The Self-Driving Vehicles Thread

[Horse]

Safety? Lip service is being paid to road safety by some motor manufacturers at the moment.

A bigger, much more important, aspect is the touch screens themselves being used to control important safety-related controls.

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[Wossname]

Our first Up had a touch screen sat nav thingy which was fully useable by the driver on the move - it was very tempting to fiddle. My Forester sat nav, otoh, was disabled till you stopped. I much preferred it, and on the later Ups, the sat nav option was deleted. Much better as it was crap anyway.

[The Spin Doctor]

My SEAT has a big touch screen with loads of options - including a photo gallery. Standard install.

Presumably that could provide a similar distraction?

Quite possibly. And the motor manufacturers would absolve themselves of any responsibility by saying that it says not do this or that in the manual. So if anything goes wrong, driving distracted for instance, then it's your fault. They could always decide not to fit such distractions in the first place, of course. But then they could possibly lose sales as their vehicle has less toys than their competitors' vehicles. Safety? Lip service is being paid to road safety by some motor manufacturers at the moment.

Funnily enough, going through some of my old FB posts y'day, I came across a bit of a rant of mine about Ford fitting a touch screen to a new Focus that allowed you to connect it to Amazon and purchase music for your playlist on the move.

The other thing that is a ruddy nightmare are touchscreens with multiple menus that you have to scroll through. For instance, the heater controls are on a different screen from the radio / music. Almost impossible to use on the move, particularly as you can't 'feel' the buttons like you can conventional heater / radio controls.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Mercedes are making a big thing about their new "zero layer" infotainment system which has no sub menus.

Apparently the Porsche system with differnet types of buzzy feedback is good.

They're both cheaper and lighter than buttons

Tesla wiper wise....in my BMW I never have cause to use anything other than the auto wipers or the single wash/wipe pull. Push a button on the stalk to activate the auto wipers and you're done. The car never gets it wrong IME. Can't speak to how good the Tesla the system is though, but I imagine Tesla are thinking manually adjusting the wiper speed is something you'd do once in a blue moon.

[Mussels]

Manually adjusting wipers may be a blue moon thing but when you find you need to then it's probably urgent.
I like the zero layer thing but it's still not tactile and I still won't want a touch screen, the one in the Jag seems generally well thought out with some buttons on the dash to take you straight to the correct menu but they still didn't do enough testing for inconsistencies.

My other big issue with touch screens is they are a single point of failure, if one button goes it's not usually much of a problem but if the screen breaks then the car is possibly unusable.

[KungFooBob]

in my BMW I never have cause to use anything other than the auto wipers or the single wash/wipe pull. Push a button on the stalk to activate the auto wipers and you're done.

It used to annoy the tits off me that you couldn't just leave the auto wipers on all the time, in both my BMW and my Mini.

On the SL there's two levels of auto wipe and it stays on the setting all the time (cos it's a mechanical knob, not a button).

[Mr. Dazzle]

The only thing which annoys me about my auto wipers is the fact the "on" light is basically invisible It's on the front of the stalk and hence facing the back of the steering wheel. The only way to see if its on is to move your head to a position it wouldn't normally be in when driving.

Touchscreens are largely here to stay IMO. Buttons are expensive and heavy, which is reason enough for OEMs to want them gone.

TBF the Tesla system could be vastly improved with just a little development. Something like a "double click" of the stalk makes the touchscreen come up with massive buttons to adjust wiper speed for 5s...something like that anyway. Literally split the screen into 4 massive buttons like a kids game for a couple of seconds, then revert back to whatever is was showing before. Things like that will come along probably.

[wheelnut]

My other big issue with touch screens is they are a single point of failure, if one button goes it's not usually much of a problem but if the screen breaks then the car is possibly unusable.

My last car was an Mercedes A250, the one with the long TFT screen. We arrived back from holiday to Manchester airport in the middle of the night, back to the car, started it up to find the screens weren’t working. Drove back from Manchester with no screens/speedos.

They failed three times in the two years I had it, along with numerous other warranty niggles. TBH, the whole car felt like one big beta test bed.

[Horse]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59781310

Tesla has agreed to make changes to its Passenger Play feature that allowed games to be played on its touchscreen while the car is in motion.

[Lutin]

Loo out Milton Keynes - Milton Keynes to hold large-scale driverless car trial

A major trial of driverless cars on the public roads will begin in Milton Keynes later this month.

The Fetch car system, backed by the government and Milton Keynes Council, will allow people to order a car through an app.

The car, which is remotely controlled by an operator, will then be delivered to them.

The company behind the trials says a "safety driver" will also initially be in every vehicle.

"It's driverless but not autonomous," said Koosha Kaveh, the chief executive of Imperium Drive, the company behind the trials.

"There's still a human involved, but they'll be sitting in a control centre controlling the vehicle in the same way you would control a drone."

So, not really driverless then.

[The Spin Doctor]

"There's still a human involved, but they'll be sitting in a control centre controlling the vehicle in the same way you would control a drone."

[/quote]

I wonder what they'll be looking for on the CV - 'prior experience of Grand Theft Auto'?

What could possibly go wrong, driving a car on public roads from a remote location?

[Cousin Jack]

I wonder what they'll be looking for on the CV - 'prior experience of Grand Theft Auto'?

What could possibly go wrong, driving a car on public roads from a remote location?

I would be really interested in the knowing latency of that system. How long between the remote operator hitting the emergency stop or initiating a violent swerve, and the car reacting. My guess is that it will be far longer than a real on-board driver.

[The Spin Doctor]

I would be really interested in the knowing latency of that system. How long between the remote operator hitting the emergency stop or initiating a violent swerve, and the car reacting. My guess is that it will be far longer than a real on-board driver.

Excellent point - the data has to flow to the operator, then back to the vehicle before anything can happen. I imagine there will be significant delays.

[slowsider]

I would be really interested in the knowing latency of that system. How long between the remote operator hitting the emergency stop or initiating a violent swerve, and the car reacting. My guess is that it will be far longer than a real on-board driver.

Excellent point - the data has to flow to the operator, then back to the vehicle before anything can happen. I imagine there will be significant delays.

ADAS is there because the human driver response is non-optimal.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I do wonder about this "remote driving" bit...

I doubt that it's literally a person sat in front of a steering wheel driving the car. I'd guess they can just tell the car "go here, go there" so of things and the immediate driving is done by the vehicle.

You see what I assume is the same sort of thing on the delivery robots here in MK. They come across a new situation they've not seen before and they'll sit motionless for a minute or two. In that period they're phoning the helpdesk back at base and waiting for a human operator to tell them "go left" or "back up to that drop kerb" or whatever.

[slowsider]

I do wonder about this "remote driving" bit...

I doubt that it's literally a person sat in front of a steering wheel driving the car. I'd guess they can just tell the car "go here, go there" so of things and the immediate driving is done by the vehicle.

You see what I assume is the same sort of thing on the delivery robots here in MK. They come across a new situation they've not seen before and they'll sit motionless for a minute or two. In that period they're phoning the helpdesk back at base and waiting for a human operator to tell them "go left" or "back up to that drop kerb" or whatever.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/teleopera ... rless-cars
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... y-shortcut

[Horse]

I do wonder about this "remote driving" bit...

I doubt that it's literally a person sat in front of a steering wheel driving the car. I'd guess they can just tell the car "go here, go there" so of things and the immediate driving is done by the vehicle.

You see what I assume is the same sort of thing on the delivery robots here in MK. They come across a new situation they've not seen before and they'll sit motionless for a minute or two. In that period they're phoning the helpdesk back at base and waiting for a human operator to tell them "go left" or "back up to that drop kerb" or whatever.

That sounds how some off-road implementations work. A single person might have oversight of several vehicles. Slightly different in that, for instance, in a quarry they would all be travelling along pre-planned routes.

[Cousin Jack]

If I still lived in MK I would be happy enough to cope with a confused robot waiting for instructions on the redway. The worst that could happen is that a bicycle could crash into it - potentially painfull but rarely life-threatening.
I would be less happy with a confused car on a 70mph dual carriageway.

[slowsider]

I do wonder about this "remote driving" bit...

I doubt that it's literally a person sat in front of a steering wheel driving the car. I'd guess they can just tell the car "go here, go there" so of things and the immediate driving is done by the vehicle.

You see what I assume is the same sort of thing on the delivery robots here in MK. They come across a new situation they've not seen before and they'll sit motionless for a minute or two. In that period they're phoning the helpdesk back at base and waiting for a human operator to tell them "go left" or "back up to that drop kerb" or whatever.

That sounds how some off-road implementations work. A single person might have oversight of several vehicles. Slightly different in that, for instance, in a quarry they would all be travelling along pre-planned routes.

I picture it more like Reaper drone operations. As long as you are not in a wedding party you should be okay.

[Horse]

I would be less happy with a confused car on a 70mph dual carriageway.

If it's allowed on them.

Typically, automated systems are designed to operate in an 'ODD', operating design domain. Add in geofencing to restrict travel.