with flexibility. And I don't want to work on military
hardware.

------
martythemaniak
Ever since I started working on BarSense, I've been obsessed with computer
vision (one of the most important subsets of robotics) and I think there'll be
a wealth of products coming from that field.

One of the ideas I have is a type of smart dashcam - take the footage of one
or more cameras (ideally 360°), apply CV and give the driver essential real-
time info like cyclists or cars coming into the blind spot, sudden changes,
lane drifting etc.

The hardware is cheap and easy to work with so the project is small enough for
a startup, yet it's also something you can build upon and eventually scale
into a full self-driving vehicle.

~~~
ah-
This is already part of many modern cars, with the added feature that the car
will also automatically break before you hit a cyclist. See for example
[http://www.euroncap.com/rewards/volkswagen_city_emergency_br...](http://www.euroncap.com/rewards/volkswagen_city_emergency_brake.aspx)

~~~
avn2109
The image of a car intentionally "breaking" rather than hitting a cyclist
warms my bike-commuter's heart. Sadly I think you mean that the car will
"brake." </pedantry>

~~~
thenmar
Now if only they can design a smart bike that automatically stops at red
lights and stop signs :p

------
samstave
You know what I would love to see; a zone which is dedicated to ONLY
pedestrians AND small robot cars (golf-cart-sized) which one can hop into,
give a verbal destination and have it roboticize your ride to that location.

This would be great in, say, an area of Vegas to shuttle people around between
casinos.

~~~
dasickis
Check out Navia: [http://induct-
technology.com/en/products/navia](http://induct-
technology.com/en/products/navia), they'll be deploying in Stanford soon.

------
therobot24
This is much easier said than done. DARPA moved on because they work to push
the edge of research into proof of concepts. A lot of good work has been done
to make 'robotic cars' a reality (sqrt-slam, better velodynes, deformable
parts model for pedestrian detection, etc), but definitely doesn't mean i
would trust a small team of hackers with my safety on the road.

Even the Google team, as much progress as they've made, is like 11-12 people
working full time for the last few years to build something worth
demonstrating. However, despite their resources and expertise, still have a
lot to overcome. In talking with Jiajun Zhu (manager of the Google car team),
it became readily apparent that they still encounter situations where they are
not fully confident in their system (such as on streets with too much
brush/foliage). Given the rocky start (in terms of security, features, and
stability) that most start-ups have, i would never trust their finished
product.

~~~
MattHeard
> In talking with Jiajun Zhu (manager of the Google car team), it became
> readily apparent that they still encounter situations where they are fully
> confident in their system (such as on streets with too much brush/foliage).

Sorry, but did you mean to say that they still encounter situations where they
are _not_ fully confident in their system?

~~~
therobot24
yea, typo, thanks for pointing it out

------
angusb
I liked this article, and this is only a small point in the context of how
interesting the rest of it is, but it would be reckless to say that you need
to exceed only 1M driving hours accident free to be better than humans. Of
course this would lead to a lower empirical accidents:mile ratio for your new
tech, but you still wouldn't have enough data to be confident that your
accidents:mile ratio fairly represents the chances of the new tech causing
crashes. I'm not well read enough on p-values/confidence intervals/chi-squared
tests to explain why, so maybe someone who is can explain this if there's
enough interest. Basically someone needs to get all Evan Miller on this (e.g.
[http://www.evanmiller.org/tesla-fires.html](http://www.evanmiller.org/tesla-
fires.html) )

~~~
ivankirigin
The Tesla fire situation makes me the most worried here, because the facts on
the ground don't matter. The press ran with the story because it was
explosive. So even if you had a much more confident estimate, you think the
press is going to grok your math?

The analysis I did was horribly incomplete, as I mentioned. The branding and
marketing for the startup is going to matter a lot because of how emotional
this whole robotic story can be.

~~~
angusb
Sadly you're right. But my point grapples with a larger issue too: should a
startup launch if they aren't confident about the safety of their product?

~~~
ivankirigin
They should launch when they are safer than the average driver.

------
Qworg
Any conversation at all about how to avoid the legal issues/being sued out of
existence?

As much as I'd love robot cars to "move fast and break things", making an
argument that "well, at least it doesn't kill as many people as teenage
drivers" won't fly in court.

~~~
ivankirigin
In 2006, when I was chatting with the head of engineering at iRobot about
this, he said: "this is what is going to make it work" and pulls out his car
keys. Turning a system on will mean that the driver is making the choice. The
same things were said about the first cruise control systems actually.

This is a dramatic over simplification. What will really matter is whether
they work or not. From the performance I've seen, they will work.

It is also worth noting that the technology isn't in question, just the
regulations. That means it is just a matter of when, not if.

~~~
iandanforth
> It is also worth noting that the technology isn't in question, just the
> regulations. That means it is just a matter of when, not if.

Hemp. Superior is many ways, illegal for a century and counting.

~~~
nsmnsf
?

You can buy hemp protein powder on Amazon, I've seen hemp blend shirts
(horribly scratchy, for the record).

------
lnanek2
He says Google isn't doing it right, then says to limit the product to things
like clear lane markings and daylight. But auto manufacturers are already
doing this. There are already products for auto-parallel parking and auto-
following someone on a freeway and auto-applying breaks when someone is in
front of you. I don't think it is a good idea to start your own company when
you'd be better off trying to join examples of the two approaches that have
much more resources behind them first.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Those technologies are some of the pieces of a self driving car, but they are
not self-driving cars. The idea is to deliver a car that can be programmed to
drive a route from start to finish under its own control, even if it can only
do so under certain circumstances.

When you can pull out your smartphone and call your car to you from the back
of a parking lot, then get in and have it drive you home, then you have a
self-driving car.

------
ianbicking
If _I_ was going to enter with a strategy to go against the existing players,
and I wanted to be more aggressive, I think I'd go with an fully unmanned
autonomous vehicle with deliveries in mind, and design the vehicle to be as
un-dangerous to bystanders as possible. You could limit delivery routes to
only go in areas you feel confident about, you could do extreme breaking
without any annoyance to passengers (who will be awfully annoyed if the car
screeches to a halt because of overly conservative danger detection), you can
change the form factor of the vehicle to do whatever is best for outward
safety.

The downside is that you might not be able to piggyback on existing car
regulations. And that could be a big downside.

------
zwieback
I wonder if there are going to be local areas where robotic cars will work
first, e.g. local areas like the Bay Area. It's hard to imagine lawmakers in
50 states getting to some kind of agreement. On the other hand, the interstate
system might go first since it's already more unified.

The other thing I'm hoping for is that people realize that once they hand over
the control to a robot they might as well give up individual transportation
altogether and board a local robot minibus or whatever system ends up being
most efficient.

~~~
ivankirigin
At the start, there will be drivers that are handing control to the system. So
expect self driving cars on the road well before you get a bus without a
driver.

The key thing about the interstates are their regularity. Small street roads
are much harder. There are more spurious obstacles, including foot traffic,
and perception is harder.

Even things like the ease of viewing lane lines matters. This is why solving a
sub problem is so essential. If you wait to launch to be able to take on
cobblestone streets of old london, a product that only works on interstate 101
and 280 in the bay area is going to launch first. They'll accumulate more
data, and they'll win.

~~~
waterlesscloud
How do you imagine that working, a car that only works on interstates? It's
manual on surface streets, then automatic on freeways?

~~~
xinxian
Mercedes and others already offer this, it is called Heading Control Assist.

------
Someone
_" you need to make a product people can use as fast as possible."_

Isn't this what many car companies already do? You have individual features,
such as anti-lock braking (decades old), auto parking, lane departure warning
and its improvement lane assist, brake assist, etc that get put into cars that
aren't fully robotic yet.

Except for the PR angle, I still don't see what would make Google's approach a
fundamentally better one. That may be because of lack of objective
evaluations, though. Anybody know of any?

------
gregpilling
I own a lift kit company www.traxda.com I want to build self driving trucks.

We are currently making 800-1000 lift kits per month. Lift kits are sold to
people who spend a lot of money to have the coolest truck on the block. They
would pay $5000 I am sure for self driving. We have manufacturing capacity and
distribution.

I want to make the hardware, the actual retrofit kits. I have no skills at
software, but my company is very good at making parts to fit truck
suspensions.

Please put me in contact with anyone that you know interested in the same
field.

------
chrisbennet
I wonder if some sociopath will start a robotic startup that threatened to set
back robotic car progress due to recklessness just so Google would buy it in
order to shut it down.

~~~
therobot24
I'm actually afraid that the 'stealth mode' startup that's being referred to
in this thread will do just that. They brand themselves as the underdog team
that took on Google's car with some baseline results. Then eager to bring in
users they put prototypes on the road... unfortunately that's scary enough.

------
truncs
The author forgot about the fact that high quality/quantity data comes from
good sensors. The cost of the LIDAR sensors (the one google using and this is
the one which rotates on top of the car) is pretty high (around $50K AFAIK).
This is one of the reasons Google is holding back in the hope that after few
years the cost of such sensors would drop dramatically. Self driving car by
just using CV just wouldn't work (atleast with the current state of the art).

------
ForHackernews
Given how incompetent Silicon Valley startups appear to be at important-but-
tricky things like data security[0], I'm pretty happy to not have to share the
road with robot cars piloted by likes of Snapchat.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/technology/when-start-
ups-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/technology/when-start-ups-dont-
lock-the-doors.html?_r=0)

~~~
TaylorAlexander
It seems like a leap to assume that engineers working on a product that could
kill multiple people would be as careless as those working on mobile apps for
sharing photos.

For self-driving cars, security and safety are features. For the others, for
better or worse, they are afterthoughts.

~~~
ForHackernews
Plenty of apps like Snapchat and Secret position themselves as though
privacy/security are their key selling points. But then they consistently fail
to actually deliver on those features.

I would hope that engineers working on a self-driving car will do better. I
guess we'll see.

------
dasickis
We have a forum to discuss open source implementations of robotic cars:
[http://www.sherecar.org/](http://www.sherecar.org/), we got pretty bogged
down with some development we're working on.

------
sharemywin
why not automate semi-trucks?

~~~
ivankirigin
I mention elsewhere that at the start there will still be drivers in the cars.
Semis will happen after commuters.

But yeah, long hauls were made for robots. iRobot's slogan was "dull dirty or
dangerous". Dull counts for a lot to replace a human!

~~~
Qworg
Several major truck/auto manufacturers are working on the semi problem - it is
a bigger focus in Europe than in the States right now.

Scania and Volvo both come to mind:
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130409-robot-truck-
platoon...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130409-robot-truck-platoons-
roll-forward)

------
TeeWEE
Which startup robotic company are you talking about in the end of the post?

~~~
danmaz74
It's in stealth mode I guess, or he would have mentioned it already.

