

Google Driverless Car – The Obstacle Detection Unit - todd8
http://greybmusings.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/google-driverless-car-the-obstacle-detection-unit/

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Gravityloss
The sensor fusion reminds me of the F-35 JSF. The software seems to be one of
the big things in the fighter project.

So actually this might be a good fit for Google after all. Sensors are getting
trivialized.

I'm sure Google is working for a LIDARless car. They've published their stereo
vision to 3d library.

[https://code.google.com/p/openvis3d/](https://code.google.com/p/openvis3d/)

~~~
vonmoltke
Indeed. This is a sensor fusion problem I really want to work on. I loved the
problem space while I was working for Raytheon, but I can't stand working on
large government programs.

I'm surprised about the lack of IR sensors, though. I can think of cases where
the IR data could be fused with data from other sensors, particularly visual,
to improve object recognition. Particularly pedestrian and animal detection.

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toomuchtodo
> Indeed. This is a sensor fusion problem I really want to work on.

Have you thought about working for Tesla? autopilot@teslamotors.com

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vonmoltke
I have, actually. I'm concerned about the work-life balance there, though.

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toomuchtodo
Same reason I don't work in IT at SpaceX. I wouldn't have a wife anymore.

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r3m6
Is Lidar really required? I assume Google uses it only because it does not
care about cost at this point of the development.

German car makes (Mercedes, Audi, BMW,...) think they can create a driverless
car without the need for expensive Lidar, see for example
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/self...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/self-driving/bertha-the-car-comes-to-california)

~~~
ghaff
Although that article also makes it unclear the degree of autonomy we're
talking about here, using Lidar or otherwise. The big challenge, as noted in
the link) is that there's this space between drivers still needing to drive
(with assistance) and true driverless 99.999% just works. And within that gap,
you potentially don't want to introduce certain automation because it will
make drivers inattentive even though the machinery isn't quite up to the task
of handling every contingency on its own. The billion dollar question is the
timeframe for the 99.999% case--which enables a whole lot of radical use cases
which the 99% case does not (such as no driver or no attentive driver). Just
because the 99% use case could be here relatively soon doesn't mean that the
99.999% case couldn't be much further off (as in many decades).

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bentcorner
> _which enables a whole lot of radical use cases which the 99% case does not
> (such as no driver or no attentive driver)_

I'm excited for this. Car ownership and operation could be an interesting
historical note 200 years from now. Family scheduling would become much more
flexible and children incapable of operating a vehicle will be empowered to
travel long distances.

~~~
ghaff
I'm not convinced about car ownership. There are a lot of benefits in owning a
car that you can keep "stuff" in. But just as Zipcars have presumably
eliminated some car ownership use cases at the margins, fully autonomous cars
would have a significant effect.

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bentcorner
> _But just as Zipcars have presumably eliminated some car ownership use cases
> at the margins, fully autonomous cars would have a significant effect._

The big big thing I see about driverless cars is:

a) You can use it on-demand, even more easily than Zipcars. No need to
physically be located near a lot, I can "hail" a driverless car and have it
waiting for me when I need it. Smart routing and allocation can ensure that
capacity is used smartly - it could drop somebody off while picking me up.

b) People who can't or won't drive can benefit from this. From young children
to the elderly, transportation becomes much much easier. Have to take your kid
to an appointment in the middle of the day? A driverless car can pick them up
from school and bring them directly to the appointment and you can meet them
there. You go to the appointment together, then driverless cars can take each
of you back to your daily work, saving time all-around.

Yes - it's useful to have a car to keep stuff in. I can imagine you could keep
one "on call" for a day out, and you can meet the car (at whatever exit is
closest to you!) throughout the day to get supplies or drop things off.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic about what driverless cars can give us.
Realistically I think hands-off driverless cars are within the next few years,
but FUD and lawsuits will prevent more radical forward progress. It's
certainly not unimaginable that it will take an entire generation of people to
die off before truly autonomous cars are common and accepted.

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TeMPOraL
Offtopic, but it kind of stood out for me in the text:

> _driverless car_ (i.e. not "self-driving car")

> _robotic chauffeur_

Is it me, or the article is pushing some new terminology?

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icebraining
Driverless is not new, e.g.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car)

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ape4
I prefer driverless horseless carriage.

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jeremycole
So just "carriage" then? :)

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Symmetry
I wonder if the radars they're using can do frequency binning, that is
figuring out the relative velocity of objects they detect via Doppler as well
as their distance?

Also, that 64 beam 360 degree lidar makes me drool a little bit.

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vonmoltke
I don't see why not. Pulsed transmitters are fairly ubiquitous nowadays. A bit
more complicated and expensive than CW transmitters, but easy nonetheless.

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sharemywin
This is one of the places where I think there should be colaboration across
companies. I'm not sure "not hitting pedestians" should be market
differentiator.

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icebraining
It's not a "market differentiator". If a company can't develop that "feature",
they just won't be able to release their driverless cars.

~~~
mrec
It's not a binary checkbox feature, though. I doubt any implementation will
make it _utterly impossible_ to hit a pedestrian - and that's fine, as long as
they do better than meatbag drivers. A better detection/avoidance
implementation is absolutely a differentiator, mostly via lower insurance
premiums for operators.

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JoeAltmaier
That's not clear, in our litigenous society. I hit a pedestrian: I get in
trouble. A driverless car hits a pedestrian: all driverless cars (of that
manufacturer) are potentially 'at fault' and recalled. Its definitely a
different bar to pass.

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josho
That's interesting. A computer hits a pedestrian, then presumably the
algorithms are updated and the probability of that scenario playing out again
drops to 0. While A human hits a pedestrian, and that scenario is likely to
never occur for that driver again, but for all other drivers the probability
remains the same.

~~~
krapp
Although you technically may be right (depending on how easy 'updating the
algorithm' turns out to be - it being as easy as updating an app seems a bit
on the crazy side to me) I don't know that the likelihood for all human
drivers of hitting a pedestrian is necessarily high, though.

It exists, obviously, but I think human drivers already come with the "don't
hit pedestrians" firmware installed, and it mostly seems to work.

To me it won't be demonstrable that driverless cars are vastly superior until
there are a decent number of them on the streets, mixing it up with traffic in
all kinds of weather, dealing with unexpected hazards and inaccurate maps, for
an extended period of time.

~~~
icebraining
_depending on how easy 'updating the algorithm' turns out to be - it being as
easy as updating an app seems a bit on the crazy side to me_

Tesla is already updating the firmware of their cars over-the-air[1]. It seems
likely that driverless cars will have the same feature.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/24/3385506/tesla-model-s-
over...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/24/3385506/tesla-model-s-over-the-air-
car-firmware-update)

~~~
krapp
Fair enough - just crazy enough to work, maybe.

 _(but still crazy.)_

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dmm
If lots of these cars were on the road would these sensors interfere with each
other?

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TeMPOraL
Probably a bit, yes, but there are ways to filter out the interference to some
extent. Anyway, I'm strongly hoping that they'll make cars that talk to each
other - so instead many cars adding noise to each other's readings, we'll have
cars that share data and dynamically delegate the task of detailed region
mapping to few cars that would not interfere with each other.

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aetherson
How would you handle malicious actors in such a situation?

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TeMPOraL
Probably in the same way you handle malicious actors now - people deliberately
obstructing view of other cars, shining laser pointers at drivers, etc. A very
important observation is that those are _extremely rare events_.

In a way, humans are also machines, and we have very similar attack vectors,
so just extending our current solutions might be good enough to accommodate
self-driving cars on our roads.

~~~
aetherson
I think that the way you handle malicious actors now is that people know that
they have a laser in their eyes. This would be more like "what if someone
could just make another car or obstacle invisible to you, and you have no way
of knowing it."

I agree it is a very rare event, and will always continue to be. But it would
need to be handled, and handled in ways other than, "Hi, here's a 100 car
pile-up."

Similarly, and probably less rarely, you'd need to handle scenarios in which
another actor wasn't malicious per se, but faulty to a degree that it was
functionally malicious. Of course, we've always had to handle the idea that
somebody might be driving a car with bad brakes, and that's dangerous enough,
but before now a car with bad brakes wouldn't also make the brakes bad for ten
cars around them. I think that's worthy of some contemplation.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I agree with the sentiment. There's a lot to consider and test in practice,
though any of those scenarios don't sound like show-stoppers. After all,
humans are also machines, and where a person can "know that they have a laser
in their eyes", a machine can equally well realize that one of its sensors
suddenly started reporting weird results that don't match the expectations and
that don't seem to agree with other sensors onboard or with what other cars
nearby are reporting.

We'll have to sort out a lot of those scenarios, many by means of "testing in
production", but as long as self-driving cars can outperform humans on
average, we'll be better off.

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nitin_flanker
The car is really amazing. This blog has posted 5-6 posts about the driverless
car. here is the link to the tag -
[http://greybmusings.wordpress.com/tag/driverless-
car/](http://greybmusings.wordpress.com/tag/driverless-car/)

Google is utilizing multiple techs in this invention.

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robbrown451
I understand how the cars can be aware of other objects on the road, but are
they actually aware of themselves and where they fit into the environment? It
seems they'd have to be in order to function, right?

So we've get self-aware machines now. Did anyone even notice?

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Gravityloss
If it sees itself in a mirror and notices a stain, does it drive up to a shrub
and start going back and forth to rub itself clean?

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Rangi42
If it were programmed to keep itself clean, and had an algorithm to do that
("scrape the dirty area against a shrub"), I see no reason why it couldn't
pass the mirror test.

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pkorzeniewski
I wonder how much a production version will cost, with all the high-tech
equipment..

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Symmetry
It looks like the lidar costs $75K retail, but none of the rest of the sensors
look particularly expensive.

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Rthakur
Velodyne recently released a 16 channel LIDAR for ~ $8000. I agree with you
that the cost can come down tremendously with volume. You also need to
consider the differences within LIDAR systems. The velodyne system is for 360
degree field of view. Other automotive LIDAR systems (See continental, Valeo,
Ibeo, etc) with lower FOV and functionality (forward collision warning,
blindspot detection,etc) are much lower cost > 10x ....

