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Autonomous Car Progress
- Thread starter stopcrazypp
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diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Even more cynical: to meet the newly announced 5% goal they are having a few vehicle driving around the block late at night, making right turns only in a low speed none occupied region.I hope I'm wrong and they are tremendously successful.
It's not a goal. They are already doing 5% driverless. And they are not driving around late at night on empty streets, the 5% that are driverless are driving in broad day light through busy intersections with traffic and pedestrians.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
They don't require "constant supervision". And the SAE says that L4 can have safety drivers:
The level of a driving automation system feature corresponds to the feature’s production design intent. This applies regardless of whether the vehicle on which it is equipped is a production vehicle already deployed in commerce, or a test vehicle that has yet to be deployed. As such, it is incorrect to classify a level 4 design-intended ADS feature equipped on a test vehicle as level 2 simply because on-road testing requires a test driver to supervise the feature while engaged, and to intervene if necessary to maintain safe operation.
So no, Waymo cars are not L2 just because they have safety drivers!
I love this comment so much for various reasons. It is vacuous, lacking any remote inkling of logical thought or intelligence. You have been repeatedly corrected many times yet you keep on repeating it. This comment can literally be applied to any company and it would fit because it is a throwaway comment that does not have any insight. Keyword to remember is "intent", you were already told in the other thread.
Lets put it to the test with one tweak.
Cruise
Tesla
Zoox
Mobileeye
You know what all these companies have in common? They are all developing autonomous vehicle technology, none of them have any commercial autonomous taxi program but technologically speaking they are all engaged in developing technologies that will enable autonomous driving. They all also test L4 vehicles on public roads with safety drivers except for Tesla.
Which bring me to how inane your comment is.
Tesla
There is no public evidence that Tesla has a L4 test vehicle, they have only ever reported a L3 vehicle that drove 12 miles with zero disengagement. But we all know they are testing vehicles one way or another even when there has not been a single sighting of one. We assume they are testing in consumer vehicles when you use Autopilot but also they must also have vehicles with more advanced features that they test with as a technology company that builds things. Your comment states that they don't simply because they have a safety driver which for the hundredth time is not a prerequisite to something being L4. The design intent is what makes it so as long the vehicle can accomplish all tasks of driving safely within its operational design domain.
There is but 1 company that actually has and is testing an autonomous taxi service, and that would be waymo. We know this because they are required by law to report their data. From their data we can see that they give more than 6000 paid rides in their autonomous taxi service per month and of those roughly 300 is fully driverless without a backup driver per month.
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
Devil's advocate: Smart Summon is just as Level 4 as Waymo's driverless vehicles. They are both remotely monitored by humans who have the ability to abort the operation of the vehicle. Only the ODD (and quality of autonomy) are different.
One problem I have is that the level 4 designation allows for geofencing. Thus a car that is capable of operating without a driver in a very narrow geographical area can be called L4, but it does me no good at all. It is extremely encouraging that they can accomplish what they have, but can also be misleading if the important question (important to me) is "When can I buy a car that will drive me where I want to go while I sit in the back seat?"
Will Waymo's technology extrapolate to a driverless car here on Maui? Or does achieving L4 in a given region require a hundred thousand hours of development with a safety driver to learn every local road? If the latter is the case, they can do it in a dense market but won't bother with a sparse market. So I'm encouraged by what Waymo has accomplished, but I fear it might do me no good.
Tesla's approach seems more suitable for places where the market is thin, but they've painted themselves into a corner by insisting they can achieve tomorrow's technology with yesterday's hardware. Still, for now, Tesla is the best we can buy for our own use.
Will Waymo's technology extrapolate to a driverless car here on Maui? Or does achieving L4 in a given region require a hundred thousand hours of development with a safety driver to learn every local road? If the latter is the case, they can do it in a dense market but won't bother with a sparse market. So I'm encouraged by what Waymo has accomplished, but I fear it might do me no good.
Tesla's approach seems more suitable for places where the market is thin, but they've painted themselves into a corner by insisting they can achieve tomorrow's technology with yesterday's hardware. Still, for now, Tesla is the best we can buy for our own use.
An excellent example of what I was talking about: There's a huge difference between being able to back out of the garage or navigate a parking lot at 3 mph, and driving around in a city making unprotected left turns across traffic, but both are "driverless in a limited, specified geographical area." Maybe both are L4 but that would be terribly misleading. Being able to have the car back out of a garage can indeed be useful, but it's not the same as having the car drive your kids to school and then drive itself back home.
No it is not and the devil does not need advocating for, the devil can advocate for itself by declaring its design intent. If Smart Summon was level 4, then so is NoA, they are both monitored by humans who have the ability to abort the operation of the vehicle. Tesla makes it pretty clear it is not.
Is a farm tractor that navigates a field without any driver also level 4?
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willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
100% yes. That's literally the definition of level 4.
EDIT: Here's an example Autonomous Case IH Magnum still to feature cab
"It is repetitive work done at low speed. The tractor operates at level 3, and sometimes, when the conditions are right, the driver steps out and it continues working at level 4. Two Quadtracs then operate entirely autonomously, though someone is on hand to supervise."
Read the link you posted.
But no it is not.
J3016B: Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Driving Automation Systems for On-Road Motor Vehicles - SAE International
Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Driving Automation Systems for On-Road Motor Vehicles J3016_201806
This SAE Recommended Practice describes motor vehicle driving automation systems that perform part or all of the dynamic driving task (DDT) on a sustained basis. It provides a taxonomy with detailed definitions for six levels of driving automation, ranging from no driving automation (level 0) to full driving automation (level 5), in the context of motor vehicles(hereafter also referred to as “vehicle” or “vehicles”) and their operation on roadways. These level definitions, along with additional supporting terms and definitions provided herein, can be used to describe the full range of driving automation features equipped on motor vehicles in a functionally consistent and coherent manner. “On-road” refers to publicly accessible roadways (including parking areas and private campuses that permit public access) that collectively serve users of vehicles of all classes and driving automation levels (including no driving automation), as well as motorcyclists, pedal cyclists, and pedestrians.
When Tesla says their cars are Level 3 then it is. We can debate how good their systems are but until then Smart Summon is no more level 4 as NoA.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
We've talked about this before. It makes sense to have a level that corresponds to "the car is autonomous but not in all conditions" to distinguish it from other autonomous driving. The SAE does not need to deal with the specifics of where autonomous driving works. That is a question left to the automaker to define when they market the car to you. So for example, if you go to a car dealer on Maui, you can ask does the autonomous driving work here? Presumably, if they have a dealership on Maui, then the answer is probably yes. So yes, knowing where the autonomous driving works is very important for the consumer to know, but that is information that the automaker will provide. It does not need to be specified in the SAE levels. It is enough for the SAE levels to distinguish between autonomous driving that works everywhere and autonomous driving that does not work everywhere, which it does with L5 and L4 respectively.
Yes, Waymo's tech will extrapolate to a driverless car on Maui. The real problem is not technology but more business. Waymo has the technological capability to do driverless rides on Maui but may not do it because it is not profitable enough.
Tesla certainly has the advantage of being able to deliver features to more cars, more quickly, via OTA updates. In that sense, Tesla is more useful to someone like you living on Maui. But again, that's more a matter of business model than technology. It has nothing to do with SAE levels.
So I agree that Tesla is more useful to you right now and that's certainly important.But that has little to do with the SAE levels and more to do with Tesla choosing a business model that can deliver useful features to where you happen to live even if those features are not L4.
Smart Summon is NOT L4. SS is not performing the DDT-fallback, the owner is. So there is really no confusion because of the levels. SS is not L4. Waymo cars are L4.
If you read the link you posted, you will see that they made up their own levels of autonomy that work in their environment, different from the SAE levels. So that is their new "L4" on their scale. It is not SAE Level 4. The SAE only defines autonomous driving on public roads. So a tractor in a field does not fit in any SAE levels. Probably why they made up their own levels.
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
Have we seen a documented operational failure by a Waymo vehicle? What does a successful DDT-fallback look like?
Now this is a very good question. We have yet to see anyone demonstrate what a DDT fallback scenario looks like.
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
You're the one who asked about autonomous tractors; by SAE definitions if a tractor never travels on a road, it will never be autonomous, which is a bit of an arbitrary distinction.
If we want a better extreme level 4 example, here's a shuttle in France that travels a 1.5 km route completely autonomously on roads: Navya launches level 4 fully autonomous shuttle service in France
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
At this point, I imagine that a Waymo DDT fallback looks just like a Smart Summon failure:
1. If possible, move out of the way
2. Put the emergency blinkers on
3. Ask the human for help
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
To my knowledge, Waymo has not released video of a DDT-fallback. But we do know what a DDT-fallback is supposed to look like. The car is supposed to be able to reach a minimum risk condition on its own. The SAE has several pages all about DDT-fallback and gives examples and scenarios.
SAE L4 example: A level 4 ADS-dedicated vehicle (ADS-DV) that performs the entire DDT within a geo-fenced city center experiences a DDT performance-relevant system failure. In response, the ADS-DV performs the DDT fallback by turning on the hazard flashers, maneuvering the vehicle to the road shoulder and parking it, before automatically summoning emergency assistance. (Note that in this example, the ADS-DV automatically achieves a minimal risk condition.)
So we see that if a L4 car experiences a performance-relevant system failure (also defined by the SAE) then the car should automatically on its own, turn on the hazards, maneuver the car to the side of the road, park it and summon emergency assistance.
That is not an extreme example. That falls under the SAE levels of autonomy. Navya has been testing their autonomous systems at airports since 2017, they were the same company that had a collision with another driver and had to shut down for investigation. Buses, Lorries etc. are excellent candidates for autonomous systems. A farm tractor operating in a farm does not fall under SAE category, even the NHTSA does not really regulate what happens in farms. Now if you want to operate your farm vehicle on public roads autonomously then you must meet the requirements.
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
If we've never seen a Waymo vehicle perform a DDT-fallback, how do we know it's level 4?
Are you saying the only thing stopping Smart Summon from being level 4 is a little more intelligence behind moving the car out of the right of way? Doesn't it presently turn on the hazards, park itself, and summon assistance in the event of a failure?
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
If the vehicle can perform the entire DDT and DDT-fallback on public roads in its ODD, even if the ODD is very limited (ie just an airport area), then it is L4.
Now since L4 has a limited ODD, it is certainly true that there can be a wide variation in L4 purposes. A roboshuttle in an airport and a robotaxi that is geofenced to the entire LA metro area, are both L4 even though their purposes are quite different. But both vehicles have the same characteristic of performing the entire DDT and DDT fallback in their ODD, hence they are both L4.
Now since L4 has a limited ODD, it is certainly true that there can be a wide variation in L4 purposes. A roboshuttle in an airport and a robotaxi that is geofenced to the entire LA metro area, are both L4 even though their purposes are quite different. But both vehicles have the same characteristic of performing the entire DDT and DDT fallback in their ODD, hence they are both L4.
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