Driverless Cars

[MoKelly]

Speaking of Kitty Hawk, when will we have self flying/pilot-less 747’s? Has auto-pilot ever taken off or landed?

MoKelly

 

[kenmbz]

Yes to both, Capability is also built into most larger airports. But there are issues with it's use and type of plane etc.
So I don;t think they are able to use at all

 

[3930dave]

Speaking of Kitty Hawk, when will we have self flying/pilot-less 747’s? Has auto-pilot ever taken off or landed?

MoKelly

About 25 years ago, I was flying into Boston. Got chatting with a guy well into 60's, who was a private pilot, and also had some seat time on the big stuff, courtesy of friends.

He was talking about the auto-land systems, and said he had been on a flight a week or two before, that was one of the only ones going into that airport that day. He was watching out the window, and that plane executed an auto-land (there is another name for it, just can't recall it....) perfectly - said even when the wheels touched down, he still couldn't see the ground.

Complex systems can execute impressive tasks. Doing it 100% of the time...... another story.

What Boeing has messed up in recent years...... one of the reasons I have concerns with how vehicles get let loose.

What could Go Wrong..... Go Wrong.......

Rgds, D.

 

[cqaigy2]

About 25 years ago, I was flying into Boston. Got chatting with a guy well into 60's, who was a private pilot, and also had some seat time on the big stuff, courtesy of friends.

He was talking about the auto-land systems, and said he had been on a flight a week or two before, that was one of the only ones going into that airport that day. He was watching out the window, and that plane executed an auto-land (there is another name for it, just can't recall it....) perfectly - said even when the wheels touched down, he still couldn't see the ground.

Complex systems can execute impressive tasks. Doing it 100% of the time...... another story.

What Boeing has messed up in recent years...... one of the reasons I have concerns with how vehicles get let loose.

What could Go Wrong..... Go Wrong.......

Rgds, D.

Cost cutting at it's finest. No redundancy for the sensor, extra cost for training for what can happen when(if) it messes up and denial.

 

[3930dave]

Cost cutting at it's finest. No redundancy for the sensor, extra cost for training for what can happen when(if) it messes up and denial.

.... in an industry that's been "highly regulated" for decades AND gets huge media coverage due to the # of fatalities when things Go Wrong....

Rgds, D.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Speaking of Kitty Hawk, when will we have self flying/pilot-less 747’s? Has auto-pilot ever taken off or landed?

MoKelly

A friend flew 747s rigged for cargo only. NY to the mid east. He said it was very very boring.

 

[MoKelly]

A friend flew 747s rigged for cargo only. NY to the mid east. He said it was very very boring.

I believe it! Once you are up and into the flight path, not much to do until time to land.

The view never really changes.

Auto pilot once leveled off is good.

MoKelly

 

[cqaigy2]

.... in an industry that's been "highly regulated" for decades AND gets huge media coverage due to the # of fatalities when things Go Wrong....

Rgds, D.

Interesting on the "highly regulated", yes but no funding for enforcement and the manufactures are "left" to do it themselves.

 

[3930dave]

Interesting on the "highly regulated", yes but no funding for enforcement and the manufactures are "left" to do it themselves.

Regulatory Capture + Self Certify...... at its worst, it doesn't accomplish much more than Plausible Deniability.....

I'm not a fan of extra govt in many areas....... Transportation Safety being one exception....

Rgds, D.

 

[Jim Shooz]

Auto landing has been around for a while. Way back last century (1993) I was flying Singapore to London. It was patchy cloud/fog all the way to the ground. After landing and taxiing to the Gate the pilot announced that we had just done a fully automatic hands off landing.

 

[MoKelly]

Auto landing has been around for a while. Way back last century (1993) I was flying Singapore to London. It was patchy cloud/fog all the way to the ground. After landing and taxiing to the Gate the pilot announced that we had just done a fully automatic hands off landing.

Wow.

I thought you were going to say a computerized voice came on and said I took off, flew the plane and landed the plane —- and there is no pilot aboard!

MoKelly

 

[Frankenkubota]

Regulatory Capture + Self Certify...... at its worst, it doesn't accomplish much more than Plausible Deniability.....

I'm not a fan of extra govt in many areas....... Transportation Safety being one exception....

Rgds, D.

Again, no solution but.....

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

The structure of govt employment fosters apathy and lots of other less than virtuous characteristics of humanity.

The structure of the private sector is quarterly profits at any cost, take no prisoners.

 

[cqaigy2]

Again, no solution but.....

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

The structure of govt employment fosters apathy and lots of other less than virtuous characteristics of humanity.

The structure of the private sector is quarterly profits at any cost, take no prisoners.

It's possible you could blame government employees, but again in this instance, no funding so no govt employees. Yes, the private sector, especially in the hands of those without ethics or moral compass expend human lives as part of the cost of their profits. That's one of the reasons i chuckle when i hear a bought politician saying things that indicate the private sector will regulate it's self in the face of history that invariably shows otherwise.

 

[k0ua]

Wow.

I thought you were going to say a computerized voice came on and said I took off, flew the plane and landed the plane —- and there is no pilot aboard!

MoKelly

the Global Hawk has shown it can take off in the US, and fly non stop to Australia and safely land without a pilot

 

[MoKelly]

the Global Hawk has shown it can take off in the US, and fly non stop to Australia and safely land without a pilot

They are unmanned, correct? What I mean is no passengers.

MoKelly

 

[Reg]

A system that uses several inputs - AS WELL AS ITS OWN MEMORY - could/would work better than any single input system such as GPS.
Given that MOST of our driving is relatively local and roads don't move much in the short term, the road will typically be where it was the last time the vehicle travelled it, the last time it "saw" it without a covering of snow, etc.

Storage still gets cheaper/larger/denser/lower_power_requirement by Moore's law - a few terabytes would probably cover everywhere I have driven in the last few decades to cm accuracy.
It could consider data older than some number of months to be stale/suspect.

Data, its just data.

 

[somanytractors]

I'm 100% for driverless cars. almost all accidents are caused by the drivers, not the cars.
I see so many terrible drivers playing with everything {even laptops} while driving.
Sure there will be some bumps along the way, but in the end the driverless cars will take over and millions of lives will be saved. Machines don't get distracted like people and they can respond at least 10 times faster then we can.

 

[Oaktree]

I'm 100% for driverless cars. almost all accidents are caused by the drivers, not the cars.
I see so many terrible drivers playing with everything {even laptops} while driving.
Sure there will be some bumps along the way, but in the end the driverless cars will take over and millions of lives will be saved. Machines don't get distracted like people and they can respond at least 10 times faster then we can.

While I don't expect them to be ready for for the real world during my lifetime, even if they were I have no interest in owning one. For one thing, I happen to enjoy driving and don't want some machine taking over that. I'm not sure I trust the technology, nor whoever it phones home to, let alone trusting GPS not to take me over some abandoned Class VI road because it thinks it's .06 mi. shorter.
We can't even seem to make a spell checker that works right, do you really want to trust technology to transport you in a vehicle you don't have any control over? I sure don't.

IMHO, this is one of those technologies that's being forced on us because they can. To me all these claims of "millions of lives saved" is bogus. Yes there are stupid people and bad drivers. Why don't we address the real problem instead of forcing more technology on us?

 

[cqaigy2]

While I don't expect them to be ready for for the real world during my lifetime, even if they were I have no interest in owning one. For one thing, I happen to enjoy driving and don't want some machine taking over that. I'm not sure I trust the technology, nor whoever it phones home to, let alone trusting GPS not to take me over some abandoned Class VI road because it thinks it's .06 mi. shorter.
We can't even seem to make a spell checker that works right, do you really want to trust technology to transport you in a vehicle you don't have any control over? I sure don't.

IMHO, this is one of those technologies that's being forced on us because they can. To me all these claims of "millions of lives saved" is bogus. Yes there are stupid people and bad drivers. Why don't we address the real problem instead of forcing more technology on us?

Not disagreeing. What, in your opinion, is it we don't address?

 

[somanytractors]

While I don't expect them to be ready for for the real world during my lifetime, even if they were I have no interest in owning one. For one thing, I happen to enjoy driving and don't want some machine taking over that. I'm not sure I trust the technology, nor whoever it phones home to, let alone trusting GPS not to take me over some abandoned Class VI road because it thinks it's .06 mi. shorter.
We can't even seem to make a spell checker that works right, do you really want to trust technology to transport you in a vehicle you don't have any control over? I sure don't.

IMHO, this is one of those technologies that's being forced on us because they can. To me all these claims of "millions of lives saved" is bogus. Yes there are stupid people and bad drivers. Why don't we address the real problem instead of forcing more technology on us?

I don't think they are going to force anyone to go to a driverless car. However I do think that most people will go to them willingly. Once they are proven the insurance on them will be close to zero or some states may even decide not to require insurance on driverless cars. Actually I believe most will be optional where you can drive or let the car drive. There are times that I might prefer to drive but there are other times when it would be great to let the car drive like when I'm on the interstate in a traffic jam doing 5 mph. I would much prefer to enjoy a movie and let the car deal with driving.
The current gps systems will not do for driverless cars but I'm sure the manufacturers know that, and they know these cars have to get it right from day one or no one will want them. They can make it work and they will. There is too much money at stake not to. Most people have no idea how gps works. All the satellites do is send a signal to let the gps know where they are. Then the gps system figures out where its at based on where the satellites are. It does not communicate with the satellites
I have no problem trusting the technology once it is proven,