Team-BHP > The Indian Car Scene


Reply
  Search this Thread
180,688 views
Old 27th September 2013, 07:31   #181
Distinguished - BHPian
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Delhi
Posts: 8,036
Thanked: 49,760 Times

Quote:
Originally Posted by mayuresh View Post
Articles contains a video of autonomous landing of a helicopter and animation explaining how it determines a safe place to land.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/ae...to-the-rescue/

Aviation will of course have its own challenges, different from the road transport, but from point of view of autonomy road transport must be a far more complicated problem than aviation.
Yes, I agree, far more difficult to make cars drive autonmously than planes
Jeroen
Jeroen is offline  
Old 10th October 2013, 07:40   #182
BHPian
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Pune
Posts: 443
Thanked: 366 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

This article, "The Ethics of Autonomous Cars", a philosophical one than technical, gives a very different perspective of the "autonomous" / "automated" / "self-driving" / "driverless" / "robot" vehicles.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...s-cars/280360/

Quote:
If a small tree branch pokes out onto a highway and there's no incoming traffic, we'd simply drift a little into the opposite lane and drive around it. But an automated car might come to a full stop, as it dutifully observes traffic laws that prohibit crossing a double-yellow line
...
sometimes drivers might legitimately want to, say, go faster than the speed limit in an emergency. Should robot cars never break the law in autonomous mode? If robot cars faithfully follow laws and regulations, then they might refuse to drive in auto-mode if a tire is under-inflated or a headlight is broken, even in the daytime when it's not needed.
...
if an animal darts in front of our moving car, we need to decide: whether it would be prudent to brake; if so, how hard to brake; whether to continue straight or swerve to the left of right; and so on. These decisions are influenced by environmental conditions (e.g., slippery road), obstacles on and off the road (e.g., other cars to the left and trees to the right), size of an obstacle (e.g., hitting a cow diminishes your survivability, compared to hitting a raccoon), second-order effects (e.g., crash with the car behind us, if we brake too hard), lives at risk in and outside the car (e.g., a baby passenger might mean the robot car should give greater weight to protecting its occupants), and so on.
...
We don't really know what our robot-car future will look like, but we can already see that much work needs to be done. Part of the problem is our lack of imagination. Brookings Institution director Peter W. Singer said, "We are still at the `horseless carriage' stage of this technology, describing these technologies as what they are not, rather than wrestling with what they truly are." As it applies here, robots aren't merely replacing human drivers, just as human drivers in the first automobiles weren't simply replacing horses:
mayuresh is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 12th October 2013, 11:12   #183
BHPian
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Pune
Posts: 443
Thanked: 366 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Following reports are worth a read for people following this space.



KPMG has published a fresh report: "Self Driving Cars : Are We Ready?"
https://www.kpmg.com/US/en/IssuesAnd...e-we-ready.pdf

Since the last survey they did (see below) they believe the industry has moved much faster than they predicted. As per the survey, "semi-automatic" vehicles from BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz would be available in the market as early as 2014.

On legal frameworks in the US, a few states have passed bills to allow autonomous vehicles on roads for testing purposes, while some other bills on self-driving vehicles are in the process, though not yet passed.

Some of the consumer survey results (surveys are US based):
- Surprisingly Google is the leading brand, preferred to buy an autonomous car from, despite no experience of making and selling cars, distantly followed by Nissan.
- "Handling" is regarded as most important factor by most respondents, followed by safety, regarding what they expect the most out of autonomous cars



Last year they had published this report: "Self Driving Cars : The next revolution"
http://www.kpmg.com/Ca/en/IssuesAndI...revolution.pdf

Article talks about how self driving cars would revolutionize the way we move. It firmly claims that autonomous cars would become a reality much sooner than we think. It analyzes the "sensor based" and "connected vehicle" solutions and how their convergence would help. It talks of the adoption path, considering legal, infrastructure, consumer psychology aspects etc.
mayuresh is offline  
Old 15th October 2013, 14:20   #184
Team-BHP Support
 
Rehaan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Bombay
Posts: 24,019
Thanked: 33,985 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

I liked seeing the smaller details in this video - eg. how the electronics have mapped out and calculated the speeds of other cars on the road as well :



cya
R
Rehaan is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 17th October 2013, 11:59   #185
Distinguished - BHPian
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Delhi
Posts: 8,036
Thanked: 49,760 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by mayuresh View Post
Following reports are worth a read for people following this space.



KPMG has published a fresh report: "Self Driving Cars : Are We Ready?"

On legal frameworks in the US, a few states have passed bills to allow autonomous vehicles on roads for testing purposes, while some other bills on self-driving vehicles are in the process, though not yet passed.

Some of the consumer survey results (surveys are US based):
- Surprisingly Google is the leading brand, preferred to buy an autonomous car from, despite no experience of making and selling cars, distantly followed by Nissan.
- "Handling" is regarded as most important factor by most respondents, followed by safety, regarding what they expect the most out of autonomous cars
.
Thanks for sharing the link to the KPMG report. I read through it, its pretty interesting.

Couple of things that I noted in particular:
KPMG calls it a "disruptive technology" and "disruptive innovation". Which suggest that it will totally change the way we think about cars, including whom we buy them from, how we use, whether we would still owe a car, or would move to a more order a car when you need one.

Even so, KPMG does acknowledge that it still remains to be seen if there is a market to start with. Also, the whole eco-system, including legistative issue is compelety untouched yet.

I was surprised at the apparent price premium people seems to willing to pay for such a car, although KPMG also notes that what people say in survey they are willing to pay and are willing to pay in reality could be something compeletely different.

The other thing I noticed is that KPMG included as one of the advantages an assumption on these cars getting you to your destination quicker. They mention special dedicated "autonomous car lanes" that would get you pass the congested freeways. If that hadn't been included the results would have been a lot less favourable. And it's a big leap, infra-structure, legaslation as well as from a technology point of view. All the car manufacturers are developing this technology independently from one another.

If you want to introduce a special lane where self drive cars drive together in one long train like fashion with little room between them, bumper to bumper you need to have a standardised technology and interaction between all the cars. So far, I have not even heard of any of the car developers collaboration on anything like this.

Also, my own experience with "special lanes" such as lanes for car pools is not that favourable. But theoretically autonomous driven cars that interact with oneanother should be able to do better, of course.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rehaan View Post
I liked seeing the smaller details in this video - eg. how the electronics have mapped out and calculated the speeds of other cars on the road as well :R


From what I know calculating the speeds of the other cars is pretty straightforward. They use (doppler) radar, which will give speed and direction of other cars. You know your own car speed and direction, so its an easy calculation.

What I would wonder about is what happens when you get dozens of cars in the same area all with radar beams shooting out to all directions. There must be maze of interferention problems that need solving.

Jeroen
Jeroen is offline  
Old 17th October 2013, 16:14   #186
BHPian
 
skyfire2892's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Bengaluru
Posts: 243
Thanked: 189 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
Thanks for sharing the link to the KPMG report. I read through it, its pretty interesting.

Couple of things that I noted in particular:
KPMG calls it a "disruptive technology" and "disruptive innovation". Which suggest that it will totally change the way we think about cars, including whom we buy them from, how we use, whether we would still owe a car, or would move to a more order a car when you need one.

Even so, KPMG does acknowledge that it still remains to be seen if there is a market to start with. Also, the whole eco-system, including legistative issue is compelety untouched yet.

I was surprised at the apparent price premium people seems to willing to pay for such a car, although KPMG also notes that what people say in survey they are willing to pay and are willing to pay in reality could be something compeletely different.

The other thing I noticed is that KPMG included as one of the advantages an assumption on these cars getting you to your destination quicker. They mention special dedicated "autonomous car lanes" that would get you pass the congested freeways. If that hadn't been included the results would have been a lot less favourable. And it's a big leap, infra-structure, legaslation as well as from a technology point of view. All the car manufacturers are developing this technology independently from one another.

If you want to introduce a special lane where self drive cars drive together in one long train like fashion with little room between them, bumper to bumper you need to have a standardised technology and interaction between all the cars. So far, I have not even heard of any of the car developers collaboration on anything like this.

Also, my own experience with "special lanes" such as lanes for car pools is not that favourable. But theoretically autonomous driven cars that interact with oneanother should be able to do better, of course.





From what I know calculating the speeds of the other cars is pretty straightforward. They use (doppler) radar, which will give speed and direction of other cars. You know your own car speed and direction, so its an easy calculation.

What I would wonder about is what happens when you get dozens of cars in the same area all with radar beams shooting out to all directions. There must be maze of interferention problems that need solving.

Jeroen
Well in Google's car, filters are used for speed and direction. In particular a kalman filter is used which can track as well as predict. With prediction of other car's direction it becomes easy to maneuver.

Putting up special lanes for these cars won't be useful.

Moreover in Nevada, Florida and UK autonomous driving is legal(currently for testing). I've done a study of google's car and am familiar with most of it's prediction systems and AI, though i am still unsure about the market of autonomous cars.
Google's car uses street view as well as it requires lane markings, so in India it can't be used at all.
skyfire2892 is offline  
Old 17th October 2013, 16:39   #187
Distinguished - BHPian
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Delhi
Posts: 8,036
Thanked: 49,760 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by skyfire2892 View Post
Well in Google's car, filters are used for speed and direction. In particular a kalman filter is used which can track as well as predict. With prediction of other car's direction it becomes easy to maneuver.

Putting up special lanes for these cars won't be useful.

Moreover in Nevada, Florida and UK autonomous driving is legal(currently for testing). I've done a study of google's car and am familiar with most of it's prediction systems and AI, though i am still unsure about the market of autonomous cars.
Google's car uses street view as well as it requires lane markings, so in India it can't be used at all.
Well, a Kalman filter needs input, it can't measure speed or direction by itself. You need some sort of sensor that provides input to the Kalman filter. And as I said, the math is pretty straightforward, Kalman filter and math have been around since the early 60s. Your Car GPS is likely to have some sort of simple Kalman filter built in as well.They do have some limitations I seem to recall, not sure how well they do with non-linear systems. Been a while since I fiddled around with this sort of stuff.

So how do you think the Kalman filter gets it's input? Could you provide some more insight into how this prediction system and AI works? Love to hear more. Just spent a week at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and all the scientist there told me real AI is still a long way off from happening. But it also depends on what you call AI of course.

I think the special lanes can be usefull. The whole idea is that you can have have cars following each other a relatively high speed and very small bumper to bumper distance. In order for do so the whole string of cars needs to be 'electronically' connected. If you drive at say a distance of 15 centimer bumper to bumper as soon as the front car starts slowing down all the other cars need to start slowing down as well at the same rate. In theory you could do it each car autonously, but that is likely to be too slow and unreliable. So the idea is to 'daisy chain' the first car's system to all the cars following. Its a tried and proven method, just never done big scall or outside a test eviremont as far as I'm aware of.

I think it will take a long time before we see markets from allowing automous self driving cars on the road for testing purpose or to have them on the road fully legal as part of day to day traffic. I can see a million zillion hurdels that need to be overcome. But I'm sure it will, at least in some markets/countries.

Jeroen

Last edited by Jeroen : 17th October 2013 at 17:00.
Jeroen is offline  
Old 17th October 2013, 17:32   #188
BHPian
 
skyfire2892's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Bengaluru
Posts: 243
Thanked: 189 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
Well, a Kalman filter needs input, it can't measure speed or direction by itself. You need some sort of sensor that provides input to the Kalman filter. And as I said, the math is pretty straightforward, Kalman filter and math have been around since the early 60s. Your Car GPS is likely to have some sort of simple Kalman filter built in as well.They do have some limitations I seem to recall, not sure how well they do with non-linear systems. Been a while since I fiddled around with this sort of stuff.

So how do you think the Kalman filter gets it's input? Could you provide some more insight into how this prediction system and AI works? Love to hear more. Just spent a week at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and all the scientist there told me real AI is still a long way off from happening. But it also depends on what you call AI of course.

I think the special lanes can be usefull. The whole idea is that you can have have cars following each other a relatively high speed and very small bumper to bumper distance. In order for do so the whole string of cars needs to be 'electronically' connected. If you drive at say a distance of 15 centimer bumper to bumper as soon as the front car starts slowing down all the other cars need to start slowing down as well at the same rate. In theory you could do it each car autonously, but that is likely to be too slow and unreliable. So the idea is to 'daisy chain' the first car's system to all the cars following. Its a tried and proven method, just never done big scall or outside a test eviremont as far as I'm aware of.

I think it will take a long time before we see markets from allowing automous self driving cars on the road for testing purpose or to have them on the road fully legal as part of day to day traffic. I can see a million zillion hurdels that need to be overcome. But I'm sure it will, at least in some markets/countries.

Jeroen
Well ofcourse Kalman filter takes an input from laser, camera and other sensors depending on algorithm. Where Kalman filter has limitations, a particle filter can be used. About laser, the LIDAR equipment used on Google's car costs nearly $70,000 and should take care of interference(it's a tested component used in other fields too)
About prediction, it's a probabilistic model. The motion update takes place with help of gaussian random variable which is used to represent motion( car is still, moving, moving fast). The variables are overlapped or joined to give estimate of next position of car. The prediction is complete mathematics based on statistical models. My point was prediction gives you an edge.

If you are enthusiastic about it, you should see this free course(in case you haven't seen it). It gives a complete insight of how driverless car works.
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs373

This course gives insight into AI (would recommend before taking above course)
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs271

About special lanes, the car would be autonomous but AI will be restricted as they don't have maneuver left and right. I still find a car which can run on normal roads to be more interesting as it would use some really good AI. I won't comment how much market they would create, as future will tell that.
skyfire2892 is offline  
Old 17th October 2013, 20:13   #189
Distinguished - BHPian
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Delhi
Posts: 8,036
Thanked: 49,760 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by skyfire2892 View Post
About laser, the LIDAR equipment used on Google's car costs nearly $70,000 and should take care of interference(it's a tested component used in other fields too)
About prediction, it's a probabilistic model. The motion update takes place with help of gaussian random variable which is used to represent motion( car is still, moving, moving fast). The variables are overlapped or joined to give estimate of next position of car. The prediction is complete mathematics based on statistical models. My point was prediction gives you an edge.

If you are enthusiastic about it, you should see this free course(in case you haven't seen it). It gives a complete insight of how driverless car works.
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs373

This course gives insight into AI (would recommend before taking above course)
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs271

About special lanes, the car would be autonomous but AI will be restricted as they don't have maneuver left and right. I still find a car which can run on normal roads to be more interesting as it would use some really good AI. I won't comment how much market they would create, as future will tell that.
I've just spend a week at the Santa Fe Institute looking into complex system and the mathematical models (being) developed for them. It's fascinating stuff and I'm looking into what I can use in my line of work.

Google uses the LIDAR laser and interference is less likely then I guess, I don't know much about these sort of lasers. But other manufacturers have been using (doppler) radar, so there you would very likely have interference.

At the price point you mention it will take a while before you can built a viable commercial proposition. The KPMG report mentioned that some of the respondents indicatated to be prepared to pay handsomely for an autonemous self driving car, but think several thousands of dollars for all the kit, not $70.000 for one piece of it. And I guess there might be more than one laser required too? Or have they some clever optics that takes a 360 degree view?

The courses you mention are actually pretty good.

Fact is that humans outperform computers still when it comes to real intelligence by a very large margin. Even quantum computers are not going to change that, once we get one.

Jeroen
Jeroen is offline  
Old 17th October 2013, 20:35   #190
BHPian
 
skyfire2892's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Bengaluru
Posts: 243
Thanked: 189 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post

Google uses the LIDAR laser and interference is less likely then I guess, I don't know much about these sort of lasers. But other manufacturers have been using (doppler) radar, so there you would very likely have interference.

At the price point you mention it will take a while before you can built a viable commercial proposition. The KPMG report mentioned that some of the respondents indicatated to be prepared to pay handsomely for an autonemous self driving car, but think several thousands of dollars for all the kit, not $70.000 for one piece of it. And I guess there might be more than one laser required too? Or have they some clever optics that takes a 360 degree view?

Jeroen
It's a rotating sensor so it gives readings in a circular area around it. The equipment cost goes upto $150,000 so quite impractical in today's market.
skyfire2892 is offline  
Old 20th October 2013, 18:35   #191
Distinguished - BHPian
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Delhi
Posts: 8,036
Thanked: 49,760 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Just came across this interesting video that explains in some details how the google car works. The presentation is (partly) by Sebastian Thurn, the same as part author of the udacity video's mentioned earlier by Skyfire.

This is from 2011, so they probably made some substantial progress from here. Note that they have the LIDAR laser and FOUR radars, so I'd still like to understand how they would be dealing with interference if there are say a hundred car, each with four radars on one junction.

Quality isn't that great but it's good enough to follow:

enjoy:



Jeroen
Jeroen is offline  
Old 25th October 2013, 18:57   #192
BHPian
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Pune
Posts: 443
Thanked: 366 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

Another recent study trying to quantify the benefits of self driving cars in terms of accidents it would avoid in the US:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...es_450B_a_year

Quote:
40% of fatal crashes are the result of alcohol or drug use, driver distraction and/or fatigue. Since computers don't drink or do drugs and they don't become distracted or tired, their use in vehicles would dramatically reduce fatalities,
...
self-driving vehicles could anticipate a lead vehicle's braking and acceleration decisions, allowing for smoother travel and leading to the avoidance of the traffic pileups
...
California and Nevada have enacted legislation to allow self-driving car licensing.

[Among issues]

Could automakers prevent hackers from getting into onboard computers?
...
who would be liable in the event of an accident in a self-driving car?
mayuresh is offline  
Old 21st November 2013, 13:45   #193
BHPian
 
d_himan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Bombay
Posts: 862
Thanked: 946 Times
Re: About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all

My favorite Magazine - new yorker's take. Lengthy, but a superb read! Explains the challenges and evolution in a very conversational way - loved it!
d_himan is offline   (1) Thanks
Old 2nd December 2013, 15:58   #194
Distinguished - BHPian
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: --
Posts: 23,270
Thanked: 67,345 Times
Volvo to launch world's first large-scale self-driving car test

Volvo is to begin field trials of self-driving cars in order for its cars to handle real-world situations without the input of a driver.

Volvo says it is to launch a real world test of 100 self-driving cars in Gothenburg in 2017.

Quote:
The project kicks off in 2014 with ‘customer research and technology development’ and will then move into designing a ‘user interface and cloud functionality’ before the first prototype cars are used by members of public.
About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars-volvoautonomousdriving.jpg

Quote:
The project is called ‘Drive Me’ and is a joint initiative between Volvo, the Swedish Transportation Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science Park and Gothenburg local government.
Quote:
The cars will be used on ‘public roads in everyday driving conditions’ on 50 kilometers of ‘typical commuter arteries, including motorways and frequent queues.’
Quote:
The project kicks off in 2014 with ‘customer research and technology development’ and will then move into designing a ‘user interface and cloud functionality’ before the first prototype cars are used by members of public.
Quote:
Volvo says the vehicles in the pilot project are defined as ‘Highly Autonomous Cars’, which means that the ‘vehicle can handle all driving functions at the driver's discretion. The driver is expected to be available for occasional control but with a sufficiently comfortable transition time.

The project also includes fully automated parking, without a driver in the car. The intention is that the driver can walk away from the car and the vehicle will then find a vacant spot and park itself.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/mo...iving-car-test

Last edited by volkman10 : 2nd December 2013 at 16:01.
volkman10 is offline   (2) Thanks
Old 3rd December 2013, 14:05   #195
Senior - BHPian
 
wilful's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: cochin
Posts: 1,277
Thanked: 1,227 Times
Honda Developing Pedestrian Friendly Car

Good news for pedestrians (probably in a few years from now).
Honda is developing a car that can navigate it way through crowded streets on its own. It will stop at pedestrian crossings if a person is about to step on to the road. I don't know if this will ever be able to work in India where pedestrian crossings are few and far between in many towns and villages and where people just dart across the roads at the drop of a hat.

Check out this link -

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/h.../1/326941.html
wilful is offline   (1) Thanks
Reply

Most Viewed
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Team-BHP.com
Proudly powered by E2E Networks