What if driverless cars can call upon a network of remote human drivers that can, in the case of computer confusion, take over and drive the car through the troublesome area? Sort of like an on-demand remote pilot, drone style.
That's actually what I figured this article was about, based on the title.
"Problems that humans will have to assist with" aren't randomly & evenly distributed. For instance, compared to what one good winter storm would do, for most of the year your "emergency drivers" will be twiddling their thumbs.
Also, the distribution of the problems themselves are going to be very time sensitive. When the car yells "Oh crap, I need a human!", you're looking at at least 5 seconds for a human to respond. Even ignoring the "take a number" problem, which pushes that number arbitrarily high during times of high load. Whatever problem resulted in the car yelling "I need a human!" is probably resolved one way or another before the human gets there, because physics isn't waiting. If the car persistently needs a human, the answer is not to remote-drive the car but to stop driving entirely, so it's only the transient issues that matter.
Basically, I'm not clear on what problem this solves.
I think Volvo is working on such a concept - a human driver in the front-most car, with other cars following in a train. Cars can join and leave the train as their occupiers want. This is envisioned for use on the freeway, no idea of the actual development progress or if it's just a concept.
Iowa has been part of this at our National Advanced Driving Simulator institution. When I was in school decades ago it was all the rage. But freeways still aren't automated nor regulated enough to permit automatic driving.
Lately they've been turning their attention to more pressing needs, like learning how to help the handicapped drive.
I think the problem is just "automated". "Regulation" can't solve the problem of humans being just plain too slow to deal with that sort of scenario. It's a bad idea for humans to draft each other today; fuel economy gains will be offset by all the other negative effects. It's not ever clear to me that automation can solve the problem either; people imagining complicated driving arrangements often seem to forget that there will still be variances in cars. It does no good to build a 50-car train on the highway if car #34 turns out to have 15% less effective brakes and in the slightest emergency stop damages 15 cars in front of it.
If that sounds absurd, it's not. If you're trying to take advantage of the computer driving to run up against your safety margin, that has further effects. Sure, most of the time the computerized cars could in fact drive mere inches from each other's bumpers, but in an emergency situation this means you have no margin. You can't both spend your margin and have it when you need it.
If anything I expect robotic cars to end up being more cautious than humans in the end. Automated cars will be able to precisely calculate the risks of given driving behaviors just by their nature, and I seriously doubt that car companies are going to have any stomach for permitting their cars to engage in complicated gas-saving car behaviors that will provably be more dangerous than driving safely, which I suspect will look rather a lot like what highways do now, except with less variance in the speeds.
One of the things I'm really curious about is whether during a winter storm the cars will simply refuse to drive. That will be an interesting cultural change up here where snow is actually a thing.
Comments
What if driverless cars can call upon a network of remote human drivers that can, in the case of computer confusion, take over and drive the car through the troublesome area? Sort of like an on-demand remote pilot, drone style.
That's actually what I figured this article was about, based on the title.
"Problems that humans will have to assist with" aren't randomly & evenly distributed. For instance, compared to what one good winter storm would do, for most of the year your "emergency drivers" will be twiddling their thumbs.
Also, the distribution of the problems themselves are going to be very time sensitive. When the car yells "Oh crap, I need a human!", you're looking at at least 5 seconds for a human to respond. Even ignoring the "take a number" problem, which pushes that number arbitrarily high during times of high load. Whatever problem resulted in the car yelling "I need a human!" is probably resolved one way or another before the human gets there, because physics isn't waiting. If the car persistently needs a human, the answer is not to remote-drive the car but to stop driving entirely, so it's only the transient issues that matter.
Basically, I'm not clear on what problem this solves.
I think Volvo is working on such a concept - a human driver in the front-most car, with other cars following in a train. Cars can join and leave the train as their occupiers want. This is envisioned for use on the freeway, no idea of the actual development progress or if it's just a concept.
Iowa has been part of this at our National Advanced Driving Simulator institution. When I was in school decades ago it was all the rage. But freeways still aren't automated nor regulated enough to permit automatic driving.
Lately they've been turning their attention to more pressing needs, like learning how to help the handicapped drive.
I think the problem is just "automated". "Regulation" can't solve the problem of humans being just plain too slow to deal with that sort of scenario. It's a bad idea for humans to draft each other today; fuel economy gains will be offset by all the other negative effects. It's not ever clear to me that automation can solve the problem either; people imagining complicated driving arrangements often seem to forget that there will still be variances in cars. It does no good to build a 50-car train on the highway if car #34 turns out to have 15% less effective brakes and in the slightest emergency stop damages 15 cars in front of it.
If that sounds absurd, it's not. If you're trying to take advantage of the computer driving to run up against your safety margin, that has further effects. Sure, most of the time the computerized cars could in fact drive mere inches from each other's bumpers, but in an emergency situation this means you have no margin. You can't both spend your margin and have it when you need it.
If anything I expect robotic cars to end up being more cautious than humans in the end. Automated cars will be able to precisely calculate the risks of given driving behaviors just by their nature, and I seriously doubt that car companies are going to have any stomach for permitting their cars to engage in complicated gas-saving car behaviors that will provably be more dangerous than driving safely, which I suspect will look rather a lot like what highways do now, except with less variance in the speeds.
One of the things I'm really curious about is whether during a winter storm the cars will simply refuse to drive. That will be an interesting cultural change up here where snow is actually a thing.