CSI Tech Waymo Cohort Project: Self Driving Cars

CSI Tech Waymo Cohort Project: Self Driving Cars

New Developments Legality and Ethics Engineering and Software About Us

As technology improves, so do our methods of transportation. Currently, car accidents are a leading cause of death in the United States. A car that drives itself could prevent many of these accidents by minimizing human error and letting computers take over the steering wheel.

Self-driving cars are vehicles that use a combination of sensors, cameras, radars, and artificial intelligence to navigate roads without human action. The SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) autonomy scale determines different levels of autonomy for self-driving vehicles, ranging from 0, no assistance for drivers, to 5, full automation.

In 1925, Francis Houdina demonstrated a radio controlled car. While the radio-controlled car was not truly autonomous, it was able to drive through Manhattan without a driver at the wheel. Later, in 1969, John McCarthy wrote an essay describing a car that can drive itself towards a location specified by passengers. The car itself was not built, but the essay described modern self-driving cars decades before attempts to build them. In 1977, Tsukuba Mechanical created a vehicle that could recognize street markings. In 1987, Ernst Dickmanns modified a sedan with cameras where the imaging system would filter out unnecessary objects and only focus on the relevant ones.

Founded in 2009, Waymo is an American autonomous driving technology development company formerly owned by Google that operates a self-driving taxi-service. Waymo vehicles are level 4 on the SAE autonomy scale, meaning they can drive themselves in most situations but still require human assistance in certain circumstances. In 2015, they demonstrated their first fully autonomous ride onto public roads in Austin, TX. A couple years later, Waymo One was launched in Phoenix, Arizona, as the world’s first autonomous ride-hailing service in 2018. Feedback from the riders was integral in shaping the future of autonomous vehicles. In 2021, Waymo’s SF Trusted Tester research program began, allowing a group of San Francisco residents to use the autonomous ride-hailing service while providing feedback to aid further development.




New Developments

Many companies and institutions are trying to build a functional self-driving car, but market leaders have been coding the vehicles themselves. In addition to being expensive, it is very time consuming. To fix this problem, new startups, like Wayve, Ghost, Autobrains, and Waabi, have opted to use machine learning to try to make the cars cheaper, smarter, and before the other companies. CEO of Wayve Alex Kendall has stated, “We are seeing extraordinary amounts of spending to get very limited results”, referring to the billions investors have sunk into projects and the results are still stuck in the pilot phase. Especially when it comes to relatively simple tasks like highway driving, machine learning will have a lot of success. Wayve has already partnered with Microsoft to use its supercomputer, Azure. Along with machine learning, Tesla plans to use its supercomputer, Project Dojo, to collect and process data from its own autopilot system and the many trips its cars take. It will be a race to find out who will make the cars first, and we will see, pretty soon, who will dominate the market and with what method.

Earlier this year, Cruise unveiled the Crusie Origin, a car designed from the ground up to be self-driving. The most notable thing about this car is that it has no obvious way for the average passenger to control this car. There is no steering wheel, no gas pedal, or no brake. This caveat of the car is something that worries the average US passenger. According to a AAA poll done in 2019, 71% of U.S drivers who were surveyed said that they would be afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle. This distrust of the technology stems from how new and unknown the cars are to the general public, but usage by friends and family will encourage those who are nervous. The project itself won’t bring too much change; taxis can charge less for large groups and disablled individuals will have an easier time using taxis, but this project will represent a big leap forward where low skill jobs will start to be replaced by automation in a very visible way.




Legality and Ethics

A majority of individuals do not feel safe riding self driving cars until there is more testing done to ensure the safety of the driver and others. Drivers in self-driving cars hold an equal amount of responsibility to drivers in regular cars; most autonomous cars require a safety driver to take over the vehicle in certain situations. Fully autonomous cars that require no human assistance can only be used once they are safer and have a smaller rate of accidents than human drivers. In 2018, a self-driving car owned by Uber caused a pedestrian death, and faced a lot of criticism due to their system not stopping the car. Despite knowing there was an object on the road for six seconds, their program did not identify the object as a person and continued driving. Uber was not charged for this incident, but the safety driver inside the car was charged with negligent homicide for being distracted during the time of the accident. Examples like these where the autonomous driving program is not developed enough can cause many accidents. The ultimate goal of autonomous vehicles is to become safer than human-driven vehicles. Self-driving cars must be further tested before they can become fully autonomous.

An increase of self-driving cars raises the concern of its effects on the environment. As fuels like gasoline are burned in vehicles, toxic substances such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are emitted into the atmosphere. These substances can cause several environmental problems like air pollution and global warming. As opposed to public transportation that have fixed routes and stops, autonomous vehicles can be called directly to the rider’s location, which makes them more convenient than finding a bus stop. If more self-driving cars fill our roads and slowly replace services like public transportation, it will have negative effects on the environment.

The transition to self-driving vehicles will also impact the transportation industry and its workers. Self-driving taxi services like Waymo compete with ridesharing companies like Lyft and Uber as they essentially provide the same services. Once autonomous driving becomes safer than human driving, human rideshare companies have no way to compete. With a rapid change to autonomous vehicles, driving occupations like truck, bus, and taxi drivers will definitely be affected.




Engineering and Software

While defining a self-driving car, Ben Lutkevich explains the technology that self-driving cars use. Using large amounts of data from image recognition systems, neural networks and machine learning can identify important signs and obstacles on the road. An example he gives is Google’s Waymo which uses sensors, lidar, and cameras to identify objects around the vehicle and predict what will happen next. When the driver sets a destination, the software calculates a route to it. While on the road, lidar sensors create a 3D map of the environment and another sensor calculates where the car is relative to that map. Radars are used to determine the distance from any obstacles. The AI software in the vehicle will collect all of the sensory data and control the car while using deep learning to make decisions. The software can also check Google Maps for road information ahead of time. If something goes wrong, a driver can take control over the vehicle. Using these technologies, many cars with self-driving abilities are able to steer without driver intervention and maintain distance from other cars.

Since 2016, Waymo One has used these technologies to provide its first self- driving taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona. By mapping the entirety of the city, as well as using said neural network systems, Waymo cars are able to provide a safe, systematic and structured service. These services are hailed through their Waymo One app.

In an EE Times interview with Waymo Lidar Team Leader Simon Verghese, Verghese explained a lot about the inner mechanics of Waymo car’s LIDAR (light detection and ranging) scanners. He explained how Waymo promises that its perimeter lidars, placed at four points around a vehicle, offer “an unparalleled field of view including up to 95 ° vertical field of view, and up to 360 ° horizontal field of view.” This translates into fewer sensors needed for AVs. Waymo also claims that its lidars don’t come into many problems when it comes to range. With over millions of miles of AV testing, Waymo has spotted multiple issues that a lidar novice probably wouldn’t have had a chance to learn, that over time, sensors’ ability to see and detect objects deteriorates. Thus in the process, Waymo came up with some tips which guide their users as well as the company in keeping the cars and its equipment afloat.


Works Cited

Introduction

  • Glon, Ronan, and Stephen Edelstein. “History of Self-Driving Cars Milestones.” Digital Trends, Digital Trends, 31 July 2020, www.digitaltrends.com/cars/history-of-self-driving-cars-milestones/.
  • “SAE Levels of Driving Automation™ Refined for Clarity and International Audience.” SAE International, 3 May 2021, www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update.
  • Lutkevich, Ben. “Self-Driving Car (Autonomous Car or Driverless Car).” TechTarget, Oct. 2019, www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/driverless-car
  • Waymo, 2022, https://waymo.com/company/.
  • Wired, Brand Lab. “A Brief History of Autonomous Vehicle Technology.” Wired, Ford, 10 Aug. 2016, www.wired.com/brandlab/2016/03/a-brief-history-of-autonomous-vehicle-technology/.

New Developments

  • Kay, G. (2021, June 21). Amazon is reportedly buying 1,000 autonomous truck-driving systems, which could pave the way for one day ditching drivers. Business Insider. Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-orders-autonomous-self-driving-semi-truck-delivery-systems-report-2021-6.
  • Kendall, Alex, director. Learning to Drive in a Day . YouTube, YouTube, 2 July 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRwTbRtnT1I. Accessed 29 June 2022.
  • Heaven, W. D. (2022, May 27). The big new idea for making self-driving cars that can go anywhere. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/27/1052826/ai-reinforcement-learning-self-driving-cars-autonomous-vehicles-wayve-waabi-cruise/
  • Joseph Guzman | March 23, 2022. “Self-Driving Semis May Revolutionize Trucking While Eliminating Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs.” The Hill, The Hill, 18 Apr. 2022, https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities/599442-self-driving-semis-may-revolutionize-trucking-and/.
  • Hawkins, Andrew J. “Exclusive Look at Cruise's First Driverless Car without a Steering Wheel or Pedals.” The Verge, The Verge, 22 Jan. 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/21/21075977/cruise-driverless-car-gm-no-steering-wheel-pedals-ev-exclusive-first-look.
  • Cox, Sam. “4 New Advances on the Road to Autonomous Driving.” Silicon Republic, 22 June 2021, siliconrepublic.com/machines/autonomous-driving-tesla-ford-amazon-baidu.
  • Tesla Faces Safety Investigation into "Phantom braking" after surge of complaints. CBS News. Retrieved June 28, 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-safety-complaints-phantom-braking-probe-nhtsa/
  • “On Our Way to Autonomous Driving.” Intertraffic, 10 Aug. 2020, intertraffic.com/news/autonomous-driving/autonomous-vehicle-technology-2020/.
  • JR, A. (n.d.). JR Automation - Global Robotics Automation Company. JRAutomation. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.jrautomation.com/
  • Discovery, K. (n.d.). Are self-driving cars the future?: Kia Saudiarabia en. Kia Saudi Arabia. Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://www.kia.com/nmc/en/discover-kia/ask/Are-self-driving-cars-the-future.html
  • Bove, T. (2022, April 7). Self-driving trucks are coming - and they promise to transform shipping. Fortune. Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://fortune.com/2022/04/07/autonomous-long-haul-trucking-to-transform-u-s-logistics/

Legality and Ethics

  • Kay, Grace. “Amazon Is Reportedly Buying 1,000 Autonomous Truck-Driving Systems, Which Could Pave the Way for One Day Ditching Drivers.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 21 June 2021, businessinsider.com/amazon-orders-autonomous-self-driving-semi-truck-delivery-systems-report-2021-6.
  • Laukkonen, Jeremy. “Are Self-Driving Cars Legal in Your State?” Lifewire, Lifewire, 13 July 2021, lifewire.com/are-self-driving-cars-legal-4587765.
  • Jones, Dustin. “California Approves a Pilot Program for Driverless Rides.” NPR, NPR, 5 June 2021, npr.org/2021/06/05/1003623528/california-approves-pilot-program-for-driverless-rides#:~:text=The%20California%20Public%20Utilities%20Commission,to%20charge
  • Dent, Steve. “UK Regulators Will Allow Drivers to Watch TV in Autonomous Cars.” Eandfgadget, 20 Apr. 2022, engadget.com/uk-regulators-will-allow-drivers-watch-tv-in-self-driving-cards-121505017.html#:~:text=Self%2Ddriving%20cars%20are%20not,the%20end%20of%20last%20year.
  • Miller, Maggie. “Congress Makes Renewed Push on Self-Driving Cars Bill.” The Hill, The Hill, 17 Feb. 2021, thehill.com/policy/technology/539063-congress-makes-renewed-push-on-self-driving-cars-bill/.
  • Daniels, Pete. “Statement in Opposition to the Self Drive Act.” Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety Https://Saferoads.org/Wp-Content/Themes/Osmosis/Images/Empty/Thumbnail.jpg, 23 Sept. 2020, saferoads.org/2020/09/23/self-drive-act/.
  • Cellan-Jones, Rory. “Uber's Self-Driving Operator Charged over Fatal Crash.” BBC News, BBC, 16 Sept. 2020, bbc.com/news/technology-54175359.
  • Hansson, Sven Ove, et al. “Self-Driving Vehicles-an Ethical Overview - Philosophy and Technology.” SpringerLink, Springer Netherlands, 12 Aug. 2021, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-021-00464-5.

Engineering and Software

  • cruise. (n.d.). We're cruise, a self-driving car service designed for the cities we love. Cruise. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from www.getcruise.com/technology.
  • Yoshida, Junko. “Waymo's Lidar Plan: How's It Working Out?” EETimes, 6 July 2020, www.eetimes.com/waymos-lidar-plan-hows-it-working-out/.
  • Waymo. “Engineers Point to Opportunities for Including People with Disabilities in Autonomous Driving Research and Development.” Let's Talk Autonomous Driving, Waymo, 22 Oct. 2021, ltad.com/news/engineers-point-to-opportunities-for-including-people-with-disabilities-in.html.
  • Lutkevich, Ben. “Self-Driving Car (Autonomous Car or Driverless Car).” TechTarget, Oct. 2019, www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/driverless-car
  • Waymo. Designing the waymo driver. YouTube. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8rCOKSDMcg
  • Waymo. “Autonomous Rides in Waymo One.” Press - Waymo, https://sdc-prod.storage.googleapis.com/v1/press/waymo_broll_early_rider_thumb.jpg. Accessed 29 June 2022.
  • “Waymo App.” Aventura, 11 Dec. 2018, https://di-uploads-pod5.dealerinspire.com/aventurachryslerjeepdodgeram/uploads/2018/12/aventura-chrysler-jeep-dodge-ram-waymo-one-ride-hailing-app-900x1024.png.