blandy Posted July 31, 2022 Moderator Share Posted July 31, 2022 2 hours ago, limpid said: I've had some involvement with automated drones. In order to have widespread autonomous use, they will have to be able to demonstrate that they are as safe as commercial aircraft and that will likely need whole new frameworks for traffic control and accident investigation. It took us three years to get legal approval to fly autonomously over one motorway on one route (not as a regular service). IIRC the final step to get the consent was automatic airbag and parachute deployment if the triple redundant compute platform failed to achieve quorum. I think that brought us to one predicted failure per 1m flying hours. There are several more magnitudes of improvement required before they can be fully autonomous, but this was about three years ago so I don't know how far it has progressed. They'll be in cities within 10 years and probably flying in beacon defined corridors by the end of the decade. The use cases will rarely be delivering parcels to people's houses, despite the media regularly getting excited about this. Me too. Lots . There’s a thread on drones here I agree, pretty much with what you’ve written. They are cleared now to deliver medicine to the Isle of Wight or is it Portland, I forget. There’s also a special corridor set up for proving activities in the uk. Like I said earlier the regulatory approval is the biggest hurdle, the technology is there now. And to go back to the off topic thread topic - automated cars stuff it’s pretty much transferable to cars. I guess scale is an advantage in terms of cost for cars and the budgets are possibly higher in motoring companies compared to a lot of SME drone companies who work on a relative shoestring 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 I think that once cars get towards ADAS level 5 manufacturers will actually back away from it and settle around level 2-3. Features like crash avoidance, emergency braking, lane keep assist will become standard. Things like autopilot (imo) won’t catch on en-mass because they’ll be littered with glitches and misinterpretations causing accidents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted July 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted July 31, 2022 33 minutes ago, bickster said: They won't suddenly bring in automated cars and ban everyone from driving Well thanks for ruining my Sunday. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 3 hours ago, limpid said: They'll be in cities within 10 years and probably flying in beacon defined corridors by the end of the decade. The use cases will rarely be delivering parcels to people's houses, despite the media regularly getting excited about this. Am I right in thinking that the most difficult technical challenge is landing in unpredictable areas with no marked and monitored landing area, e.g., people's gardens? It only takes one customer being injured because they were a moron and ran under the drone, or it got snagged on something, etc, and it'll be a PR disaster. Like self-driving cars, they're held to a much higher standard in terms of acceptable failure/injury rates than human operators. It's been several years since Amazon et al heralded the introduction of drone deliveries, but I suspect we're far more likely to see them used for deliveries within a business's different locations, or between businesses, in both cases in well controlled delivery spots that have easy, predictable and safe places to land outside the interference of the general public, with the final mile continuing to be done by humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 31, 2022 Administrator Share Posted July 31, 2022 Just now, Davkaus said: Am I right in thinking that the most difficult technical challenge is landing in unpredictable areas with no marked and monitored landing area, e.g., people's gardens? It only takes one customer being injured because they were a moron and ran under the drone, or it got snagged on something, etc, and it'll be a PR disaster. Like self-driving cars, they're held to a much higher standard in terms of acceptable failure/injury rates than human operators. Yes, which is why no-one is working on that. It's all point to point, at least for the flying autonomous stuff. Even Musk isn't trying to land things in arbitrary places. 1 minute ago, Davkaus said: It's been several years since Amazon et al heralded the introduction of drone deliveries, but I suspect we're far more likely to see them used for deliveries within a business's different locations, or between businesses, in both cases in well controlled delivery spots that have easy, predictable and safe places to land outside the interference of the general public, with the final mile continuing to be done by humans. My knowledge is out of date, but AFAIK Amazon are still testing within a regulatory framework which means a string of human operators must be available to take over flight and must therefore maintain line of sight to the drone at all times. My suspicion is they are desperately trying to look innovative. Drones are good for logistics, not for consumers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 31, 2022 Moderator Share Posted July 31, 2022 1 minute ago, limpid said: Even Musk isn't trying to land things in arbitrary places. Except every time he posts on Twitter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted July 31, 2022 Moderator Share Posted July 31, 2022 18 minutes ago, Davkaus said: Am I right in thinking that the most difficult technical challenge is landing in unpredictable areas with no marked and monitored landing area, e.g., people's gardens? I disagree with Simon on this. It’s not the most difficult hurdle and the reason is that, well, 2 things really. The first is it’s not necessarily necessary to actually land to deliver a package. The second, and this also applies to military drones ( e.g. for targeting information) is that a sensor (a camera, say) can send back imagery to the GCS (Ground Control) either video or stills sequence, which combined with GPS data and laser height sensing data and etc. can allow landing to be a fairly straightforward part of a sortie. What’s harder, IMO, is the airspace integration stuff - sense and avoid, responding to ATC (if applicable, sometimes it won’t be a factor at all) so that it’s transparent to ATC whether an aircraft is manned or unmanned. it’s also a challenge to address the issue of legal responsibility- at all times someone is legally responsible for the vehicle. In the event of an incident that person is liable. So they need to have a load of stuff to make sure they can safely command the vehicle such that they don’t end up in front of the beak. There’s a whole ton of stuff needed for that. The larger the UAV the bigger the challenge, really, because the potential nature of a crash obviously increases with size. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bielesibub Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 2 hours ago, TheAuthority said: The selfishness, idiocy, arrogance and foolishness I see every day on the road by humans compared to a possible once in a while software bug - I will take it to be honest. I was nearly driven into yesterday while I was stationary waiting to make a turn. That was caused by 2 people doing dumb things and I would have been seriously injured if the car that nearly hit me had slightly less wear left on their brakes. What you have to remember is that if every car is fully automated, the software won't have to deal with humans acting like they are Nigel Mansell or an 80 year old woman decided it's ok to pull out at 4 miles per hour into oncoming traffic. This for me is why I can't wait for fully automated cars, IMO there aren't enough decent drivers out there, if you can't understand a 20mph sign means 20mph then go fall off a cliff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 3 minutes ago, bielesibub said: This for me is why I can't wait for fully automated cars, IMO there aren't enough decent drivers out there, if you can't understand a 20mph sign means 20mph then go fall off a cliff. There are a lot of awful drivers about, agreed, but I can never see fully automated cars. You'll always need a driver who can manually override the computer in the event of an emergency/issue. People aren't going to sit in the drivers seat and be driven about. I certainly wouldn't. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 I agree it’ll likely never be fully automated. But I do look forward to the day the car knows the max speed and won’t go above it. Be honest, when have you ever been in an emergency situation where the safest possible option was to accelerate beyond the legal speed limit? (I’ll write down the user names of the three people that say they have…) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted July 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted July 31, 2022 (edited) I'm suprised to see people say they'll never be fully automated. Like in 1,000 years from now? There will come a point where they are SO much safer than people that there will be public outcry about road deaths from manual drivers / manual override that they will be forced to take the man out of the machine. Edited July 31, 2022 by sidcow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 Well, never say never. But I can’t see it happening any time soon. By soon, I mean 20 or so years. I can’t even see how they are going to go electric anytime soon. All those terraced streets with people trailing their own power leads out to their car which they’ve managed to park 5 houses down on the other side of the road? We always think we are just one step away from personal nuclear jet packs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 I deal with many incidents where the customer has had a accident or damaged a car and blames the systems. I have one at the moment where the customer is trying to take us to court over a RTA, where their car has apparently veered into a car on the motorway. We cannot find any problems with the car, an the diagnosis shows the customer did not have his hands on the steering wheel at the time. Even though the car can drive fully autonomous, it will always be marketed and sold as an assistance system and not a self driving car. So legally he doesn't have a leg to stand on, but we have to go through the processes. We even have people say systems stick on and don't switch off getting them a speeding fine, yeah right. The best one was for a whiplash claim whereby the auto braking came on at 70 mph on the motorway. Unfortunately they don't know how much we can check. We downloaded the data from the front camera and on the date this happened he was never actually on the motorway, although he was doing 85 down a 40 mph road when the emergency braking activated, I was happy to advise him of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitvilla Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 2 hours ago, chrisp65 said: But I do look forward to the day the car knows the max speed and won’t go above it. Well the hopefully they get it right. My wife's car says the the speed limit outside of the local RCMP detachment is 80 km/h when it is 60 km/h. And on a foggy day my car thinks it is driving in a farmer's field on the other side of the valley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted July 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted July 31, 2022 2 hours ago, Xela said: People aren't going to sit in the drivers seat and be driven about. I certainly wouldn't. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 3 minutes ago, fruitvilla said: Well the hopefully they get it right. My wife's car says the the speed limit outside of the local RCMP detachment is 80 km/h when it is 60 km/h. And on a foggy day my car thinks it is driving in a farmer's field on the other side of the valley. Yep, its not perfect yet, hence looking forward to the day. Meanwhile every dickwad thinks they are the super driver racing through town in their shitty Audi A3 diesel. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted July 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted July 31, 2022 7 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Meanwhile every dickwad thinks they are the super driver racing through town in their shitty Audi A3 diesel. When you get older, your sense of mortality gets stronger and especially having kids, the idea of some moron clipping your back end at 80 mph and ending your life is enraging. And all because they watched Vin Diesel in Fast & Furious part 29 and want to be like him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Meanwhile every dickwad thinks they are the super driver racing through town in their shitty Audi A3 diesel. It's a petrol, thank you very much. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 15 minutes ago, TheAuthority said: I knew someone would refer to that Never ended well for Johnny Cab though! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 The issue for me is the seemingly lack of any real punishment for driving like a helmet. How many offences has Katie Price been convicted of? Still not a single day in prison. Anyway, probably the wrong thread for it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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