Goes Both Ways - Fast! Robotaxi purpose-built from the tarmac up...

 The Zoox Robotaxi Is a Bi-Directional autonomous vehicle, built specifically to be a robot car.  

We learn over at Yanko that the Amazon-owned Zoox...

... is a conventional cube-shaped with a unique bi-directional ride sans any steering wheel – having the capability to smoothly navigate tight spaces without much fuzz since it comes with a 4 wheel independent suspension system. The fact that it can move in any direction (independent turning wheels) and does not need to reverse (remember it is bi-directional) gives it an advantage on urban roads as it measures just 3.63 meters. 

The interior of the autonomous ride has charging ports and a small display is quite minimalistic with emphasis on passenger safety as there are next-generation airbags enveloping the passengers, providing five-star safety standards by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. 

To further enhance the safety of the riders, the vehicle is decked in six LIDAR pucks, multiple sensors, and cameras for a 270-degree field of view – covering the blind spots and having the ability to see objects 150 meters away en route for a safe ride. And it can achieve a top speed of 70 miles per hour, so you can rest assured of arriving at your destination on time.

Skynet is on its way - AI wins against human fighter pilot in DARPA dogfight

As we read over at some military news site,

DARPA's AlphaDogfight trials have officially come to a close with Heron Systems' incredible artificial intelligence pilot system defeating not only its industry competitors, but going on to secure 5 straight victories against a highly trained U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot, without the human pilot scoring a single hit.

This should not be confused with the Intelligent Flight Control System (IFCS), a next-generation flight control system designed to provide increased safety for the crew and passengers of aircraft as well as to optimize the aircraft performance under normal conditions. What is most valuable to 99% of the rest of the world -- outside of military applications -- is regarding passenger planes which fly autonomously. Software would have to be capable of handling emergency situations. At present, modern airliners do a good job of flying automatically until something unexpected happens. At that point, a pilot takes control and typically resolves the problem. Very rarely, though, a pilot must act to save the aircraft from catastrophe. 

There's more details about autonomous flight over at the I-triple-E, Application of AI Methods to Aircraft Guidance and Control.

 

Achieving Simplicity in a Complex System

Mumbai is one of the largest cities in the world and an average working professional leaves home pretty early in the day to take the local train to commute to the work. Each day approximately 4,000 dabbawallahs deliver almost 250,000 home-cooked meals (for late breakfast and lunch) from the kitchens of suburban wives and mothers direct to workers in “the world’s most ingenious meal distribution system.”

The foot soldiers are Dabbawallahs, who pick up the home-cooked lunches in the suburbs, hop on trains, and deliver them, on foot or bike, to office workers in Mumbai. Later on, they pick up and bring back the same empty tiffins (the name for the metal containers used).

The tiffins consist of several stacked aluminum boxes with a carry-handle. Each container carries individual portions that separate curry dishes, bread, rice, desserts, and more. This means multiple courses. Tiffins come in several different compartments so as to separate starter, mains, and dessert. The tiffin serves to keep food in its original shape - no bruised fruit or mashed roti. The tiffin’s handle is at the top, keeping everything upright when being carried. Home-cooked meals are economical and can be more healthy.

While the system seems very complicated, it is the coming together of many elements, including the railway system in Mumbai. The dabbawallah rely on the train to deliver the lunch boxes around the city. Stefan Thomke, the Harvard Business School professor studied the system: “[the railway] sort of helps them in unexpected ways. It synchronizes the system because in Mumbai the railway is one of the few things that always runs on time. It forces the entire organization to run according to a rhythm.”

Another example of how simplicity aids the dabbawallah system is  the labeling of the tiffins. There’s very little information coded on the boxes. “For example, there’s no return address,” says Thomke, “but these boxes have to go back to the person who gave them to you.”  The simple color coding system acts as an identification system for the destination and recipient and origin of the tiffin.

The Dabbawala Association has been in business for over last 125 years. In 1998, Forbes Magazine recognized its reliability to match the Six Sigma standard. This means that the dabbawalas make less than 1 mistake in every 6 million deliveries. Be it a Steve Jobs or Picasso, all the great artists always had a penchant for simplicity. Value and efficiency is maintained by  keeping to basics. The process is very lean and uncomplicated. And the customer is the most important cog in this machine.

Read more here

More Robot Cars, More Fun in the City

Drivers are already ditching their cars because of apps like Uber. Imagine what happens when driverless cars hit the roads.

Why bother owning a car when you can easily get where you want via your iPhone? This concept is known as “mobility as a service”, where passengers no longer own to their own cars, instead signing on for transportation-on-demand booked through smartphones.

Perhaps, for instance, a commuting plan that charges by the mile or through a monthly fee, like Netflix. Getting rid of cars in growing urban centers is a smart idea, and the world’s automakers are preparing in various ways. A major switch to subscription transportation requires two components. The first is already well underway: the explosion of ride-hailing apps like Uber, Lyft, Grab and others.
The second is still in the works — driverless cars.

Removing the human from behind the wheel slashes the cost of a taxi ride which will make mobility as a service so cheap in many places, it won’t make financial sense to own a car any longer. Lowering the cost per mile will turbo-charge demand for mobility as a service, likely to become a $10 trillion business, according to Ford Motor Company.

That's why tech giants like Google and Apple are developing their own self-driving systems to take on the world's leading automakers, including Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, and Toyota.

Eventually, a single smartphone app could connect us to a web of options, such as robo-taxis, self-driving shuttles, on-demand subway or tram, e-bikes, and electric scooters. No more driving ourselves though congested cities. All that parking freed up means more space for pedestrians and parks. Unless it is bad — fleets of individually-owned driverless vehicles loosed upon streets and highways, randomly ferrying individual occupants near and far. Or, with so many shared rides, significantly fewer vehicles will be on the road, where is the need to spend billions on bigger highways?

Autonomous vehicles will revolutionize passenger transport, but they are also rapidly changing the delivery business. Data generated from self-driving cars will provide cities with “a more granular viewpoint into everything from infrastructure wear-and-tear to detailed traffic flow information and even sidewalk congestion patterns,” says Brooks Rainwater, director of the Center for City Solutions at the National League of Cities.

Read more here…  http://fortune.com/2019/02/22/self-driving-cars-cities/

Bicycles for the Older Generation

Cycling isn't just for young people. From this article in the Guardian, we read, “Rowntree says her range is intended for “people who want to ride under their own steam for as long as possible, and then might switch to an e-bike when they need to....””

"Islabikes came about after friends and relatives asked their resident cycling expert – Rowntree is a former UK cyclocross champion – for advice on bikes for young children..."

Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/25/islabikes-bicycle-firm-wants-keep-older-people-pedalling

A University of Michigan public-private partnership is testing vehicle to vehicle communication, finding that it makes autonomous prototypes even safer. V2V works by wirelessly sharing data such as location, speed and direction. Using DSRC, or Dedicated Short Range Communication, V2V can send up to 10 messages per second. This communication allows cars to see beyond what is immediately in front of them -- sensing a red light around a curve, or automatically braking for a car that runs a stop sign... One drawback is that the technology has to be installed in the majority of cars and infrastructure (such as traffic lights) to function adequately.


Read more...

Town in Canada to utilize Uber in place of Busses

The town of Innisfil will subsidise a portion of Uber fares for all trips with taken by residents within the town's boundaries, in place of building out a public transportation system based on busses.

Read more...

FLying in circles is bad... Landing in circles, on the other hand...

We know additional airports are difficult to build, and are the mercy of wind directions and speeds when it comes to takeoffs and landings. Limit to their capacity can also cause delays. The Endless Runway Circular Airport is a new concept that would use a circular, 3.5 km banked runway to ensure planes always land and take off with a headwind. Big enough to fit even a major hub airport inside, it would also take up less space than some conventional layouts, allow up to three planes to take off or land at once, and seamlessly adjust to the conditions outside without needing to make runway changes.

Read about the project here... and check out BBC's article here...

Robot Trucks take to Ohio Highways

From SlashDot--

"A vehicle from self-driving truck maker Otto will travel a 35-mile stretch of U.S. Route 33 on Monday in central Ohio..." reports the Associated Press. The truck "will travel in regular traffic, and a driver in the truck will be positioned to intervene should anything go awry, Department of Transportation spokesman Matt Bruning said Friday, adding that 'safety is obviously No. 1.'" Ohio sees this route as "a corridor where new technologies can be safely tested in real-life traffic, aided by a fiber-optic cable network and sensor systems slated for installation next year" -- although next week the truck will also start driving on the Ohio Turnpike.

Read more here...

Jonny Cab Coming Soon

In The Wall Street Journal we read that Lyft customers in a “yet-to-be-disclosed city” will soon be able to select self-driving cars from a menu within the ride-hailing app on their smartphone. These cars will still have humans in the driver’s seat at the onset to intervene if the system fails and to satisfy laws about taxi operation, “but the driver is expected to eventually be obsolete.”

Better Ways to Get to Work -- While We Wait for Autonomous Cars

Read about car share and other upgrades coming thanks to technology, over at the WSJ--

Ride-sharing firms Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are experimenting with carpooling services that are changing how people get to work. Both companies, best known for providing a fleet of private drivers that can be matched to individual passengers through their smartphones, have introduced technology that groups strangers as passengers—thus saving commuters money—by using algorithms that match distances and times of trips with other people going to similar places or in similar directions.

In Late March, Lyft launched Lyft Carpool, a pilot program in the San Francisco Bay Area, to address a heavily congested section of Highway 101 between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. That program matches commuters with other commuters rather than private drivers. The company also is working with the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission to expand carpool lanes along that route...

Researchers are looking at how mobile apps, social media and predictions about traffic flow can all combine to deliver a better commute. Of course, the NYT has information on how Uber is looking to relieve congestion.

Call up the app, specify your destination, and in exchange for a significant discount, UberPool matches you with other riders going the same way. The service might create a ride just for you, but just as often, it puts you in a ride that began long ago — one that has spanned several drop-offs and pickups, a kind of instant bus line created from collective urban demand.

The next hit to the labor market: robot lorries

Autonomous cars such as the GoogleCar tend to get our attention, but the autonomous vehicles most of us are likely to interact with first are going to be lorries and trucks. The big rigs that haul almost anything consumed will be much safer if drivers do not get fatigued on long trips. They are also far more efficient if they can "platoon" together, drafting behind each other.

So check your rear-view mirror: the driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs -- I mean, eliminate! From TechCrunch:

A convoy of self-driving trucks recently drove across Europe and arrived at the Port of Rotterdam. No technology will automate away more jobs — or drive more economic efficiency — than the driverless truck. Shipping a full truckload from L.A. to New York costs around $4,500 today, with labor representing 75 percent of that cost. But those labor savings aren’t the only gains to be had from the adoption of driverless trucks. Where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours per day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day. That means the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost.

Robot trucks?! If you just passed a truck glowing blue on the Nevada highway, it means that a robot is at the controls. For testing, autonomous models have LED lights that turn different colors according to whether a human – or the computer – is in control. From the BBC: Daimler’s truck is capable of “level three” self-driving – on a scale that goes from zero to four - which means it can take over the driving itself if required. But the company says the driver will only become a passenger under a controlled set of circumstances.
The system was first demonstrated in Germany last year but on a closed section of road. When BBC Future joins the testing team, it’s on a section of a public highway. And on Nevada’s freeways, the driver can now chill out, or even take care of paperwork on the truck’s built-in tablet.

Driving Change, Faster than an Über Car

It is possible we will enjoy the benefits of auto-piloted transport very soon. In as many as 30 locations by 2016? That might be optimistic, but here's a round-up of autonomous vehicle reports, lately.

Mercedes is on the forefront, including trying out a cool concept in San Francisco. More important than passenger traffic, what if package delivery were to be automated, not just by drones?

Of course, with Google in the mix, one naturally assumes the biggest company in the world would have a toe in the water, and it seems Apple is up to something.

Would autonomous driving lower insurance rates? Very possible -- as well as save lives, of course.

And the new industry will either ruin people's lives, or make us all rich.

==

UPDATE 3 March 2015
In Wired... we will want fewer cars...

Wait, cable companies are NOT common carriers, but ride-share is??

Maryland should not classify Uber and Lyftt and other ride-share businesses as common carriers. I mean, how messed up is it that the companies that provide the pipeline to the internet are NOT common carriers (Comcast, AT&T, Verizon)? But telecoms are (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile)? Yet, in the interest of "protecting us", the Public Service Commission wants to over-regulate ride-shares such as Uber.

Ride share is not a common carrier; our helpful government should not squelch consumer choice in Maryland by erroneous re-classisfying businesses such as Uber or Lyft. Uber and its competition provide flexibility: drivers have complete control over their businesses and schedules. The PSC’s proposed order would mean that Uber’s partner drivers can no longer own and operate independent companies; it would eliminate opportunities for residents to start their own businesses, make a living, and contribute to the economy.

Over-regulating would lessen low-cost options for low-income people who need to get to one place or another without a car. And the government's heavy hand isn't needed — the marketplace is the best regulator, in this case. Uber lets riders and drivers rate each other. Demand pricing means MORE available transportation, particularly when it is needed most — try getting a taxi last winter during that storm, or on New Years Eve, when so many people are drink-driving!

Shouldn't our government be looking to increase supply of alternative transportation, not decrease it? Fewer people owning fewer cars means transportation infrastructure costs go down. Pollution goes down. Congestion on our roads goes down. But not if you squelch new businesses.

#MDneedsUber

How does Uber work? A customer requests a car using a smartphone app -- Uber sends its closest driver to their location, using the phone’s GPS. The fare is charged directly to your credit card. Uber provides five types of services: UberX, the cheapest option which allows for the hiring of livery car drivers with a smartphone; Uber Taxi, which lets you e-hail a yellow cab; Uber Black, a private hire car; Uber SUV, the car seats up to six people and Uber Lux, which features the priciest cars. UberX drivers are not licensed chauffeurs and they use their own cars. They also use their personal auto insurance policy while driving for Uber. According to the company website, all ride-sharing and livery drivers are thoroughly screened and the company conducts ongoing reviews of drivers’ motor vehicle records throughout their time with Uber.

While taxi operators may spend more than $1 million for a medallion to operate in some cities, Uber drivers don’t. At least six cities (Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska; Ann Arbor, Michigan; San Antonio and Austin, Texas; and Miami) as well as the state of Virginia have banned ride-sharing companies. Another seven cities and three states (California, Connecticut and Pennsylvania) are trying to regulate them. So let's see - government monopolies to keep prices high and provide crappy taxi service? Or freedom of choice?

You decide. Before the government does for you.

Commercial Space Flight for the Masses (well, the 1% of the masses)

SpaceShipTwo -- Virgin Galactic's rocket plane -- blasted off of its carrier plane for a second powered test, another step towards commercial trips for people to outer space. The rocket plane flew high above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, deployed from the carrier plane, WhiteKnightTwo. After a 45 minute flight, SpaceShipTwo was released and glided back to the airport. It counted as SpaceShipTwo's 52nd flight and WhiteKnightTwo's 156th.

In January, SpaceShipTwo blasted off for a powered test and sailed through a follow-up glide flight; the bird is expected to go through a series of glide flights and powered flights that eventually rise beyond the boundary of outer space (60 miles or 100 kilometers in altitude, approximately). Virgin's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, could fly into space later this year depending on how flight tests go. More than 700 people have paid up to $250,000 each to take a ride once Virgin Galactic begins commercial service.

Any 8th-grader knows: replace roads with rails

In SimCity, an old-school Mac game where you build a city through urban planning, zoning, and setting the conditions right for the growing population of Sims, one quickly realizes that roads won't suffice for long.

The original SimCity was met with skepticism when SimCity creator Will Wright came out with a game that was focused on create, and game-play could continue virtually indefinitely, at a time where most games of the time were designed to last mere minutes and end in fiery explosions. SimCity is all about city planning, where you play as an omnisient and civic-minded honorific of Mayor, charged with managing the growth and planning of a simulated metropolis.

Here in the Washington DC area, the Wiehle-Reston East Metro is now open, after months and months of delays the Silver Line has begun service. Soon it will link one of the major airports to the city center.

In the game, we learn the secret to minimizing traffic congestion is a well-planned mass transit system that covers every building in SimCity. With a multitude of options, one can leverage mass transit many ways. One good way is to ensure at least one city in your region has a department of transportation module attached to the city hall. This is how WMATA should function, but, as the organization must content with three jurisdictions — and fight for funding from four sources, all competing — the mass transit mangers for Washington’s subways and busses have a tough situation to deal with. Marylanders don’t want to pay for the Silver Line. People in Northern Virginia don’t want to pay for the Purple Line (let alone law makers in Richmond). And nobody wants to pay for DC.

It wasn’t long ago that Metro was searching for a long-term fix. Of course, I advocate pursing a model like the Paris metro, one of the oldest subways: no more escalators. Save money on fixing the hundreds and hundreds of them, by shutting them off. Turn them into stairs, for the most part. That solves a huge maintenance issue, and perhaps will lead Washingtonians to walk more, and slow down obesity problems.

Alternative to Autonomous Vehicles

You probably have heard of Uber and other car share apps/services. Here's twist - a self-organizing bus service. From Slashdot, we read...

'This new-old method of transport has comfortable seats and Wi-Fi. But its real innovation is in its routing. It is a "pop up" bus service, with routes dictated by millions of bits of data that show where people are and where they need to go. The private service uses chartered buses and is run by a start-up technology company called Bridj.' 'Bridj collects millions of bits of data about people's commutes from Google Earth, Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, the census, municipal records and other sources. "We crunch these millions and millions of data points through a number of algorithms that are existing, or that we're refining, to tell us where people are living and working," Mr. George said. "And through our special sauce,we're able to determine how a city moves."'

Bridj collects millions of bits of data about people’s commutes from Google Earth, Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, the census, municipal records and other sources. “We crunch these millions and millions of data points through a number of algorithms that are existing, or that we’re refining, to tell us where people are living and working,” Mr. George said. “And through our special sauce, we’re able to determine how a city moves.”

The NYT has more...

Why High Speed Rail Won't Be Pulling into the Station Anytime Soon

High speed rail in the US is, unfortunately, unachievable, for many reasons, but one important one stands out: there are hundreds of thousands of at-grade-crossings. Too many roads and rail lines intersect, requiring crossing gates and slow transversal by trains. In Japan, the entire Shinkansen system resides behind concrete walls and high fences so pedestrians and automobiles don't have to be negotiated.
The culture of trains in other countries stems from a history of adoption of said transport method. Train evolution occurred simultaneously worked with the Industrial Revolution in England in the nineteenth-century, and served to play a crucial part in the lives of Victorians and urban development during this era. The impacts trains produced were unseen in relative terms as the technology pioneered was unlike anything previously.
This chap has an excellent discussion around the British culture is infused with rail technology -- at home and around the empire.
Unlike the poopy and slow horse that preceded this technological wonder, the railways enabled transportation times to dramatically decline. The debut of the steam locomotive of the 1830s turbo-charged the already booming British economy. The cultural impacts that took place due to the augmentation of the train and railways were visible almost immediately.
In Japan, a similar affectation for trains is infused in the culture. Love of all things transport-related is obvious to visitors to Japan, but trains are one if the most visible aspects of Nippon infrastructure loved by its people.


In the US, freight is the true winner for train traveling. Freight on railroads is the critical application for this surface transport. According to this, trains move 42 percent of the county's freight (measured in ton-miles) -- everything from lumber to vegetables, coal to orange juice, grain to automobiles, and chemicals to scrap iron -- and connect businesses with each other across the country and with markets overseas.
Rail contributes billions of dollars each year to the US economy through investment, worker wages, purchases, and taxes.

Someone to drive you home? That's worth alot!

In this Forbes article, the author makes some audacious claims:

...the driverless car has broad implications for society, for the economy and for individual businesses. Just in the U.S., the car puts up for grab some $2 trillion a year in revenue and even more market cap. It creates business opportunities that dwarf Google’s current search-based business and unleashes existential challenges to market leaders across numerous industries, including car makers, auto insurers, energy companies and others that share in car-related revenue.

As readers of this blog may have noticed, I like cars. Particularly German ones (even if one is owned by an American company. Driving is more than just reaching a destination, in my mind. It is about freedom, excitement, and more.

However, commuting is another story. One of my other loves, the bicycle, addresses this problem neatly. Still, as a SciFi fan, I find the thought of a self-driving car irresistible. An autonomous car, or robot car, is an autonomous vehicle capable of fulfilling transportation needs of a traditional car -- without a human to drive it. As an autonomous vehicle, such a car should be capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. The goal is -- you choose the destination, but you are required to operate the vehicle.

Perhaps the elderly or other less-ably-bodied will be the initial focus of the robot car? One aspect I like about Google's approach: there is no centralized control, like in the next-generation air traffic control, where each aircraft "controls" the space around it, communicating directly with others in its vicinity. Safer, higher volume/higher density of traffic, and more direct routing (for quicker arrivals). Getting that on the beltway or at the airport would be welcome.

High Tech Projects can have Serious Complexity Issues

Boeing is the leader in air craft manufacturing, and the Dreamliner is characterized as the most advanced, best performing and most comfortable passenger plane to date. The approach the company took in the design and building of the plane is just as revolutionary.

Boeing took a radical approach to working with many suppliers -- 787 development and production involved a large-scale collaboration with numerous suppliers around the world. The manufacturer assigned the global subcontractors to do as much assembly themselves as practical, and deliver completed subassemblies to Boeing for final construction. The intent was to have a leaner assembly line and lower inventory, with pre-installed systems reducing final assembly time by as much as three days.

The aircraft was designed to become the first production composite airliner, with its fuselage assembled in one-piece composite tubular sections instead of multiple aluminum sheets, the approach used on most modern aircraft. Its "fly-by-wire" approach is the most extensive implemented, outside of the U.S. military.

But, as with many complex technological undertakings, problems materialize, sometimes even after the project is stamped "done" by management. In fact, with the case of the Dreamliner, serious concerns have arisen regarding electrical problems. And, with an aircraft, such problems translate into the safety of passengers, crew and others. Human life is at stake when 200+ people are traveling at subsonic speeds. So, caution is always called for, as the recent grounding of All Nippon Airway's fleet of Dreamliners shows.

What can information technology professionals learn from this on-going story? In the past, all products were handmade, the work of artisans rather than manufacturers. Cars, clocks, and firearms, for example, started out as being made one at a time, and each iteration was subtly different than the one the craftsmen finished just the day before. Over time industry has learned the value of standardized, interchangeable parts, and ultimately, about mass production. Even "mass customization." Though the retro movement highlights handiwork, for most products, systematic production yields far better products at much lower costs.

This FastCompany article discusses how NASA makes their onboard shuttle software. Take a look at NASA's checklist (PDF) to see how 100% defect free is necessary when lives are on the line.