Autonomous Vehicles, LEAF and others...

[GRA]

Via ABG, a problem that hadn't occurred to me:

Volvo’s self-driving cars are thrown off by kangaroos

http://www.autoblog.com/2017/07/02/volv ... -kangaroo/

Volvo, like seemingly every other company, has been working on its autonomous vehicle technology and has run into an interesting problem. While testing its cars in Australia, the company found that kangaroos were both a nuisance and very confusing to its cars.

The vehicles' detection system has been exposed to large animals before – it came across moose while being tested in Sweden and it can respond to deer, elk and caribou. But kangaroos move much differently than other animals and their hopping is throwing off the system. "When it's in the air it actually looks like it's further away, then it lands and it looks closer," Volvo Australia's technical manager David Pickett told the ABC. . . .

This suggests that Pronghorn Antelope and sometimes deer could be an software issue in the U.S., although I have no idea if they bound on hard pavement. Video of Pronghorn bounding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1DvZbblGIk

[edatoakrun]

Free story from WSJ:

Norway Takes Lead in Race to Build Autonomous Cargo Ships

The Yara Birkeland, slated for launch late in 2018, will make short trips delivering fertilizer

OSLO—Two Norwegian companies are taking the lead in the race to build the world’s first crewless, autonomously operated ship, an advance that could mark a turning point in seaborne trade.

Dubbed by shipping executives the “Tesla of the Seas,” the Yara Birkeland now under development is scheduled in late 2018 to start sailing fertilizer 37 miles down a fiord from a production facility to the port of Larvik. Using the Global Positioning System, radar, cameras and sensors, the electric ship is designed to navigate itself around other boat traffic and to dock on its own...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/norway-tak ... 1500721202

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Team from autonomous EV startup NIO wins car hacking contest at DEF CON 25

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/08 ... 1-nio.html

The NIO US team took First Place at the DEF CON 25 2017 Car Hacking Village, beating out 10 other teams in the third annual “Capture The Flag” (CTF) security event. Based in Silicon Valley, NIO US is a start-up developing autonomous electric vehicles. (Earlier post.) DEF CON is one of the oldest continuously running hacker conventions, and also one of the largest. . . .

At CTF, participants work on a wide array of security challenges, covering WiFi, ECUs, over-the-air updates, encryption, infotainment, gateways, and remote hacking of connected vehicles. . . .

In March 2017, NIO US announced its first production autonomous electric vehicles will be available in US in 2020. NIO US received its Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permit by the California DMV and is currently testing on public roads in advance of the release of its Level-4 production vehicle. NIO US is part of NIO Inc., with investors including Tencent, Temasek, Baidu Capital, Sequoia Capital, Lenovo, TPG and other world-renowned investment institutions.

[GRA]

Via ABG:

Researchers hack a self-driving car by putting stickers on street signs

https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/04/sel ... -stickers/

Researchers at University of Washington, University of Michigan, Stony Brook University, and UC Berkeley have figured out how to hack self-driving cars by putting stickers on street signs. Starting by analyzing the algorithm the vision system uses to classify images, they used a number of different attacks to manipulate signs in order to trick machine learning models into misreading them. For instance, they printed up stickers to trick the vision system an autonomous car would use into reading a stop sign as a 45-mile-per-hour sign, the consequences of which would obviously be very bad in the real world.

In the paper, "Robust Physical-World Attacks on Machine Learning Models," the authors demonstrated four different ways they were able to disrupt the way machines read and classify these signs using only a color printer and a camera. The most troubling part about these experiments is that they all appear very subtle to the human eye, camouflaged as graffiti, art, or incorporated into the sign's imagery.

The first method involves printing up a full-size poster to cover the sign, which looks normal but maybe a little faded in places to a human. This caused the machine vision, from a number of angles and distances, to classify a stop sign as a speed limit sign 100 percent of the time in tests. Stickers placed on a stop sign to look like graffiti spelling the words "love" and "hate" caused the stop sign to read as a speed limit sign two-thirds of the time (and once as a yield sign). An "abstract art" attack – just a few small, strategically placed stickers – had the same effect as the poster cover-up. On a right turn sign, the researchers masked the arrow with grey stickers, and got it to read as a stop sign two-thirds of the time, and an added lane sign the rest of the time. . . .

After figuring out how to confuse the system, though, they only need a photo of the target sign, a color printer, some sticky paper, and the will to live with the consequences of causing someone to blow through a stop sign at 45 miles per hour. . . .

[GRA]

Via GCC:

UK issues new guidance on automotive cybersecurity

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/08 ... cyber.html

. . . The 8 main principles are:

• Organizational security is owned, governed and promoted at board level;
  
  Security risks are assessed and managed appropriately and proportionately, including those specific to the supply chain;
  
  Organizations need product aftercare and incident response to ensure systems are secure over their lifetime;
  
  All organizations, including sub-contractors, suppliers and potential 3rd parties, work together to enhance the security of the system;
  
  Systems are designed using a defense-in-depth approach;
  
  The security of all software is managed throughout its lifetime;
  
  The storage and transmission of data is secure and can be controlled;
  
  The system is designed to be resilient to attacks and respond appropriately when its defenses or sensors fail. . . .

[GRA]

On the same issue, via IEVS:

Fleet-Wide Autopilot Hack Is Tesla’s Biggest Security Concern

http://insideevs.com/fleet-wide-autopil ... y-concern/

. . . Musk was the keynote speaker at the recent National Governors Association 2017 Summer Meeting. As we reported, he provided a wealth of information and it’s all available on video. However, Musk stated that Tesla’s biggest concern is a fleet-wide Autopilot hack. He said:

• “I think one of the biggest concern for autonomous vehicles is somebody achieving a fleet-wide hack.”
  
  “In principle, if someone was able to hack all the autonomous Teslas, they could say … I mean just as a prank … they could send them all to Rhode Island … across the United States … and that would be the end of Tesla and there would be a lot of angry people in Rhode Island. . . .”

Musk made it clear that Tesla is doing everything that it can to assure that something like this can’t happen. He continued:

• “We gotta make super sure that a fleet-wide is basically impossible and that if people are in the car, that they have override authority on whatever the car is doing. If the car is doing something wacky, you can press a button that no amount of software can override and ensure that you gain control of the vehicle and cut the link to the servers.”

He also assured that there are many system and sub-systems already in place within each Tesla vehicle. High-level encryption makes it so that an outside hacker can’t control powertrain or braking. . . .

[GRA]

Via IEVS (the headline's misleading, as the issues apply to all AVs):

Will Tesla Self-Driving Cars Affect Traffic Law Enforcement

http://insideevs.com/tesla-self-driving ... forcement/

How will the advent of self-driving cars affect traffic law enforcement? Florida law firm Denmon & Pearlman has considered the question carefully, and created this infographic to illustrate some of the issues involved.

It’s widely expected that autonomous vehicles will make our roads safer. According to Denmon & Pearlman (a list of sources is provided at the bottom of the infographic), 94% of crashes are caused by human error. Widespread adoption of self-driving cars could reduce both the number of accidents and the rate of fatalities. That means fewer police officers and EMTs working accident scenes, a duty that we’re sure they would be happy to avoid.

Self-driving cars could also mean fewer traffic stops – according to Denmon & Pearlman’s sources, around 800,000 drivers get pulled over every day, and vehicle autonomy could eliminate some 56% of these stops. That would surely be a good thing for all concerned. For law officers, traffic stops are time-consuming and stressful. For drivers, they are embarrassing and potentially expensive. In rare but well-publicized cases, they result in tragedy.

Depending on how you look at it, however, the news isn’t all good. Less need for traffic enforcement will mean fewer jobs for police officers, and fewer traffic tickets will mean less revenue for local governments. D & P estimate that speeding tickets alone represent $6 billion in fines every year. If 1 out of 4 cars is self-driving by 2030, that revenue could shrink by 25%. Will law-abiding citizens have to pay more in taxes to make up the shortfall? . . .

All these issues and more are discussed in "Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead", but there are some good graphics in this article, although they mistakenly left two categories of traffic stop in the 'avoidable' category which would reduce the number of stops by another 2.36%, as neither should apply for fully autonomous vehicles: suspended license and window tint. It may well be that a further 16.05%, for 'registration' would disappear, depending on how much information/control over AVs DMVs have. One scenario would be that a car which isn't registered would be rendered inoperable.

IIRR, "Driverless" mentions that NYC collects $600 million a year in parking fines alone, so the money from this and other fines would have to be found elsewhere once these sorts of violations no longer occur. On the positive side, there'd be less need for parking garages and lots (one of the least lucrative sources of property taxes, allowing the real estate to be used for other uses) and roads could be narrowed, decreasing road construction and maintenance costs; traffic signals would also decrease and maybe go away completely at some future point, etc.

[GRA]

Via ABG:

Arlington, TX gets autonomous shuttles for Cowboys, Rangers games

https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/15/arl ... gers-game/

As numerous authorities on AVs have pointed out, the first places they'll appear will likely be in areas restricted to other traffic, corporate campuses and the like, and slow speeds. This is an example.

[RegGuheert]

Via ABG:

Arlington, TX gets autonomous shuttles for Cowboys, Rangers games

https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/15/arl ... gers-game/

As numerous authorities on AVs have pointed out, the first places they'll appear will likely be in areas restricted to other traffic, corporate campuses and the like, and slow speeds. This is an example.

Not to mention the fact that buses like the EZ10 eliminate a driver, which means they will save money in the long run.

[GRA]

Via ABG:

Arlington, TX gets autonomous shuttles for Cowboys, Rangers games

https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/15/arl ... gers-game/

As numerous authorities on AVs have pointed out, the first places they'll appear will likely be in areas restricted to other traffic, corporate campuses and the like, and slow speeds. This is an example.

Not to mention the fact that buses like the EZ10 eliminate a driver, which means they will save money in the long run.

As will all commercial AVs, i.e. taxis/limos/buses/over the road trucks. AVs are already in use as big dump trucks in mines/quarries, and there's also AV ag equipment (GPS-guided tractors etc.) using autosteer in service, although at the moment they still have a human in the cab: http://www.agriculture.com/content/full ... are-coming

Local P&D trucks will probably retain a human crew, just to handle and move the load to/from truck to door/warehouse. Small courier AVs that can deliver direct to door, handle steps and elevators etc. may not need that.