Current Events > how are self driving vehicles going to handle the shittest roads of the world?

(+) Yeah! (+)

unmarked roads (no paint whatsoever or even reflective thingys marking the middle of the road

dirt roads surrounded by similar dirt

grassy roads

road works without proper markings, or maybe some guy standing nearby with a sign

etc
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By killing the driver and calling it a day
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not everyone lives in backwards queensland
the land time forgot. still stuck in the 1800's.
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ModLogic posted...

not everyone lives in backwards queensland
the land time forgot. still stuck in the 1800's.

country roads exist everywhere, even america. stop trolling
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They won't.

ModLogic posted...

not everyone lives in backwards queensland
the land time forgot. still stuck in the 1800's.

Even in a city like LA outside of the highways and downtown theres hundreds of miles of narrow windy back roads that have little to no markings that require you to just not be an idiot to get around.

The same way a human does. Vision (so cameras and stuff to see what is going on) and an understanding of how the car behaves and what you're trying to accomplish.
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For a long time self driving cars will have human companions until these scenarios are certain to be safe.
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Probably similar to how the GPS on your phone can handle them. It's got a map of the roads and can see its location, so it should be able to navigate the road. It doesn't know there's a right turn coming up because it sees the road curving. It knows there's a right turn because it's been told there's a right turn. The sensors scanning the surroundings are for additional precision, tracking, and obstacle avoidance.

That being said, they probably won't be allowed to handle the really shitty roads for a while. It'll get you close and then you'll be told to take over to get through extremely rough, uneven, or unmarked terrain.
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Aristoph posted...

Probably similar to how the GPS on your phone can handle them. It's got a map of the roads and can see its location, so it should be able to navigate the road. It doesn't know there's a right turn coming up because it sees the road curving. It knows there's a right turn because it's been told there's a right turn. The sensors scanning the surroundings are for additional precision, tracking, and obstacle avoidance.

That being said, they probably won't be allowed to handle the really shitty roads for a while. It'll get you close and then you'll be told to take over to get through extremely rough, uneven, or unmarked terrain.

gps is accurate to a few meters, which isnt accurate enough i dont think. assume a dirt road with no markings, surrounded by more dirt. how would the car stay on its side of the road, not crossing over onto the other, or leaving the road and driving in very bumpy shit dirt that can flip the car?
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Aristoph posted...

Probably similar to how the GPS on your phone can handle them. It's got a map of the roads and can see its location, so it should be able to navigate the road. It doesn't know there's a right turn coming up because it sees the road curving. It knows there's a right turn because it's been told there's a right turn. The sensors scanning the surroundings are for additional precision, tracking, and obstacle avoidance.

That being said, they probably won't be allowed to handle the really shitty roads for a while. It'll get you close and then you'll be told to take over to get through extremely rough, uneven, or unmarked terrain.

They will be able to drive in areas with no map or GPS available. They will use their vision to make decisions on the fly, just like a human would while driving in a new area.
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Rika_Furude posted...

gps is accurate to a few meters, which isnt accurate enough i dont think. assume a dirt road with no markings, surrounded by more dirt. how would the car stay on its side of the road, not crossing over onto the other, or leaving the road and driving in very bumpy s*** dirt that can flip the car?

I don't think you fully comprehend how accurate the sensors can be. If you "tell" the car there's a road within 3 feet of spot X, and the car's sensors scan across and register "BUMPY TERRAIN -> 15 FOOT WIDE FLAT SPACE -> BUMPY TERRAIN" it's going to be pretty easy to register the flat part as the road and drive on the right half of that flat part.

There's no need to overcomplicate the thought process here.
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Aristoph posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

gps is accurate to a few meters, which isnt accurate enough i dont think. assume a dirt road with no markings, surrounded by more dirt. how would the car stay on its side of the road, not crossing over onto the other, or leaving the road and driving in very bumpy s*** dirt that can flip the car?

I don't think you fully comprehend how accurate the sensors can be. If you "tell" the car there's a road within 3 feet of spot X, and the car's sensors scan across and register "BUMPY TERRAIN -> 15 FOOT WIDE FLAT SPACE -> BUMPY TERRAIN" it's going to be pretty easy to register the flat part as the road and drive on the right half of that flat part.

There's no need to overcomplicate the thought process here.

assume well-driven sand vs very similar sand that isnt well driven. exact same colour
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Rika_Furude posted...

Aristoph posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

gps is accurate to a few meters, which isnt accurate enough i dont think. assume a dirt road with no markings, surrounded by more dirt. how would the car stay on its side of the road, not crossing over onto the other, or leaving the road and driving in very bumpy s*** dirt that can flip the car?

I don't think you fully comprehend how accurate the sensors can be. If you "tell" the car there's a road within 3 feet of spot X, and the car's sensors scan across and register "BUMPY TERRAIN -> 15 FOOT WIDE FLAT SPACE -> BUMPY TERRAIN" it's going to be pretty easy to register the flat part as the road and drive on the right half of that flat part.

There's no need to overcomplicate the thought process here.

assume well-driven sand vs very similar sand that isnt well driven. exact same colour

How does a human distinguish between the two? The car will be able to use a similar process. Does it feel different? The car will be able to sense that in the spin of the wheels or something like that. It will be a variable that it is picking up on and able to deal with, just like a human can.
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I'm not doing your work for you, Elon.
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l Dudeboy l posted...

I'm not doing your work for you, Elon.

lol, according to recent articles Tesla is behind a bunch of other companies when it comes to self-driving. It makes sense though, the other companies are probably less distracted with all the other stuff Tesla is doing.
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Rika_Furude posted...

assume well-driven sand vs very similar sand that isnt well driven. exact same colour

That's assuming the sensors can only distinguish visible light. You do know they've pretty much universally applied laser scanning, visual scanning, infra-red scanning, internal sensors (wheel spin, shocks, etc), and a whole host of other information humans could only dream of being able to analyze while driving. Along with very sophisticated software.

Seriously, your sticking point of "finding the road" is just about the least troubling thing self-driving cars will have to deal with.
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ModLogic posted...

not everyone lives in backwards queensland
the land time forgot. still stuck in the 1800's.

classic sheltered CE response

GPS doesn't even work in lower Manhattan, it's gonna be difficult for self driving cars