Self driving buses, trains, trucks etc

orangerhyme

cgcsb wrote: »

An experimental solar plane has recently completed a round the world trip unmanned. It charges it's battery during the day with solar panels so it can fly at night.

The energy density required for take off for something as large as a commercial passenger jet may not be possible even in the long term. However I'd expect to see hybrid diesel electric planes in the short term that could take off with the power of diesel and complete most of its flight with solar or charged batteries.

The tech already exists to reduce the staff compliment of commercial planes to 1. A pilot is only really needed on the rare occasion that weather makes landing really dodgy. Cabin crew have been redundant for quite some time but there's probably a bit of reluctance in removing them.

Oh I dont mean big passenger jets, just small flying vehicles for one or two people over short distances eg from city centers to airport etc.

Theres a lot of startups in this segment now. Autonomous is important for keeping costs down. It seems much easier for autonomous vehicles in the air with very few obstacles.

dense

orangerhyme wrote: »

Oh I dont mean big passenger jets, just small flying vehicles for one or two people over short distances eg from city centers to airport etc.

Theres a lot of startups in this segment now. Autonomous is important for keeping costs down. It seems much easier for autonomous vehicles in the air with very few obstacles.

Do you have a link to any of those small autonomous plane start ups?

Fluttr seems to be the only one actually taking orders at present,
$199,000 a pop.



It isn't autonomous though, you have to learn to operate it.



http://www.flutrmotors.com/

magicbastarder

Twenty Grand wrote: »

So this week BMW reaffirmed their goal to develop a fully autonomous car by 2021.

They set that goal a few years back, and in fairness I thought it had slipped, but nice to know they still believe it can be done

I'm genuinely curious how carmakers are going to market autonomous cars. 'The ultimate driving experience' is not the shirt of tagline you'll expect for a car with a selling point that you may well be asleep for the drive. Selling the car as a vehicle for adventure - even when the target market is those doing the school run - will be even more of a stretch.

magicbastarder

magicbastarder wrote: »

I'm genuinely curious how carmakers are going to market autonomous cars. 'The ultimate driving experience' is not the shirt of tagline you'll expect for a car with a selling point that you may well be asleep for the drive. Selling the car as a vehicle for adventure - even when the target market is those doing the school run - will be even more of a stretch.

Probably it will be marketed in the same vein as business class airline seating to one demographic, as a restful zone for others, a study zone for others, as a platform for exploring somewhere new where you can take photos to your hearts content etc etc etc.

What I'm getting at is the old way of marketing was limited to one function, driving. Now it will pivot to what you can do while the vehicle is driving itself

Twenty Grand

Yup! Most of the blurb will be socialising in the car, relaxing on the way to work, sleeping, watching movies etc.

Expect partnerships with Netflix and Prime.

dense

Deleted User wrote: »

Now it will pivot to what you can do while the vehicle is driving itself

Why expect markedly different behaviour from people?



Once the novelty wears off it'll be the same as now, people staring at their phones.



In the private pods we could put on makeup and text at the same time without guilt!

dense

dense wrote: »

Why expect markedly different behaviour from people?



Once the novelty wears off it'll be the same as now, people staring at their phones.



In the private pods we could put on makeup and text at the same time without guilt!

I'm not sure that you had a point except that you contradicted yourself

dense

magicbastarder wrote: »

I'm genuinely curious how carmakers are going to market autonomous cars. 'The ultimate driving experience' is not the shirt of tagline you'll expect for a car with a selling point that you may well be asleep for the drive. Selling the car as a vehicle for adventure - even when the target market is those doing the school run - will be even more of a stretch.

Doesn't make sense for them to promote the idea in my opinion.



There will be no "affinity" to a brand particularly if owning and maintaining the vehicle will cost more as opposed to the highly efficient pay as you go centrally controlled autonomous services being spoken about here.



Very long term the aim is that there won't be any such thing as drivers of course.



There will be stories told of how you could once drive a car, before the robots took over.

dense

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm not sure that you had a point except that you contradicted yourself

Explain how?



Will there not be private pods available to hire as well as autonomous public buses to travel on?


Or is it that you are just annoyed that I said people will behave the same in autonomous vehicles as they behave in today's transport modes, bursting the glossy sales bubble about the unlimited personal potential that travelling in an autonomous vehicle will unlock?

Deleted User wrote: »

What I'm getting at is the old way of marketing was limited to one function, driving. Now it will pivot to what you can do while the vehicle is driving itself

What exactly do you envisage people will be doing whilst being in them?


I'm genuinely intrigued.....

orangerhyme

dense wrote: »

Do you have a link to any of those small autonomous plane start ups?

Fluttr seems to be the only one actually taking orders at present,
$199,000 a pop.



It isn't autonomous though, you have to learn to operate it.



http://www.flutrmotors.com/

I don't have any links at hand but I read a lot of tech media and small electric planes are supposedly the next big thing.

Uber are definitely working on it.
Sebastian Thrun who led Waymo now is CEO of Kittyhawk which is an electric plane company with autonominity coming in the future.

Most breakthroughs in consumer tech are a result of a convergence of many technologies eg smartphones required batteries, touchscreen, chip, memory, multitouch, 4g, cameras etc.

PCs in the 90's were similar.

Autonomous vehicles and planes will require similar. Autonomous electric planes/flying cars will need improvements in batteries, drone tech, 5g, AI, etc

I think the big issue is noise and air turbulence so they might be limited to just a few places in a city rather than everywhere.

cgcsb

orangerhyme wrote: »

Oh I dont mean big passenger jets, just small flying vehicles for one or two people over short distances eg from city centers to airport etc.

Theres a lot of startups in this segment now. Autonomous is important for keeping costs down. It seems much easier for autonomous vehicles in the air with very few obstacles.

An unfeasible goal. In order for that to happen, we'd need to have multiple nuclear fusion power plants up and running. The cost of providing enough energy to get only one or two people of the ground and in the air for a short journey would be prohibitive under our current energy policy, renewables backed up by natural gas and storage. It's be the same as the cost of renting a helicopter, minus the pilot's wages.

I'll just leave these here

Dubai starts testing crewless two-person ‘flying taxis’

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16365614/dubai-testing-uncrewed-two-person-flying-taxis-volocopter

You could be flying in one of these autonomous taxis some time soon

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/technow/you-could-be-flying-in-one-of-these-autonomous-taxis-some-time-soon-856872.html

Airbus is working towards a world of self-piloted air travel

https://www.airbus.com/innovation/Autonomous-skies.html

Boeing’s new R&D center focuses on autonomous flight

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/01/boeings-new-rd-center-focuses-on-autonomous-flight/amp/

cgcsb

regardless of innovation, the amount of energy required to lift 2 people 200m in the air is going to remain more less the same unless, such are the laws of physics.

No doubt millionaires can pay for that amount of energy on special occasions but as a means of mass transit it's impractical, before you even consider the issue of sky congestion.

If we crack the nuclear fusion thing and can scale it effectively to create almost free energy then it's technically feasible, but of course an age of almost free energy, and low human employment will throw up more major issues. Population control for one. If energy is abundant, synthasised food and water is also abundant, which equals no barriers to human population expansion.

cgcsb

cgcsb wrote: »

If we crack the nuclear fusion thing and can scale it effectively to create almost free energy then it's technically feasible, but of course an age of almost free energy, and low human employment will throw up more major issues. Population control for one. If energy is abundant, synthasised food and water is also abundant, which equals no barriers to human population expansion.

Nuclear fusion, free energy, population control and synthetic foods.

While all are valid items for discussion, I'm not sure any belong in a thread about the development of, autonomous vehicles

orangerhyme

cgcsb wrote: »

An unfeasible goal. In order for that to happen, we'd need to have multiple nuclear fusion power plants up and running. The cost of providing enough energy to get only one or two people of the ground and in the air for a short journey would be prohibitive under our current energy policy, renewables backed up by natural gas and storage. It's be the same as the cost of renting a helicopter, minus the pilot's wages.

I agree that the exponential growth of electric cars in the next few years will put pressure on the grid. Hopefully renewable energy will grow at a rate to compensate for this.

I dont think everyone will have a flying car in their garage, but a flying taxi from lets Canary Wharf to Heathrow is completely feasible and other major cities in the world. I think this could be 15 minutes by flying taxi.
Maybe Dublin isnt the best example. Manhattan to JFK airport takes about an hour but with these flying taxis it could be done in 15 minutes easily.
Theres a crazy amount of research on battery tech at the moment and theres at least a dozen companies researching flying taxis. Its not pie in the sky.

cnocbui

Deleted User wrote: »

I'll just leave these here

Dubai starts testing crewless two-person ‘flying taxis’

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16365614/dubai-testing-uncrewed-two-person-flying-taxis-volocopter

You could be flying in one of these autonomous taxis some time soon

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/technow/you-could-be-flying-in-one-of-these-autonomous-taxis-some-time-soon-856872.html

Airbus is working towards a world of self-piloted air travel

https://www.airbus.com/innovation/Autonomous-skies.html

Boeing’s new R&D center focuses on autonomous flight

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/01/boeings-new-rd-center-focuses-on-autonomous-flight/amp/

You'll just leave it there... Well I won't.

Flying works by overcoming gravity. The game has always been about minimizing weight in order to enable the available power sources to lift the fuel, power source, structure and passengers against the force of gravity. Planes with long thin wings are easily the most efficient because a lot of the lifting work is done by the wings and the low pressure over their upper surface which essentially 'sucks' the plane up. In order to achieve that lift a power source needs to propel the wing through the air.

Helicopters and drones, on the other hand, don't work quite that way they have small thin wings - the rotor blades - which are relatively inefficient due to their high speed and high wing loading. These types of aircraft are very inefficient so their fuel/energy source is critical. Helicopters and drones have very short ranges compared to fixed wing aircraft, as a result

The energy density of Tesla Li-ion battery packs appears to be about 3.6 Mega Jouls per kg. Kerosene used in jet engines is 47 MJ/Kg. Electric motors are, however, more efficient than jet engines at around 90% vs a jet at 40%. But that doesn't begin to compensate for the massive difference in energy density of the fuel source.

Li-ion batteries are a really terrible way to power something that needs to fly and overcome gravity. Hydrogen at 142 MJ/Kg looks like a better candidate for small flying vehicles.

The idea of autonomous urban flying vehicles is comical. Weather, obstacles, noise, turbulence and lack of departure and arrival points are profound problems.

Once again, evidence that people are working on the technology is being used to suggest that success is a fore-gone conclusion. Nuclear fusion research would suggest more scepticism would be warranted.

orangerhyme

orangerhyme wrote: »

I agree that the exponential growth of electric cars in the next few years will put pressure on the grid. Hopefully renewable energy will grow at a rate to compensate for this.

I dont think everyone will have a flying car in their garage, but a flying taxi from lets Canary Wharf to Heathrow is completely feasible and other major cities in the world. I think this could be 15 minutes by flying taxi.
Maybe Dublin isnt the best example. Manhattan to JFK airport takes about an hour but with these flying taxis it could be done in 15 minutes easily.
Theres a crazy amount of research on battery tech at the moment and theres at least a dozen companies researching flying taxis. Its not pie in the sky.

Im not an autonomous driving engineer but I think its an order of magnitude easier to build an autonomous flying taxi than a car or truck.
Theres very few hazards in the air. Theres basically no traffic, no pedestrians, no roads, buildings etc.
Granted, if anything goes wrong, the risk of death is far higher, but these flying taxis have many little engines like drones so if one fails the others can handle it.
Maybe terrorism might be an issue but thats not a strong enough reason to impede development.
Or some psycho might try to shoot the plane down

orangerhyme

cnocbui wrote: »

You'll just leave it there... Well I won't.

Flying works by overcoming gravity. The game has always been about minimizing weight in order to enable the available power sources to lift the fuel, power source, structure and passengers against the force of gravity. Planes with long thin wings are easily the most efficient because a lot of the lifting work is done by the wings and the low pressure over their upper surface which essentially 'sucks' the plane up. In order to achieve that lift a power source needs to propel the wing through the air.

Helicopters and drones, on the other hand, don't work quite that way they have small thin wings - the rotor blades - which are relatively inefficient due to their high speed and high wing loading. These types of aircraft are very inefficient so their fuel/energy source is critical. Helicopters and drones have very short ranges compared to fixed wing aircraft, as a result

The energy density of Tesla Li-ion battery packs appears to be about 3.6 Mega Jouls per kg. Kerosene used in jet engines is 47 MJ/Kg. Electric motors are, however, more efficient than jet engines at around 90% vs a jet at 40%. But that doesn't begin to compensate for the massive difference in energy density of the fuel source.

Li-ion batteries are a really terrible way to power something that needs to fly and overcome gravity. Hydrogen at 142 MJ/Kg looks like a better candidate for small flying vehicles.

The idea of autonomous urban flying vehicles is comical. Weather, obstacles, noise, turbulence and lack of departure and arrival points are profound problems.

Once again, evidence that people are working on the technology is being used to suggest that success is a fore-gone conclusion. Nuclear fusion research would suggest more scepticism would be warranted.

I honestly dont think the physics is the issue, I'm only talking about 30 minute max trips over a distance of 30/40 miles. Then the batteries can be recharged. This is already possible.
Read this interview.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/26/sebastian-thrun-interview-costs-of-air-taxi-system-less-than-uber-google-glass-flyer-cora-kitty-hawk
He is one of the worlds leading experts on this. Granted its in his best interests to be positive as he needs to attract investors.
"Cora and Flyer are both prototypes that have shown that it is possible to take people in the air for about 20 minutes at a time with the range of maybe 50 or so miles."
I think that safety, noise, turbulence and regulation will be the big issues.

cgcsb

Deleted User wrote: »

Nuclear fusion, free energy, population control and synthetic foods.

While all are valid items for discussion, I'm not sure any belong in a thread about the development of, autonomous vehicles

because the technology to make the autonomous flying cars economically feasible would mean we'd have worse problems, as listed above

cgcsb

orangerhyme wrote: »

I agree that the exponential growth of electric cars in the next few years will put pressure on the grid. Hopefully renewable energy will grow at a rate to compensate for this.

I dont think everyone will have a flying car in their garage, but a flying taxi from lets Canary Wharf to Heathrow is completely feasible and other major cities in the world. I think this could be 15 minutes by flying taxi.
Maybe Dublin isnt the best example. Manhattan to JFK airport takes about an hour but with these flying taxis it could be done in 15 minutes easily.
Theres a crazy amount of research on battery tech at the moment and theres at least a dozen companies researching flying taxis. Its not pie in the sky.

That's ignoring the issue, regardless of how good batteries are, the power has to come from somewhere. The power required to lift 2 persons and the vehicle self weight 200m above the ground for a sustained journey remains the same according to Newton. Even if we can produce that electricity, with our current renewable and gas fired generation, it'd cost too much for non millionaires to pay for such a journey. It'd basically be the same cost as renting a helicopter, minus the pilots wages and minus the difference between diesel and electricity. You're still talking €1000s for even short journeys.

The only way flying short journeys in low occupancy vehicles will become economic is if we discover a far cheaper source of energy than anything humans can currently produce. e.g. nuclear fusion at large scale.

cgcsb

orangerhyme wrote: »

Im not an autonomous driving engineer but I think its an order of magnitude easier to build an autonomous flying taxi than a car or truck.

Well not really. The car or truck can only move in 2 dimensions, a simpler ask, they also operate on roads, that have markings and traffic signals most of the time. A flying vehicle encounters many other obsticals dimensional movement, other flying vehicles,howling gusting gales and least predictable of all, birds.

orangerhyme

cnocbui wrote: »

Once again, evidence that people are working on the technology is being used to suggest that success is a fore-gone conclusion. Nuclear fusion research would suggest more scepticism would be warranted.

The second sentence here is "reasoning by analogy", which isnt an effective form of debate.

Nuclear fusion has never been proven to work cost effectively. Its never had a working prototype where the energy produced is greater than the energy inputted. Its perpetually 30 years in the future. The ITER project in France is definitely promising though but thats years away.

Nobody is saying that just because companies are researching it means success is a foregone conclusion.
I'm saying that there is already working prototypes and the research has shown the physics is completely possible to lift a couple of people in the air for 20/30 minutes on current technology.
In 5 years this technology will be available commercially I believe.

My main point though is that since autonmous flying taxis is much easier than cars, I think we'll see it sooner and in more cities. It just makes sense I think.

cgcsb

orangerhyme wrote: »

"Cora and Flyer are both prototypes that have shown that it is possible to take people in the air for about 20 minutes at a time with the range of maybe 50 or so miles."

But the key stumbling block being that only small numbers of people in the world can afford short helicopter trips at present, largely due to the cost of sufficient energy to provide lift.

orangerhyme

cgcsb wrote: »

Well not really. The car or truck can only move in 2 dimensions, a simpler ask, they also operate on roads, that have markings and traffic signals most of the time. A flying vehicle encounters many other obsticals dimensional movement, other flying vehicles,howling gusting gales and least predictable of all, birds.

Flying in 3d in the air is the major advantage. no traffic, congestion, hazards etc

I dont see the issue of road markings and traffic signals, these are complications which the flying taxi wont need to deal with.

Bad weather and high winds is easily dealt with, simply dont fly until it passes.

As regards birds, the danger is to them, not the other way around.
"But as this technology matures, it ought to be safer than even existing small aircraft. That’s because the propulsion system uses many different independent motors and propellers: if you lose one it’s not a big deal."
Even if one engine fails, therell be backup.

As regards other flying vehicles, there will be some kind of central control to direct traffic. This could even be autonomous.

Im honestly not sure about the required energy to get people in the air, im not a physicist so I dont know how to calculate this.
"We believe that the costs of the air taxi system would be even less than the cost of an Uber or a Lyft."
This could be bull****, we'll have to wait and see.

cnocbui

orangerhyme wrote: »

I honestly dont think the physics is the issue, I'm only talking about 30 minute max trips over a distance of 30/40 miles. Then the batteries can be recharged. This is already possible.
Read this interview.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/26/sebastian-thrun-interview-costs-of-air-taxi-system-less-than-uber-google-glass-flyer-cora-kitty-hawk
He is one of the worlds leading experts on this. Granted its in his best interests to be positive as he needs to attract investors.
"Cora and Flyer are both prototypes that have shown that it is possible to take people in the air for about 20 minutes at a time with the range of maybe 50 or so miles."
I think that safety, noise, turbulence and regulation will be the big issues.

The interest in small scale battery powered air transport is almost entirely due to the success of small drones.

Such drones typically have a flight duration of 15 minutes. A UK company has demonstrated a hydrogen fuel cell powered drone which has a flight duration of one to two hours.

Any way you look at it, I very much doubt the cost of flying is going to be reduced to the point many thousands of people a day will be able to afford to fly vs drive to an airport, anytime soon. I think fuel cell technology looks far more promising than batteries as there is a ten fold advantage in power to weight density.

Claiming autonomous flying would be relatively easy because of a lack of traffic and congestion is so wonderfully ridiculous as it just illustrates the lack of thought people put in when championing pie-in-the-sky tech. The first autonomous flying taxi would be the one and only one to ever not have a problem with having to cope with avoiding other aerial traffic.

orangerhyme

cgcsb wrote: »

But the key stumbling block being that only small numbers of people in the world can afford short helicopter trips at present, largely due to the cost of sufficient energy to provide lift.

I take your point on this, I dont know how to calculate the cost of energy required to fly a taxi lets say 20 miles at 80 miles an hour at an altitude of 500m carrying two passengers.

This could be the major stumbling block for ordinary people. We'll wait and see.
Certainly not requiring a pilot reduces cost.
Maybe if it came from a renewable energy source the marginal cost would be very low.

cgcsb

orangerhyme wrote: »

Flying in 3d in the air is the major advantage. no traffic, congestion, hazards etc

I dont see the issue of road markings and traffic signals, these are complications which the flying taxi wont need to deal with.

If flying taxis became popular there'd be a lot of issues with traffic, in the air.
Road markings and traffic signals are what makes autonomous vehicles possible at present, AI will have to improve much more before it can navigate a journey without recognizable road markings.

orangerhyme wrote: »

Bad weather and high winds is easily dealt with, simply dont fly until it passes.

So in Ireland it'd be unfeasible entirely as a mass transit option. Indeed it'd be unfeasible globally since the rate of disruption to service would be so high. The transfer of people to ground transport modes would make a luas strike look like a tea party.

orangerhyme wrote: »

As regards birds, the danger is to them, not the other way around.

:rolleyes:
so it's the birds fault that humans invaded their natural territory and killed them? Is human activity not already extincting enough species?

orangerhyme wrote: »

As regards other flying vehicles, there will be some kind of central control to direct traffic. This could even be autonomous.

Air traffic control at the moment with only scheduled flights and a handful of helicopters is difficult at the best of times.

orangerhyme wrote: »

Im honestly not sure about the required energy to get people in the air, im not a physicist so I dont know how to calculate this.
"We believe that the costs of the air taxi system would be even less than the cost of an Uber or a Lyft."
This could be bull****, we'll have to wait and see.

Well that's the biggest problem facing personalized autonomous aviation.
There is no way, without large scale nuclear fusion, to provide enough energy at an affordable rate.

When you get in a prius taxi now the main cost you are paying is the drivers wages. Vehicle maintenance and the tiny amount of petrol used is negligible. Try renting a helicopter for a short, 5km journey. The pilot will get paid slightly more than a taxi driver(depending). but the cost of the energy to get you off the ground will contribute €1000s of euro to your €12 taxi fare.

orangerhyme

cnocbui wrote: »

Claiming autonomous flying would be relatively easy because of a lack of traffic and congestion is so wonderfully ridiculous as it just illustrates the lack of thought people put in when championing pie-in-the-sky tech. The first autonomous flying taxi would be the one and only one to ever not have a problem with having to cope with avoiding other aerial traffic.

Its not pie in the sky.
Commercial aircraft is already almost autonomous.

If all the flying taxis are autonmous, it makes it much safer. You could have one central control over everything.

Can you imagine if all cars were autonmous in the future, there would be 0 chance of accidents. Cars wouldnt need all the safety features of cars and theyd be much lighter and the range would increase significantly.

cnocbui

orangerhyme wrote: »

I take your point on this, I dont know how to calculate the cost of energy required to fly a taxi lets say 20 miles at 80 miles an hour at an altitude of 500m carrying two passengers.

This could be the major stumbling block for ordinary people. We'll wait and see.
Certainly not requiring a pilot reduces cost.
Maybe if it came from a renewable energy source the marginal cost would be very low.

Well with a helicopter you would typically get less than 4 MPG, just for starters. Then there is the fail-safe technical quality that makes the vehicle inherently expensive to make. Then there is the high cost of regular and frequent maintenance. I think there is little chance flying is going to be made cheap.

Del.Monte

Some posters in this thread have watched far too much Sci-Fi and a more likely scenario instead of high tech flying taxis is a country starved of oil as the big powers come to blows as they scramble to secure rapidly diminishing resources. Ireland's motorways with grass growing on them but I suppose that won't affect the flying taxis - won't be great for autonomous cars though.