140 – Self-Driving Cars

17 Responses to 140 – Self-Driving Cars

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2. otauhoerer says:

   February 2, 2014 at 15:37

   Highly recommended is the “Progamming a Robotic Car, CS373” class at Udacity.com, taught by Sebastian Thrun. You will learn a lot (A* search, Kalman Filters etc.)

3. MaNo says:

   February 2, 2014 at 17:00

   Thanks, this is a great suggestion!

4. ωt-Hörer says:

   February 3, 2014 at 01:10

   Good introduction and you touched on a lot of interesting topics. The focus was clearly on the systems and society perspective and you nailed that.

   I would love to see another episode focusing more on the CS and societal angle of Artificial Intelligence in general. E.g. an overview which kinds of algorithms are actually used for certain tasks and where their strengths and limitations lie. Just a coarse overview ofc.. I’d also love to hear an experts opinion on how far away we are from strong AI and what “Intelligence” even means. I’ve read Ray Kurzweil’s “How to create a mind” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_Mind) and he makes it sound like we most likely have all the parts and only need to figure out how to properly put them together and some other perspective on that would be interesting.

   Thanks to everyone involved in ωt. This podcast is definitely the best out there.

5. MaNo says:

   February 3, 2014 at 08:20

   Thank you nononono …. :) Wrt. to AI, did you hear the interview with Ray Mooney? Some of the topics you mentioned are in there:
   http://omegataupodcast.net/2013/04/122-artificial-intelligence/

   Markus

6. evan_au says:

   February 4, 2014 at 10:42

   I think the civilian “killer app” will be autonomous taxis. It is expensive to pay drivers 12 or 24 hours per day to keep a “manual” car on the road – a large part of which is spent waiting in a taxi rank. And it’s dangerous in some areas.
   If you leave out the driver, you can pay for the fancy electronics – and you can fit an extra passenger.
   The big question: Will the public trust them?

7. MaNo says:

   February 4, 2014 at 10:47

   Good point. Though I am not sure that taxi drivers are paid for the waiting time :-)

8. Joseph Coco says:

   February 5, 2014 at 22:39

   I’ve known some people who work in this area and am excited for the future. I do wonder though if we’ve passed the point of ‘does it work’ and onto finer details such as can we detect when we can poll the sensors less frequently or even shut some off to conserve operating efficiency. Further, assuming we’re moving towards complete autonomy, how would sensor failure or malfunction be handled?
   The security systems you’re discussing for cars sound similar to methods people are trying to put into RFID. Apparently a ton of papers have been published on the subject since I first read about it years ago, but hopefully the auto security measures will actually be implemented since the technology hasn’t become mainstream yet.
   On a final note, a lot of people care about the aesthetics of their car. If car manufactures start integrating these sensors, do the limitations of the technology require they be so obtrusive? As in, must they be tacked onto the roof and grill? From a quick search, it appears as though Nissan has seamlessly integrated a lot of these sensors without them sticking out like a rear-view mirror, but I don’t know if it’s as robust as Google’s.

9. MaNo says:

   February 6, 2014 at 09:13

   I think we will get used to the changing aesthetics. We also got to like the new streamlined, windtunnel-optimized shape, didn’t we?

10. otauhoerer says:

    February 7, 2014 at 20:07

    Please also note that driverless cars currently only work in sunny California. Bad weather conditions? Rain, snow, fog? No lane markers? No way to use GPS for now, not accurate enough.

11. MaNo says:

    February 8, 2014 at 13:52

    Weather is a good point. Didn’t think to ask about that….

12. Greg says:

    February 18, 2014 at 17:55

    Another great episode, but still left me wanting more. I’m very curious to see examples of what the DSL looks like — i.e. what level is it written at? And how many lines of DSL are there to control the car? Great stuff about event-triggered vs. time-triggered, but would be very interesting to know examples of the events. Also, I think someone said that in a car, if you get into a situation where you don’t know what to do, you can always stop, unlike an airplane. But, if you are zooming down a freeway, seems like stopping could be dangerous, too.

13. MaNo says:

    February 18, 2014 at 19:57

    I will forward this to Jonathan for the DSL examples.

    But yes, you are right, stopping is certainly not always simple or feasible :-)

    Markus

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16. Sebastian says:

    December 18, 2014 at 12:59

    Great stuff. Thx. I mean I´ve been working in the automotive world for a while. I thought that I am quite experienced. But Jonathan gave me some interesting eye-openers. Thank you! It is good to get fresh input from time to time.

    But honestly I am thinking that we should think globally about the self driving cars. But in the detailed requirements we have to think locally. I mean I am german but I´ve been living in Spain since 2010. And I can see definitely a difference in the driving behavior and rules between Germany and Spain. Anyway I am looking forward to see self-driving cars. and for the next episode from OmegaTau.

    Sebastian

17. MaNo says:

    December 18, 2014 at 19:26

    I see your point with the local details. But I am not sure we want to program autonomous cars to drive like Italians (at least not those in Naples I experienced during my vacation two years ago) :-)

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