SLAM

The final lesson in CS 373: Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, is about SLAM — Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This is a category of techniques that a robot (or autonomous vehicle) can use to both map its area and determine its own location on that map.

This sounds like a standard problem, but it’s quite difficult, and often robots avoid the problem by relying on maps provided ahead of time. This is one reason, for example, that Google so heavily maps streets.

The class covers GraphSLAM, in particular, which is a way to reduce the computational complexity of mapping, essentially by reducing the amount of information necessary to store.

It’s a pretty neat algorithm, and one that involves more linear algebra than I’ve had to use in a while.

Linear algebra actually seems to be a theme that seems to be arising in a number of different machine learning and robotics courses that I’m taking.

I never really used linear algebra in any of the networking, probability, or web development work I have done, so I always questioned why I learned it in the first place. Now I can see.

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 29, 2015.

Japan vs. USA

Or is it technology companies vs. auto manufacturers?

Bloomberg reports that the Japanese Big Three (Toyota, Nissan, and Honda) are projecting the arrival of driverless cars to be in 2025 — five years after the 2020 deadline targeted by American firms.

The reasons seem to be liability concerns, and the fear of putting a beta product onto the road.

“On an experimental pilot stage, if the automated vehicle is driving a test course, that’s really possible and easy,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda told reporters on the sidelines of the show on Wednesday.

Putting self-driving cars on public roads too early risks a major accident that sets back the development of autonomous vehicles, he said. “The technological advancement would stop suddenly. We have to have a very long-term perspective.”

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 28, 2015.

Anatomy of an Autonomous Car

Re/code has a neat article that breaks down autonomous cars by component, and examines which suppliers are building which pieces.

The body, the eyes, and the brains all involve a collection of different, sometimes competing, suppliers. The suppliers range from longtime auto industry giants like Continental and Bosch, to niche firms like Mobileye, to computer hardware firms like Nvidia.

Recommended.

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 27, 2015.

Auto Repair Shops: Another Casualty of the Driverless Revolution?

As cars go driverless, will auto repair shops go bankrupt?

It’s not an obvious corollary, but the argument is there. Particularly if private vehicle ownership declines and we all begin to rent rides from Uber-like fleet owners, the viability of independent auto shops could be threatened.

But I’m not ready to go there quite yet. My local independent auto shop often has US Postal Service vehicles inside, proving that some fleet owners still outsource their maintenance to small operations.

Of course, USPS is a government operation, and perhaps privately-owned fleets are maintained differently. How do Hertz or FedEx manage maintenance and repair for their fleets?

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 26, 2015.

Could Self-Driving Cars Turn Into a Nightmare?

I suppose so, but I doubt it. Progress marches forward.

The Telegraph tries to envision how this nightmare would occur and isn’t very convincing.

Looking back from 2025:

I walk everywhere in the city now because traffic is worse than ever. Who needs parking spaces when you can send your driverless car around the block while you do your shopping? And commuting distances have doubled, with vehicle occupants happy to zone out in their pleasure booths, watching movies or working themselves to death, seemingly losing track of time.

The upshot here seems to be that getting more flexibility in parking and commuting is actually a bad thing.

I suppose if the “drive in circles instead of park” problem became bad enough, it could be a real drag. But driving in circles is not free (whether the car is gasoline or electric). And this assumes we all have our own driverless cars that need to idle while we run our errands — a future that seems increasingly unlikely in the age of Uber.

I imagine there are some potential driverless dystopias out there, but let’s get a little more creative. And plausible.

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 25, 2015.

Disruption

Autonomous vehicles could shrink U.S. personal auto insurance sector by 60%:

“Autonomous vehicles are poised to completely transform the auto insurance industry, and underlying market forces, including technology enablement, consumer adoption, and regulatory permission, are already aligning to enable mass change,” said Jerry Albright, principal in KPMG’s Actuarial and Insurance Risk practice. “The risk profile of vehicles is changing daily, and the subsequent drop in industry loss costs would reduce the size of the auto insurance market, trigger consolidation in the personal lines space, attract new competitors, and force dramatic operational changes within carriers.”

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 23, 2015.

The Autonomous Vehicle Supply Chain

In place of famous Silicon Valley names, a network of established automotive electronics and software suppliers is developing advanced driver-assist systems, connectivity and autonomous features that are customized to OEM specs instead of being hand-me-downs from the consumer electronics industry.

WardsAuto argues that Silicon Valley companies aren’t going to control the driverless car market, both because car manufacturers are on their toes, and because the supply chains are so important and intricate.

I think kind of probably right, but misses the point.

Looking at the mobile phone industry — which is a somewhat analogous — Apple and Google control the operating systems, and Silicon Valley start-ups come up with the cool applications.

The layer in the middle — actually constructing the phones — is controlled by OEMs and suppliers in Asia.

The middle layer is the most commodified and least profitable layer of the value chain, though.

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 22, 2015.

Insurance: Part 2

Yesterday I riffed a little bit on what insurance might look like in a driver-less car world.

Today, MarketWatch carries a press release from a report hypothesizing that driver-less cars may kill the auto insurance industry.

Actually, they don’t come out and say that in so many words. Instead, they write:

As the risk of accidents will fall drastically with the advent of autonomous vehicles, the insurance premium to cover that risk too will drop significantly. Nevertheless, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers will increase insurance spend to cover their share of product liability risk, thereby offsetting the shrinkage in consumer-driven insurance revenues.

With OEMs and tier 1 suppliers looking to ensure fool proof product safety, methods to access risk and certify the product will assume greater importance. The traditional method of underwriting that uses historic data will take a back-seat, paving the way for a new breed of underwriters capable of evaluating driving algorithms and assigning a relevant risk priority number.

I think the translation there is that disruption is coming to the auto insurance industry.

As Warren Buffett said:

“If you could come up with anything involved in driving that cut accidents by 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent, that would be wonderful,” he said at a conference in March. “But we would not be holding a party at our insurance company.”

Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on October 20, 2015.