Self driving Trucks

Right. I apologize for going overboard with details.

Inches would matter on the interstate because there is a latency or lag between your computer's commands and the reaction from the controlled semi.

Throw in a highway full of public randomly doing stupid stuff and you really have a problem.

I recall a project that was advertised not long ago where Semi trucks with very special wheels are allowed onto sort of a 20 foot monorail type situation under tower control at 150+ cruise with the ability to stack 10 rigs together called platooning up there. These monorails would be built along and above our existing interstate system nationally with ALL internal combustion vehicles excluded and more particularly those not equipped with the dual use wheels. (By intent being equipped with dual rail/road wheels is implied permission to access this 150 mph system.)

 

Just like speed camera's , mail the fine to the owner. Oh a summons for resisting arrest !

 

Self automated vehicles of any kind wont become a thing until the manufacturers find a way to remove liability against them. We'll just have to wait for them to pay off enough politicians to get that legislature passed.

 

In this sue happy country that's what will happen first.

 

One day, this technology will develop to the point that having a human driver will be more liability than having the autonomous vehicle have control. You have to think ahead about how technology actually develops. They could have never imagined the hydrogen bomb say, 200 years ago. Perhaps on paper, but they never had the infrastructure. They never thought something like the internet could happen, either. At some point, I suspect every vehicle will communicate on some standardized type of system, constantly communicate it's relative position via gps , and this will update in real time to some server that is aware of all traffic on the road, all of the time. In this manner, think about how many ip DATA packets travel across a network on any given moment. It's so much data, it appears as a constant stream of light (fiber optic) but it's a series of impulses (0101001) .. and routers, switches and hubs, and the "data layer" so to speak... manages a vast amount of network traffic. this amount of network traffic totaling the entire internet, might double on some other separate platform that is similar to an internet. It would have to be some impenetrable and uncrackable system for safety. In this manner, I think all autonomous vehicle traffic might someday be controlled similar to how network data travels across a network; that is to say, in a strict, linear order, with complete precision so much so that the algorithm has no possible conflicts.. and every vehicle will run perfectly on it's own. It's complicated but my point is, I think as long as there is enough server space existing in physical reality, like a large enough data center. Once the technology exists, it's just a matter of standardizing it all. We're not quite there yet, but in 100 years, yeah, it's going to be the standard. Honestly I think government bureaucracy will be the only thing that slows the development of autonomous vehicles.

 

Yeah right....one day. They cant even fix potholes

 

I always laugh at the “computers are superior at sensing and reacting than the human is”. I can almost guarantee what a car is going to do before it ever does it. The stops I deliver to are different all the time, junk put in the way, cars parked out of place, construction going on. This week alone, I had to come within a few inches of hitting cars both getting on the dock and pulling away from the dock at separate stops.

Most businesses aren’t set up for 53 footers, with the exception of warehouses built in the mid 90s or later. I am very good at getting set up to back into difficult spots, and it comes second nature. What is the autonomous truck going to do, have a drone that flies overhead and takes a 3D image, then a Luddite arm pulls the tandem slide so it can adjust them, another Luddite arm moves the fifth wheel stand out of the way blocking the dock door? And remember who the consumer of autonomous trucks are, 93 percent of carriers are 10 trucks or less, 97 percent are 6 or less.

 

Once they start running people over, they'll never get back out onto the road... no matter how much the manufactures grease the pockets of politicians.

 

Don't really disagree with the fact that technology can change very quickly. But many things have been prophesied that have yet to come to fruition. Where's the Mars colony?
Elon Musk can't even figure out how to build electric cars profitably.
Course if the government gets it's fingers in the pie like with ethanol who knows what would happen. They would probably kill a lot of people before they would admit they made a mistake.

 

Flying semi's, good Lord. What's the worst that could happen?