Well, they certainly didn't under-sensor the thing. The big model Velodyne LIDAR, a small LIDAR looking upward, stereo cameras in all directions, and probably some radars.<p>The big rotating Velodyne thing has got to go. But so far, nobody who claims to have a suitable solid-state 3D LIDAR is actually shipping. Quanergy claimed a solid-state LIDAR suitable for automotive use [1][2] and showed it at CES, but never shipped. Their web site hasn't been updated since 2015. They were aiming at a price point around $100.<p>Advanced Scientific Concepts has a suitable LIDAR that costs far too much. Space-X uses an ASC unit on the Dragon capsule for docking. ASC announced they were getting into automotive in 2012 but never shipped.[3]<p>Somebody is going to do this soon. The technology works. It's a cost problem. Once the cost comes down, cars can have multiple LIDARs (at least fore and aft) near the top of the windshield and rear window. This gets rid of all that topside gear.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.quanergy.com/products/" rel="nofollow">http://www.quanergy.com/products/</a>
[2] <a href="http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6726-louay-eldada-quanergy-systems.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6726...</a>
[3] <a href="http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/automotive.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/autom...</a>
A few things of interest here.<p>1) They're basically duplicating the early Google cars with mostly the same sensor suite bolted on top and integrated in the side panels. This is good because it means that unlike Tesla, they're planning for fully autonomous.<p>2) Since the human driver is still responsible for switching lanes, it looks like this is very early stage testing and data collection.<p>3) I think it's great that they're taking the approach of giving customers a view of what the car is doing via the back seat tablet, and even encouraging them to share. This is a great way to get people comfortable with the tech.<p>4) It still saddens me that everyone is keeping their autonomous data proprietary. How much faster could development go if Google let anyone have access to their million+ miles of driving sensor data instead of needing to collect it all from scratch?
This is the only way i can see Uber can survive in the future.<p>Its business model was sacrificing someone's income in the middle to be cheaper than ordinary taxis. But with self driving cars, they can minimize the costs without hurting anyone.<p>Really really smart and huge move at the same time. Whoever pushed this idea in the company deserves a huge credit.
Using Pittsburgh as a proving ground is a smart move - not just because that happens to be where CMU is located but if you can train a self-driving car to navigate Pittsburgh, you've pretty much trained it to navigate anywhere.<p>In Pittsburgh you have a haphazard street grid with unconventional and often poorly maintained road conditions, hills with poor visibility, narrow streets, weird unpredictable driver behavior like making left turns in front of oncoming traffic as a light turns green (my friends call this the "pittsburgh left"), every sort of weather condition imaginable including heavy rain snow and ice, etc etc. A self driving car that can navigate Pittsburgh without ever needing driver input is truly autonomous
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmofgf-Y3Mc&t=45" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmofgf-Y3Mc&t=45</a><p>This is a promotional video produced by Uber. It clearly shows the vehicle illegally entering a crosswalk containing pedestrians. That's not a great start, and not particularly good advertising.
I saw a car in San Francisco on Monday that had an Uber label on it. It was an SUV looking thing with sensors and devices all over the outside of it. As others have said, it looked like the early Google self driving cars.
I do think it's cool that they are letting anybody ride in these. It will help make the transition easier for rolling out this feature if people have already ridden in the cars.
Wonder how much of it will succeed in developing nations, where many roads are not well laid out and most importantly not well mannered.. On the flip side, the jobs of drivers are protected until the AI tech improves to cover complex scenarios or the infrastructure improves drastically, both of which can take decades IMO.
I saw a report on the news this morning that Uber was going to be rolling out similar service in Boston "within the next 3-4 months".<p>I hope the Farmer's Almanac is wrong, or else we will get an interesting test of how self-driving cars perform in severe ice and snow conditions.
I can't find good info on their ridiculous sensor suite.<p>I read in the spring their lone early prototype had 22 'coffee cup sized' cameras on the vehicle. By my count there are six 8 or 16 channel Lidar pucks positioned around the car not counting the big 64 channel spinning velodyne on top. There are at least 2 radar units, and likely also ultrasonic proximity sensors. Who knows what else, or what kind of compute they're packing in the trunk to manage all that data.<p>Sensor overkill!
Putting together this story and the story about the self-driving car engineer nano degree from Udacity, I am envisioning a future where every self driving car has an accompanying engineer. Much as Steam engines needed an engineer to operate, self driving cars will need Engineers to be monitored.
I don't understand. Switching lanes is something that even AutoPilot can do. Is Uber deploying a lane-keeping system and calling it an autonomous vehicle?
2 issues I have not seen addressed by this article or others:<p>1/ interference. Having one lidar-beaming car going down the road works. What happens when there are many? I suppose it just means more illumination, but could there be an interference or "blinding" situation? What about pedestrian/pet eye safety? I sincerely hope that all are being considered now that this self-driving race is on.<p>2/ if Uber skirts around taxi regulations by being "just" an app that connects independent drivers with riders, how do they justify researching, producing, and deploying these cars with uber employees aboard?
Why can't Uber purchase a fleet of vehicles and let humans drive them? They can still have some auto-pilot functionality.<p>Let's say at time T=0, a few million Uber cars are parked or on the road. Users enter their travel plans into the app, and also indicate whether they are will to make an extra stop or more, whether they can drive a leg, or whether they desire a solo/express route. Then they either walk out to the parking lot and start driving, or wait to be picked up. So now, everyone in the Uber cars exists on this spectrum:<p>Express Passenger -> Driver for my leg -> Driver plus a little extra -> Driver plus a lot extra -> Full time Uber driver.<p>Let the market and scheduling algorithms work out getting people and cars to the right places are the right time. Now I don't need to own a car and we don't need to have highly functional self-driving vehicles.
I was expecting to hear at least something about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left</a> , which is something that I'd find very interesting about autonomous cars.
I live just a bit outside of pittsburgh, but I'm not in town often enough to need an uber. I'm still probably going to head down and try to get picked up by one, though.
What It's Like To Ride In A (Nearly) Self-Driving Uber<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/14/493823483/self-driving-cars-take-to-the-streets-of-pittsburgh-courtesy-of-uber" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/14/493...</a>
If this requires human intervention in case of malfunction that means it needs a sober passenger in control at all times.<p>I feel like a large amount of users use Uber to avoid driving when they've consumed Alcohol and should not be driving.<p>I wonder if this is just an interim stage.
I'm wondering what the potential will be for increased crime/theft of the automated cars. I'm sure there will be a security fallthrough to track cars that have somehow been overridden off of autopilot.
Well, this is amazing. Didn't think we'd see self-driving pickups any time soon. Guess when it finally does go completely automatic.<p>I do wonder, however, if a crash ends up happening, how will the blame-game go?