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Self driving trucks coming


misterNNL

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As my wife is a member of village council here we found out this month that the state if Ohio is installing some of the necessary infrastructure for the guidance system hardware locally for self driving semis. We are just a few miles from Ohio route 33 which is a major route locally for traffic to and from Columbus,Ohio.

On our trips along that route we noticed as workers were installing underground cable following the path of the highway not knowing what it was for. Now the state is contacting our village about bringing that technology through here as a continuation of that project. Looks like the future is knocking on our door.

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I think there are already some "self driving" trucks on the road.  We regularly have incidents around here where semi trucks plow into traffic that has been stopped for previous accidents or road work killing people who had no chance of getting out of the way.  I-75 between the Ohio border and Detroit is notorious for one semi plowing into another one in front of them.

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Technology is often deployed before it's fully mature, or even fully understood.

But there's no stopping the "progress" of the legions of marching morons who are always in a hurry to implement "new and better" when it's actually not.

Ultimately, machines, or augmented humans, will be vastly superior to the garden-variety driver we have today.

But not yet.

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The Frieghtliner Inspiration has been operating in Nevada since 2015. Fully autonomous truck. Yes, there is an operator in there, but he doesn't actually operate the truck. And so far, they haven't had an incident that required him to take over control.

 

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4 hours ago, iamsuperdan said:

The Frieghtliner Inspiration has been operating in Nevada since 2015. Fully autonomous truck. Yes, there is an operator in there, but he doesn't actually operate the truck. And so far, they haven't had an incident that required him to take over control.

 

fl.jpg.234e4dac626a24bda44a8a3bf3bfaf73.jpg

Not sure if it's just the drivers around here or what, but I'm already almost more willing to share the roads with those than I am normal drivers:blink::lol:

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I'm not sure if these truck will ever be ready for Prime Time. Automated Driving faces a huge learning curve for the machine, and it never really stops.  That is one part that gets overlooked. You will never be able to point to the finished AI vehicle and say, "Now it's done. It has learned all it needs to know". There is just too much for it to know. I think we will see AI Trucks/Cars, used in certain specific places, in certain very specific ways, but I don't think they'll ever "Take Over" Like Electric Cars, they are narrowly defined 'niche' vehicles.  Inside their Niche they may be superior, but stray out side that narrow corridor, and they will fail.

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18 minutes ago, alexis said:

I'm not sure if these truck will ever be ready for Prime Time. Automated Driving faces a huge learning curve for the machine, and it never really stops.  That is one part that gets overlooked. You will never be able to point to the finished AI vehicle and say, "Now it's done. It has learned all it needs to know". There is just too much for it to know. I think we will see AI Trucks/Cars, used in certain specific places, in certain very specific ways, but I don't think they'll ever "Take Over" Like Electric Cars, they are narrowly defined 'niche' vehicles.  Inside their Niche they may be superior, but stray out side that narrow corridor, and they will fail.

They'll probably excell on limited access roadways with minimal traffic signals and pedestrians and more consistant speeds. Come to think of it, I think GM was playing with that exact concept from post WW2 into the 90's  and even set up some MI highways with transponders their development cars could read!

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Yep. A Niche. And even then, it will take years, and millions of $$ to get them useful.

I don't think from a Dollar & Cents standpoint that Self Driving anything will ever have a positive ROI. But, I'm old, now, and could easily be mistaken.

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I really, really do not like this autonomous truck movement. I'm a truck driver, accident free this in my career, 20+ years. It saddens me greatly to see this ACTUALLY happening. Its sadder that Peterbilt is involved and supporting it. Cashiers are loosing their jobs to automation and self check outs. Now, truck drivers are literally watching their replacements work the bugs out, in my case literally, right next to me on the highways. Its childish I know, but I give those automated trucks the universal salute for #1. The company out here in the southwest is called Embark, that I see all the time.

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3 hours ago, JohnU said:

In the meantime, trucking companies still can’t find enough drivers!?

The truck driver is an endangered species. The steering wheel holder has taken over. They are the ones pushing to get paid while sleeping in the sleeper. Yes, it is true. They want to be paid 24 hours a day since they are the truck. Theres more to this point, but not here.

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I'm far from comfortable with this technology. This may seem like a good idea on paper for a politician who is looking for a campaign contribution, but the reality is these things are still running into other vehicles on the highway driven by you and me. They are still doing the R & D on the development, but they are running in an uncontrolled environment. Besides the issues with some of the cars that have run into something or someone, what happens when and if something goes wrong with the electronic controls ? Do these things just go into a safety mode and lock their brakes and sit were ever they are until some reboots the system or do they just coast off into the sunset until something else stops them ? Ask any accomplished driver about sudden weather conditions changing, will this rig have "seat of the pants" feelings when the steering starts to go to sudden understeer. When a rig this size starts to get out of shape it can turn really bad very fast. I guess sensors maybe faster than a humans reaction but I'll still trust in someone who has ridden out a down hill slide on a whiteout roadway with ice under the snow. That will get your undivided attention  faster than anything, been there and done that and that was in a car.   

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Boeing's experience with automated control relying on sensors is indication that unexpected things can happen when the backup human being has to take control in an emergency.

Curious about what road speeds will be.

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58 minutes ago, Flat32 said:

Boeing's experience with automated control relying on sensors is indication that unexpected things can happen when the backup human being has to take control in an emergency.

Exactly. The entire 737 Max-8 fleet is now expected to be grounded until the end of 2019, at the earliest.

https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-737-max-8-likely-grounded-for-rest-of-2019-after-new-concerns-raised

I guess the people pushing for autonomous vehicles live in that magical parallel universe where computers never lock up for no apparent reason, where all software is perfect and absolutely invulnerable to hacking, where radio signals can't be jammed or interfered with in any other way, where sensors never fail, and where non-redundant safety systems can always react in a split second to any emergency....no matter how complex.

In reality, "any engineering project must assume a certain threshold for risk, knowing that you cannot build anything that is guaranteed never to fail".

And frankly, the MCAS system that's keeping Boeing's 737 Max-8 grounded is one hell of a lot dumber than a system expected to be able to drive a vehicle on public highways and streets.

We are looking at one of those scenarios that begs to paraphrase a line from Jurassic Park...maybe we CAN do this, but SHOULD WE??

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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