Self-Driving Cars L2 self-driving hands-free long drive with low driver fatigue

L2 self-driving hands-free long drive with low driver fatigue
Strategic planning in self driving vehicles.
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L2 self-driving hands-free long drive with low driver fatigue

Posted: 01 Mar 2020 12:46 PM PST

submitted by /u/gc2488
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Strategic planning in self driving vehicles.

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 07:15 PM PST

I have a pretty long highway commute so I think about automated driving systems fairly often. My question is about how much advanced planning is built into the latest generation of autonomous vehicles.

For instance, during my commute I go through a few small towns so the speed limit drops down to 70km/h for a short distance, followed by 50km in town. I know that if I release cruise control a set distance from the change in speed limit I will coast down to an acceptable speed by the time I hit the change.

In some areas this may be different because there may be a hill leading into town, forcing me to begin my coast earlier to hit the proper speed without the use of my brakes. There are also situations where I am following another car, and since I know most drivers continue at the speed limit right up until the change then hit the brakes I purposely give them a ton of space, trying to predict my coast so I will catch back up to them by the time our speeds match again (keeping the proper 2-3 second gap).

Other situations have to deal with traffic lights, for instance I know that if a light is green far in the distance it will probably turn red by the time I reach it, so I may as well coast a bit more instead of using my brakes heavily, bit if I am reasonably certain I can make the light I will up my speed a bit so i can make it.

Anyways, do autonomous vehicles have strategic planning like this built in? I feel like the ability to plan ahead like this is critical if we want to achieve true self driving.

Bonus: other areas I wonder about have more to do with the vision system. Now I try not to drive in bad winter storms, but sometimes it happens and as a human driver there are different strategies to implement to be able to navigate in whiteout conditions. For instance if I cant see the road markings I will try to follow the path previously set out by other vehicles, but you also have to know when those tracks you are following are leading right into a ditch. For us humans it's not too difficult because you can recognize it as an arching path when it should be straight, whereas a computer might assume it is a turn in the road. Now if the weather is really bad there may not be a trail set at all. At the point you must judge the direction of the road based on other objects like hydro lines or the treeline if the road is going through a wooded area, if you are lucky there will be guard rails to follow. I think if we want self driving vehicles to function everywhere we might need this functionality unless you want to just rely on a GPS.

My final thought is on obscured signs. Are people working on AI to decipher partially obscured signs? For instance if snow is partially blocking a 70 sign I can usually still figure out if it is a 7 even if only a small bit of the 7 is showing. I have heard of people tricking autonomous cars by placing tape on a sign and it seems like an autonomous vehicle should be smarter than that.

Anyways if you made it this far thanks for reading, just a few thoughts I had as a layman.

submitted by /u/edjumication
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Inside Waymo’s Hiring Binge — The Information

Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:59 AM PST