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Autopilot 7.0: When to be most on your toes?
- Thread starter Papafox
- Start date
That seems like bad road design... drivers (and autopilots) are trained to stay to the right of yellow lines...
mspohr
Well-Known Member
MikeBur
ManualPilot
Thanks. Never in WRC (unless the W in case was Wrexham inside joke)).
There's definitely a balance required and I actually think it's about right. I wouldn't want auto steering to disable when just resting your hands on the wheel. My comments are primarily to warn others of this consequence in this rare situation.
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Love it. Maybe a shame site would be enough for the default upload? ;-)
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Was thinking the same. There's a definite balance. Nice idea on sports setting though I thought, when set to Normal, the steering wheel increases in resistance already? Might be psychosomatic though ;-)
garygid
Member
lg_golfs said:
Most likely the AP software is thinking that the approaching double yellow lines are
the division between your direction of traffic and oncoming traffic, and it wants to
get you back to the right of those "center" lines to avoid possible oncoming traffic.
So, apparently driving in HOV lanes is not yet a supported lane-marking type.
Well, the HOV lanes that I'm used to use double white lines, not yellow, and I have no issue with them here in GA.
cmu5p
Member
Update on TRACTOR-TRAILERS: had many opportunities to test this out this week and it seems to be a shadow phenomenon. Only consistent time this happened is driving south in the afternoon, passing in the left lane in the large truck's shadow. I think AP may sense it as an obstruction (although the proximity sensors (white/yellow, etc) don't go off) and suddenly will veer car to the left. No "hold wheel" warning, either. I have used AP passing no-shadow trucks without issue. Will keep testing......
I'm on a highway trip at present and will look for similar behaviors. When you say, "veers left" does the autosteer shut off, does the car stay in its lane but change to the other side of the lane? Please give a bit more info. Thx.
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Noted on first post. Thanks Al.
What interests me most at this time is whether the blue line for that lane on the autopilot dashboard image disappears at such times. We ought to keep an eye out for that situation. I have videos from a webcam and from a video cam aimed at autopilot image from today's drive and will try to see if blue lane disappears next to truck casting a shadow.
I will beef up a statement about big trucks on the first post because of these continued reports.
cmu5p
Member
Papa, et. Al.: (see what I did there?
yes, the circumstances have to be "just right". I thought the car veered away from the truck but in retrospect may have veered towards the truck, then I take the wheel and over correct left towards the guardrail on a two lane southbound interstate. This happened three times on day 1 of use. Will do more road research, but in the last days, have been traveling that stretch of interstate at night, so no shadows. Stay tuned.
cmu5p and all,
One of the positive aspects of the autopilot display on the dash is that it thinks out loud on many items. If you see a blue line drawn on both sides of your lane, the display is telling you that it is making it's computations based upon usable lane markers. Those blue lines sometimes extend far (level ground) and sometimes shortened (Tesla is cresting the top of a hill). We see the grey, yellow or orangish-red semi-circles flash on the left or right front or rear sides of the Tesla image when it detects objects to the side. In the coming weeks, we will each become more familiar with these images and use their status at the time of an event to help explain what the autopilot was doing at the time.
Note: Often you simply can't be looking at the autopilot display because your gaze is needed to be outside in order to protect your lovely Tesla. One must be careful to avoid cutting your margins too thin because you're glancing inside instead of outside at a critical moment. Safety is number 1.
To speed up my learning curve, I decided to install a video camera facing the autopilot display and then sequence these videos with the look-ahead video from my dash-cam. Through this process I am learning the autopilot better. Take the following example from my drive yesterday.
I had the video camera rolling because I was on a winding mountain road which had a concrete barrier very close to the left side of the left lane. This is not a comfortable situation if the turns are too steep. Add a semi-truck in the other lane and using autopilot in such a situation would be poor judgment.
Figure 1. On the display you can see the grey semicircle showing that the Tesla is aware of the obstacle to the left of the car. The Tesla then moved more towards the middle of the lane. Notice that I have white dashed lane markers to the right and a solid yellow line marker to the left.
Now I cross the state line and pavement turns to concrete. Something else important happens.
Figure 2. Notice that the car is closer to the concrete barrier and I was about to disconnect and take over manually, but the car then proceeded to adjust and give more room to the left.
Can you see why the car behaved worse in the second photo compared to the first?
At the time, I was unaware of the details and watching the distance to the concrete like a hawk. Relaxing at my desk, though, I see that there is no blue land marker on the left side in photo 2 in the Tesla autopilot display, but there are two lane blue lane markers in figure 1. Why is this? The reason, of course, is that the yellow line marking the left side of the left lane has disappeared! Lacking a lane edge marker on the left side, the Tesla was limited in moving to the left primarily by the side sensors, which were picking up the concrete barrier. I moved into the other lane shortly after figure 2 timeframe.
We need to learn to see the road as the autopilot sees the road until the autopilot evolves further. We need to look for lane markers (or the lack thereof). Heading on Highway 680 from Vacaville to Walnut Creek, I saw a section of highway under repair that lacked edge of road lines and that had those circular bumps instead of stripes to mark lanes. I chose to hand-drive this segment because it would clearly compromise the performance of the autopilot.
On the positive side, after learning autosteer on winding mountain highways, the use of autosteer between Sacramento and Vacaville on well-marked highways with gentle turns was a delight, both in day and at night.
One of the positive aspects of the autopilot display on the dash is that it thinks out loud on many items. If you see a blue line drawn on both sides of your lane, the display is telling you that it is making it's computations based upon usable lane markers. Those blue lines sometimes extend far (level ground) and sometimes shortened (Tesla is cresting the top of a hill). We see the grey, yellow or orangish-red semi-circles flash on the left or right front or rear sides of the Tesla image when it detects objects to the side. In the coming weeks, we will each become more familiar with these images and use their status at the time of an event to help explain what the autopilot was doing at the time.
Note: Often you simply can't be looking at the autopilot display because your gaze is needed to be outside in order to protect your lovely Tesla. One must be careful to avoid cutting your margins too thin because you're glancing inside instead of outside at a critical moment. Safety is number 1.
To speed up my learning curve, I decided to install a video camera facing the autopilot display and then sequence these videos with the look-ahead video from my dash-cam. Through this process I am learning the autopilot better. Take the following example from my drive yesterday.
I had the video camera rolling because I was on a winding mountain road which had a concrete barrier very close to the left side of the left lane. This is not a comfortable situation if the turns are too steep. Add a semi-truck in the other lane and using autopilot in such a situation would be poor judgment.
Figure 1. On the display you can see the grey semicircle showing that the Tesla is aware of the obstacle to the left of the car. The Tesla then moved more towards the middle of the lane. Notice that I have white dashed lane markers to the right and a solid yellow line marker to the left.
Now I cross the state line and pavement turns to concrete. Something else important happens.
Figure 2. Notice that the car is closer to the concrete barrier and I was about to disconnect and take over manually, but the car then proceeded to adjust and give more room to the left.
Can you see why the car behaved worse in the second photo compared to the first?
At the time, I was unaware of the details and watching the distance to the concrete like a hawk. Relaxing at my desk, though, I see that there is no blue land marker on the left side in photo 2 in the Tesla autopilot display, but there are two lane blue lane markers in figure 1. Why is this? The reason, of course, is that the yellow line marking the left side of the left lane has disappeared! Lacking a lane edge marker on the left side, the Tesla was limited in moving to the left primarily by the side sensors, which were picking up the concrete barrier. I moved into the other lane shortly after figure 2 timeframe.
We need to learn to see the road as the autopilot sees the road until the autopilot evolves further. We need to look for lane markers (or the lack thereof). Heading on Highway 680 from Vacaville to Walnut Creek, I saw a section of highway under repair that lacked edge of road lines and that had those circular bumps instead of stripes to mark lanes. I chose to hand-drive this segment because it would clearly compromise the performance of the autopilot.
On the positive side, after learning autosteer on winding mountain highways, the use of autosteer between Sacramento and Vacaville on well-marked highways with gentle turns was a delight, both in day and at night.
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This is precisely why I won't really be using auto-steer anywhere around busy areas when driving at speed. Even if everything is working perfectly it's going to change the dynamics of the reaction. In your case it turned out okay because of your mad skillz. But, most of people won't have that. We're in this weird stage of giving up control to the computer, but we still have to maintain control. So that means there is this momentary transition time.
This kind of situation isn't all that rare either especially given how many people are texting while driving, or who are impaired (drunk, high, etc). We desperately need self-driving cars, but the transition to them is a rough one.
So aside from training/testing the autosteer (when I'm more attentive than normal) I'll stick to using it either in traffic jams or in the middle of nowhere when I can relax.
MikeBur
ManualPilot
Mad skillz? ;-)
in in all seriousness, after driving another 250 miles today I prefer auto-steering for empty freeways rather than congested ones. I was really impressed at the ability of auto steering to cope well with pretty heavy fog at 5-6am on SB I5 today. There were areas where the system was disabled, though this was only for a few miles. Off freeway (single carriage way) roads were pretty good, requiring manual intervention only a few times.
One thing I have noticed is that the system is a LOT better ignoring exit ramps now, though the number of "hold the wheel" warnings have increases - I strongly suspect that these warnings are where others have overrode the system, eg approaching a number of bridges I had this happen, and I can imagine at certain times of day there is a hard shadow.
i am still thoroughly impressed by this system overall!
Mad skillz? ;-)
in in all seriousness, after driving another 250 miles today I prefer auto-steering for empty freeways rather than congested ones. I was really impressed at the ability of auto steering to cope well with pretty heavy fog at 5-6am on SB I5 today. There were areas where the system was disabled, though this was only for a few miles. Off freeway (single carriage way) roads were pretty good, requiring manual intervention only a few times.
One thing I have noticed is that the system is a LOT better ignoring exit ramps now, though the number of "hold the wheel" warnings have increases - I strongly suspect that these warnings are where others have overrode the system, eg approaching a number of bridges I had this happen, and I can imagine at certain times of day there is a hard shadow.
i am still thoroughly impressed by this system overall!
Some drivers on other threads echo your views that the number of exit departures by autopilot are on the decline. Some believe that the system is learning your most heavily traveled routes. On a recent drive on I-80 I still encountered some attempts to depart on an off-ramp, so caution is advised. Still, it's a good trend.
I don't blame some drivers for being conservative in their choice of when to use autopilot. Let us all develop our particular comfort zones. These are beautiful cars that we want to protect. That said, as we define and better understand the potential challenges to autosteer, we become smarter about when autosteer can perform easily and when it is challenged. The net result is that we can better predict when autosteer will be functioning within our particular comfort zones.
The other night I was tired and driving on a highway with only shallow curves and good markings. I turned autosteer on and really appreciated having the help with the driving. Autosteer performed beautifully and was a very positive addition. This technology is already very useful and will become more so at a rather rapid clip, I suspect.
Road Construction Areas
In many cases, highways undergoing road work are poor choices for autosteer usage. Think of the rules that the autopilot functions by as a game of "Simon says". The autosteer only does what it is allowed to do, but in a road construction area, cones across lanes can ask for behaviors that are not allowed. Consider a conversation between the driver and the autopilot as the Tesla approaches a road construction zone.
Driver: Clicks speed control down one large push, "Simon says speed 60 mph"
Autopilot: "Your wish is my command"
Driver: Clicks speed control down one more large push, "Simon says speed 55 mph"
Autopilot: "Your wish is my command"
Driver notices cones directing all traffic to cut left through two lanes to follow a narrow corridor on the left edge of the highway
Driver: "You're not following the cones!"
Autopilot: silence (but thinking "I need to hear Simon says and an allowed command. I cannot cross lane edge until turn signal is activated, and I follow lane lines, not cones")
Driver: Turns wheel, autosteer clicks off, proceeds to follow cones
Many times, I see a lack of striped lane markers and solid side of highway lines in a construction zone. Consider your average road construction area to be a little shop of horrors for an autopilot unless you assess the painted lines and purpose of cones and find them suitable.
In many cases, highways undergoing road work are poor choices for autosteer usage. Think of the rules that the autopilot functions by as a game of "Simon says". The autosteer only does what it is allowed to do, but in a road construction area, cones across lanes can ask for behaviors that are not allowed. Consider a conversation between the driver and the autopilot as the Tesla approaches a road construction zone.
Driver: Clicks speed control down one large push, "Simon says speed 60 mph"
Autopilot: "Your wish is my command"
Driver: Clicks speed control down one more large push, "Simon says speed 55 mph"
Autopilot: "Your wish is my command"
Driver notices cones directing all traffic to cut left through two lanes to follow a narrow corridor on the left edge of the highway
Driver: "You're not following the cones!"
Autopilot: silence (but thinking "I need to hear Simon says and an allowed command. I cannot cross lane edge until turn signal is activated, and I follow lane lines, not cones")
Driver: Turns wheel, autosteer clicks off, proceeds to follow cones
Many times, I see a lack of striped lane markers and solid side of highway lines in a construction zone. Consider your average road construction area to be a little shop of horrors for an autopilot unless you assess the painted lines and purpose of cones and find them suitable.
garygid
Member
When a lane splits, selecting the right or left might not be your
desired path, but crashing is usually an issue of appropriate
speed for the selected path, not simply a steering issue. Taking
an exit or left turn lane might require drastic speed reduction,
whereas taking the "main" path could often be done at much
higher speeds. If the car being "followed" by the TACC takes the
other path, all of a sudden your car might be faced with totally
stopped traffic, slow traffic, an accident or obstruction, etc.
So, splitting lanes is not a "trivial" left or right issue.
Handling merging lanes is a comparative nightmare situation
which almost always requires significant human attention,
usually to anticipate what the drivers of the merging vehicles
will attempt to do, and attempting to cooperate to avoid crashes.
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In the first pictures, it appears that the car is too far left of centered
between the lane lines, perhaps because it is on a curve?
In the second pictures, it appears that the sensors are overestimating
the distance to the divider wall, and that the car might be centered
between the percieved wall position and the lane marking on the right.
However, the sensor arcs might not be drawn to scale, and the car still
appears to be too far to the left.
desired path, but crashing is usually an issue of appropriate
speed for the selected path, not simply a steering issue. Taking
an exit or left turn lane might require drastic speed reduction,
whereas taking the "main" path could often be done at much
higher speeds. If the car being "followed" by the TACC takes the
other path, all of a sudden your car might be faced with totally
stopped traffic, slow traffic, an accident or obstruction, etc.
So, splitting lanes is not a "trivial" left or right issue.
Handling merging lanes is a comparative nightmare situation
which almost always requires significant human attention,
usually to anticipate what the drivers of the merging vehicles
will attempt to do, and attempting to cooperate to avoid crashes.
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In the first pictures, it appears that the car is too far left of centered
between the lane lines, perhaps because it is on a curve?
In the second pictures, it appears that the sensors are overestimating
the distance to the divider wall, and that the car might be centered
between the percieved wall position and the lane marking on the right.
However, the sensor arcs might not be drawn to scale, and the car still
appears to be too far to the left.
robertvg
Extremely Well-Known Member
Correct, one of the problems with current TACC is that it will launch you overtaking other cars on the inside when a car you were following in that lane takes an exit and moves out from in front of you. If you had TACC set to a higher speed you will speed up and surprise other drivers. You can also be penalised for it. I can see this not being a problem in the US following a 'keep your lane' policy but with a 'keep your speed' system it doesn't work.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Drivers in the US are so bad... they all want to drive in the left lane. I've found I can make better time on the outside lanes. Today I was driving on the Interstate and it went from 2 lanes to 3 up a hill. Everybody kept to the left. I moved to the empty right lane and passed them all.
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