What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

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xpc316e
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby xpc316e » Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:42 am

I wonder whether the driver of an autonomous vehicle will ever be able to turn up the wick a little bit if running late? If one wishes to overtake other traffic, will there be a button to push that not only allows such behaviour, but actually encourages it? It is one thing to get an autonomous vehicle to trundle down a road at the same speed as the rest of traffic, but quite another to get it to safely overtake. If it can be taught to overtake, will it ever exceed the speed limit (even if only by a small margin) to expedite such a manoeuvre?

There are so many things that an autonomous vehicle will never be able to do. They will not be able to drive after a light dusting of snow, as there will be no road markings to 'see'. I wonder how they will be programmed: if an autonomous vehicle is in lane 2 of a 3 lane motorway, overtaking but alongside an LGV in lane 1, and behind another LGV, while I am in lane 3 overtaking on my motorcycle when the load of the LGV in front of it in lane 2 falls from the back of the truck, how will it respond? It cannot stop in time before hitting the load which is sitting in front of it, it cannot alter course to left, or right, without hitting something, so instead of colliding with the LGV in lane 1 (and putting itself in peril), will it steer into little old me on my bike as it sees me as small and likely to do less damage to itself?

I see autonomous vehicles largely as vanity projects: manufacturers are doing it largely because they can, and not because the general public is clamouring to buy them. Do you know anyone who is saying, "I cannot wait for them to come onto the market and will be the first to buy one"? I certainly don't know anybody who is queuing up to buy one.

When someone can make an autonomous vehicle that can drive a rally stage as well as Sebastien Loeb, I might sit up and take notice.

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akirk
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby akirk » Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:10 am

I have probably posted this before, but one part of me is looking forward to them:
- it will make many of the current bad drivers safer and more predictable (helps me)
- that predictability and knowledge of their algorithms will allow me to know how to manage them on the road

at its most interesting will be an ability for me to force them down certain logic paths - so if I were in your scenario above on a bike and potentially was able to anticipate the forthcoming issue through noticing a loose load (which the autonomous car might not be able to predict), I could aim at the autonomous car - it will analyse the risk of my hitting it, stop or slow down, so that when the forthcoming issue arrives, the car is dealing with that, not me :) a simplistic response, but hopefully it makes sense.

A large part of Advanced Driving is managing the environment - managing other people by how you behave - so for example the other day in my small car I came to a roundabout where I had priority from a minor road from which cars rarely interrupt the main flow - therefore cars are used to just continuing across the roundabout - my analysis was that a larger vehicle might not stop, so as well as slowing and giving myself room to stop if needed, I 'made myself bigger' by how I positioned on the roundabout - removing his visual space so that he was more likely to stop - which he thankfully did... that form of managing other people will be easier with autonomous cars as they will be more predictable...

I think they will happen - too many companies see too large a profit for this not to happen - too many politicians are not thinking it through and see it as a bright shiny future - it will happen... and then we will start to see the issues once it has happened!

Actually driving a rally stage like Loeb is probably far easier than logic which puts 10,000 of them in London at rush hour allowing for children / lorries / old ladies / other drivers / etc.

Alasdair

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GTR1400MAN
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby GTR1400MAN » Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:36 pm

xpc316e wrote:I wonder how they will be programmed: if an autonomous vehicle is in lane 2 of a 3 lane motorway, overtaking but alongside an LGV in lane 1, and behind another LGV, while I am in lane 3 overtaking on my motorcycle when the load of the LGV in front of it in lane 2 falls from the back of the truck, how will it respond? It cannot stop in time before hitting the load which is sitting in front of it, it cannot alter course to left, or right, without hitting something, so instead of colliding with the LGV in lane 1 (and putting itself in peril), will it steer into little old me on my bike as it sees me as small and likely to do less damage to itself?

You need to dig out your Asimov collection ;)
Mike Roberts - Now riding a Triumph Explorer XRT. My username comes from my 50K miles on a Kawasaki 1400GTR, after many years on Hondas of various shapes and styles. - https://tinyurl.com/mikerobertsonyoutube

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GTR1400MAN
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby GTR1400MAN » Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:40 pm

You are all missing a fundamental point. Ultimately there will be no manually driven vehicles, so those situations won't arise.

Autonomous will initially mean trains of vehicles. Trials are already taking place ON our roads and I believe that Platooning, as it is called, will be the first major step to mass road trains ... long before any Google type vehicle can get you anywhere other than a small city area.
Mike Roberts - Now riding a Triumph Explorer XRT. My username comes from my 50K miles on a Kawasaki 1400GTR, after many years on Hondas of various shapes and styles. - https://tinyurl.com/mikerobertsonyoutube

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jont-
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby jont- » Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:47 pm

GTR1400MAN wrote:You are all missing a fundamental point. Ultimately there will be no manually driven vehicles, so those situations won't arise.

I'm not convinced by this. Despite all previous changes to safety, we have never legislated old vehicles off the roads. Furthermore, unless all old vehicles are scrapped, how are you to stop inadvertent or criminal use of them on the roads?

I'm looking forwards to the dodderers no longer being allowed to lead processions at 35mph in an NSL, because the autonomous car will be doing 60 (assuming safe etc :roll:). Nor pulling out of junctions in a manner that inconveniences me because they're scared of the pedal on the right (or don't want the engine to make a noise). And if you want an autonomous car to be able to deal with pedestrians, cyclists etc, is adding logic to deal with non-autonomous cars going to be that much harder?

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GTR1400MAN
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby GTR1400MAN » Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:06 pm

Perhaps I should have said 'few manually driven'. The more autonomous cars there are the better they will be. In fact autonomous is completely the wrong description as they 'talk' to each other, making it easier to identify manual cars.

That 'talking to each other' is where the big gains are going to be made over the next few years. Traffic info relayed between vehicles, cars warning of up coming queues, etc. all in the blink of an eye via a network made up of multiple nodes (vehicles). Join the motorway and the self distancing cruise control will take over until you need to leave. We are almost at that point TODAY.
Mike Roberts - Now riding a Triumph Explorer XRT. My username comes from my 50K miles on a Kawasaki 1400GTR, after many years on Hondas of various shapes and styles. - https://tinyurl.com/mikerobertsonyoutube

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akirk
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby akirk » Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:36 pm

It is a good theory, sadly there are so many flaws that it may never happen...

Who exactly is going to fund the replacement of 35 million cars in the UK alone?
I can just see the reaction when letters land on our doorsteps:
"from xxx date all cars will be autonomous, you will need to buy a new car..."
mmm, that is going to go down well...
without that, how do you hit critical mass? only by including autonomous systems into normal cars (a la Tesla) with the hope that over time you build up critical capability - yet the move across is still a huge psychological barrier...

no-one has really thought it through... there is a lot of strong PR spin from those who will make money from it - few who have actually addressed all the likely barriers to adoption - including the cost and psychological barriers...

Alasdair

waremark
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby waremark » Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:32 pm

How many professional drivers do you think there will be in 50 years? How many private cars, when you can call up an autonomous taxi in a similar way to calling an Uber now?

And long before then, most vehicles on major roads will be operated autonomously while their occupants relax. The autonomous vehicles will not be error free, but will make fewer dangerous errors than today's drivers. IMO.

Gareth
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby Gareth » Wed Aug 31, 2016 7:53 am

No more driving jobs. No driver in mini-cabs, taxis, buses, coaches, lorries ... what a revolution!

It'll blow away the line between car-hire getting a taxi - the only difference being length of hire and the location at end of use, and for a national driverless car-hire company, the latter will have less significance as a car used for a trip from London to Edinburgh will then just be added to the pool of available cars in Edinburgh.

Without a driver in the taxi, usage charges should fall significantly. If hiring a car for a short journey is cheap, for commuting, shopping, and so on, it'll remove much of the incentive for private ownership of cars. There'll be a knock-on effect, over time, in the design of housing for most people - even less need to provide garages and parking. Similarly less parking will be required for town centres.
there is only the road, nothing but the road ...

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jont-
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Re: What would an "advanced driver" autonomous car do...?

Postby jont- » Wed Aug 31, 2016 7:55 am

Gareth wrote:No more driving jobs. No driver in mini-cabs, taxis, buses, coaches, lorries ... what a revolution!

Then they can move on to fixing the trains... :twisted:

As for providing parking - I'm not so sure, we'll need lots more charging points for EVs. And I think people will still want their own space.


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