Driverless Cars Still Handled by Humans—From Afar

[Dashinka 24,764]

Hmm, just a little Big-brotherish for my tastes.  I wonder what happens if one of these human controllers goes nuts, or is impaired and injures or kills someone remotely.  I also wonder what happens when they lose cellular communication.  The Phantom method is interesting in that it looks like the driver simulators from bygone days only this time real people will be in the vehicle, and the operator will be safe inside an office somewhere.  I think I would rather drive my own car.

 

By

Tim Higgins

Tim Higgins

The Wall Street Journal

•  
• BiographyTim Higgins
• @timkhiggins
• tim.higgins@wsj.com

June 5, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

 

Some Phoenix-area residents have been hailing rides in minivans with no drivers and no human safety operators inside. But that doesn’t mean they’re on their own if trouble arises.

From a command center, employees at Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL +0.40% Waymo driverless-car unit monitor the test vehicles on computer screens, able to wirelessly peer in through the minivan’s cameras. If the robot brain maneuvering the vehicle gets confused by a situation—say, a car unexpectedly stalled in front of it or closed lanes of traffic—it will stop the vehicle and ask the command center to verify what it is seeing. If the human confirms the situation, the robot will calculate how it should navigate around the hazard.

Computers may be poised to take control of driving in the future, but humans will be backing them for some time yet. Tech giants Waymo and Uber Technologies Inc., auto makers General Motors Co. GM -0.27% and Nissan Motor Co. NSANY -1.31% , and upstarts like Phantom Auto are all developing ways for people to remotely assist their autonomous vehicles during complicated driving situations.

“You’re going to want as many different backup systems as possible, and human beings performing remote operations is one of those,” said Anthony Foxx, former U.S. Transportation Secretary and adviser to venture-capital firm Autotech Ventures. Having human backup will likely help alleviate concerns that regulators and insurance companies have about the new technology, he added.

Driverless cars, using sensors, cameras and digital maps, tend to navigate the world based on road markings and rules of the road. A police officer with a flag waving traffic around a crash, for example, could be confusing to the system, resulting in the vehicle stopped.

Testing of self-driving vehicles on public roads underscores that even the most established autonomous-vehicle systems still require humans to take the wheel in such instances, or when there is a perceived safety threat. According to California state records, human operators of Waymo test vehicles took control 0.8 times for every 1,000 miles driven. Most companies had significantly more takeovers.

In April, California adopted new testing rules for driverless cars that no longer demand a human safety operator be behind the wheel, but they do require a person to remotely monitor the car and communicate with riders. The provision also says the remote operator may have the ability to control the driving task.

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Waymo and GM’s Cruise Automation say their remote operators use two-way cellular connections to convey messages to cars. The vehicles seek help from a safe location, such as when stopped, then ping the operator for help to confirm a situation and, if still confused, that person can then plot out a suggested alternative path to avoid the obstacle, according to the companies. The robot won’t proceed if it doesn’t think the path is clear and, in theory, the computer brain will learn how to handle similar situations in the future, the companies say.

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Phantom Auto aims to go further, enabling a person to remotely drive its vehicles when necessary, such as navigating a car through a gas-station parking lot that lacks lane markings.

On a recent afternoon at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, an employee guided a Lincoln sedan around the block on public roads using cellular signals. He viewed the car’s surroundings through cameras displayed on five computer screens and used a videogame-style steering wheel and two foot pedals to accelerate and brake. A safety operator was in the car.

“The technology that is powering these [autonomous] vehicles has gotten to an incredible place,” said Elliot Katz, Phantom Auto’s co-founder and chief strategy officer. “We say it’s about 98% of the way there. For that last 2%, we believe a human still needs to be in the loop.”

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-does-a-driverless-car-call-when-it-needs-help-a-human-1528191000

 

 

 

 

[TBoneTX 46,055]

Whom would the traffic cops ticket, we wonder?

[Steeleballz 7,550]

52 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

Whom would the traffic cops ticket, we wonder?

 

  The car itself, the remote driver, and the passenger sitting nearest the driver seat. Triple revenue. Coming soon to a road near you.

[Dashinka 24,764]

16 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

  The car itself, the remote driver, and the passenger sitting nearest the driver seat. Triple revenue. Coming soon to a road near you.

Don't forget the software engineer who wrote the autonomous algorithms.

 

 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

Just now, Bill & Katya said:

Don't forget the software engineer who wrote the autonomous algorithms.

 

 

 

  Actually, when it comes to revenue generation, nothing would really surprise me anymore. Hopefully nobody stumbles across this topic and gets any ideas.

[TBoneTX 46,055]

37 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

The car itself, the remote driver, and the passenger sitting nearest the driver seat. Triple revenue. Coming soon to a road near you.

They do this already...

16 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

Actually, when it comes to revenue generation, nothing would really surprise me anymore. Hopefully nobody stumbles across this topic and gets any ideas.

What we need is not a driverless car, but one that's completely invisible to bored Constables.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

1 hour ago, TBoneTX said:

They do this already...

What we need is not a driverless car, but one that's completely invisible to bored Constables.

 

   I think we have to get back to what Madison said; to govern the people, you need to first have a government that can control itself. I was reminded of when we were discussing civil seizure the other day, but apt here too.

[TBoneTX 46,055]

Where's the +1,000 button?

It seems that elements of our government don't have any self-control, and don't want any.

[Dashinka 24,764]

5 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Where's the +1,000 button?

It seems that elements of our government don't have any self-control, and don't want any.

Only elements?

[bcking 3,157]

Wasn't there some report a short while back about a hacker that broke into the "On Star" system, or one similar to that, and allowed him to remotely turn off the engine of a person's car?

 

This is basically making that whole process that much easier. No need to "hack" into a system...the system is built for it.

[TBoneTX 46,055]

All the states will have to update their Motor Vehicle statutes, the insurance companies will have to add provisions... the wicket is potentially sticky.