[msb-alumni] Waymo's self-driving cars need less driver intervention
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2017 13:55:21 -0500
BlankThis is really exciting news!
Waymo's self-driving cars need less driver intervention Ryan Randazzo, Arizona
Republic
Google spinoff Waymo is getting closer to the day when drivers can get in a car
with no pedals, steering wheel or mirrors, and allow the car to get them to
their destination by simply providing the address.
How much closer?
The company now reports that test drivers only have to take control about once
every 5,000 miles. That's about one-fourth as often as they were required to
help the cars a year ago.
Officials from the self-driving car company, a division of Google parent
Alphabet, are testing their vehicles here
and elsewhere in metro Phoenix. The cars use a variety of sensors to navigate
and avoid collisions.
"When the car is unsure, it does the conservative thing," said Jaime Waydo, a
lead systems engineer for Waymo who has also worked in various positions as an
engineer for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We've seen a lot of really
weird
stuff."
The engineers have to program the cars to not only safely navigate "weird
stuff," such as a woman chasing ducks with a broom (Waydo's example), but to do
it without simply bailing out and re-engaging the human driver.
Vehicle testers have had about 10 of the self-driving Lexus RX 450h vehicles in
Arizona for the past nine months, along with dozens of others in Kirkland,
Wash., Mountain View, Calif., and Austin. Later this month, new Chrysler
Pacifica hybrid minivans will join the test fleet in Arizona.
Company officials said the number of cars in Arizona fluctuates. The cars
tested
Thursday had California plates. Waydo and other company officials gave
reporters
rides in the vehicles around a Chandler neighborhood Thursday, explaining the
technology and progress.
Since Waymo, formerly known as the Google self-driving car project, came to
Chandler, General Motors has expanded
its self-driving car tests to Scottsdale, and Uber brought a small fleet of
similar test cars to Arizona after a dustup with California regulators. "The
fact that a lot of people are researching it shows what a large problem there
is
to solve," Waydo said.
The problem, as Waymo officials see it, is that 35,000 people or so die in the
U.S. each year in car accidents. They believe they can make cars that drive
themselves much more safely. They also envision the technology helping people
such as those who are blind or otherwise incapable of operating a vehicle by
providing on-call transportation. Waymo's vehicles
were involved in three accidents the first month they were in Chandler, but
have
not had any accidents since, Waydo said. Two cars were rear-ended, 'once in
autonomous mode and another in manual. "In the third incident, which is
disputed
between law enforcement and the company, the car was in manual mode and
involved
in a red-light running accident."
A variety of sensors distinguish the cars from the exterior, but other than a
computer screen inside showing the car's interpretation of the outside world,
little distinguishes it as a self-driving car other than a large, red
kill-switch near the shifter. "Every robot should have a big red button," Waydo
said. "I have never heard of us using it."
Thursday was trash day, so residents near Arrowhead Meadow Park had their bins
lined up in the bicycle lane. When two bins were pushed close together and near
the car's lane, the vehicle slowed down and edged toward the middle of the
road.
The vehicles can "see" what is going on for about 200 yards in all directions.
Antennae atop the vehicles link to global-positioning system information so
that
the vehicles can compare what they are sensing with known information on
streets, intersections and other features.
But they can improvise, too, thanks to radar, which aims in all directions and
provides information on other objects' speed and direction.
"Our eventual goal is to not need the driver at all," Waydo says.
Lidar, a sensing technology that uses lasers the same way radar uses radio
waves, fills in a three-dimensional
picture. This helps identify objects such as trees, bushes, animals,
pedestrians, cyclists and other things drivers encounter on roadways that are
not indicated on GPS maps.
"Lidar can tell which way a face is turned," Waydo said. "People don't usually
walk backwards, though they do sometimes."
Finally, cameras atop the vehicle provide details such as color, helping
identify things such as stop signs and lights. Identifying objects helps guide
the vehicles and predict whether something might wind up in their pathway or
not.
Two toddlers running around in a driveway Thursday didn't seem to warrant a
reaction, but a truck that had pulled more than a bumper's length out of a
strip
mall into the vehicle's path warranted not only braking but a brief hesitation
before passing.
The ride seemed a tad jerky during some of the accelerations from stops and
turns, considering some of the early reviews out of Mountain View in which
people described the vehicles as overly cautious. They wait 1.5 seconds before
proceeding through a light when it turns from red to green, but otherwise
Waymo
officials said the technicians are trying to make them drive more like humans
--
but safer. That means they must be predictable and not "drive like a robot car.
"Our eventual goal is to not need the driver at all," Waydo said.
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