Uber Disabled Volvo's Safety System Before Fatal Crash

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rgMekanic

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Bloomberg is reporting that Uber disabled the standard collision-avoidance technology in the self-driving Volvo SUV that hit and killed a woman in Arizona last week. Aptiv Plc, the company that supplies the radar and camera for the Volvo system states “We don’t want people to be confused or think it was a failure of the technology that we supply for Volvo, because that’s not the case.”

Intel Corp.'s Mobileye provides sensors and chips for Aptiv's collision avoidance system stated that despite the poor second-hand quality of the video of the accident, tests on their software using the video said it was able to detect the pedestrian one second before impact.

“The video released by the police seems to demonstrate that even the most basic building block of an autonomous vehicle system, the ability to detect and classify objects, is a challenging task,” Mobileye Chief Executive Officer Amnon Shashua wrote on Intel’s website. “It is this same technology that is required, before tackling even tougher challenges, as a foundational element of fully autonomous vehicles of the future.”
 
Now I have more questions.

1) Why disable the system?
2) Why could the most, arguably, critical system in the car be disabled at all and still allow the car to drive itself? (i.e. the car should not be able to move if that system gets disabled)

Itching to hear Uber's retort of this accusation.
 
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BSmith said:
Now I have more questions.

1) Why disable the system?
2) Why could the most, arguably, critical system in the car be disabled at all and still allow the car to drive itself? (i.e. the car should not be able to move if that system gets disabled)

Itching to hear Uber's retort of this accusation.
Click to expand...

I reckon it's because uber didn't want the Volvo system interfering with their own system that is being tested
 
I'd like to know if something in the Volvo software conflicted with Uber's software. Why was it disabled? It seems some redundancy would be beneficial.

The very first report stated that the woman stepped right out into the way the car. I think a lot of people thought that there was no way the car could stop under that circumstance. But, with every subsequent report, we find out details that make look Uber look worse. The video, the fact that Uber doesn't use LIDAR data to avoid objects and now that they disabled the standard Volvo software.
 
rgMekanic said:
I reckon it's because uber didn't want the Volvo system interfering with their own system that is being tested
Click to expand...

That assumes Uber is creating their own systems, which seems silly and not cost effective at all, when they can just buy a system already to go. It also helps to absolve them of liabiliy, unless they start disabling things.

Missing something here. It does not add up.

Also note, the software is provided from the sensor manufacturer ot the buyer of the system. In this case, Volvo. If Uber was preparing their own system, then they would also have gotten the same software provided to Volvo. Something really strange going on here. Hope it is not a finger pointing war.
 
Agree with Uber on this one. The last thing you want while testing an auto drive system is another system fighting for control of the test car. It sounds bad now but imagine how it would look if they didn't disable the Volvo system and the two systems conflicting caused a similar accident. Guessing the Volvo system is a much simpler auto brake type system and not a full auto drive setup.
 
According to Aptiv (sp?), the system supplied to Volvo would have detected the pedestrian, so it was much more than the simple system you suggested.
 
I dont know about you guys but I think 1 second before is really crappy for LIDAR and RADAR. If you are going 30mph you would travel 44 feet in the second (it was going faster than that I think), IMHO she still would have gotten hit, not at full speed but at a speed high enough to cause serious injuries.
 
///AMG said:
I dont know about you guys but I think 1 second before is really crappy for LIDAR and RADAR. If you are going 30mph you would travel 44 feet in the second (it was going faster than that I think), IMHO she still would have gotten hit, not at full speed but at a speed high enough to cause serious injuries.
Click to expand...

The 1 second measurement was them testing their system pointed at a TV playing the potato quality video that was released.
 
rgMekanic said:
The 1 second measurement was them testing their system pointed at a TV playing the potato quality video that was released.
Click to expand...

You're right, I didnt read that part. But I'm not even sure how doing it through a Monitor would even work.
 
AI is buckling the knees of corporate giants finances. More chaos to come.

How can a human that makes mistakes, program self-thinking system not to make mistakes?
This is the riddle corporations will have to overcome without turning over control to AI fully.
 
rgMekanic said:
I reckon it's because uber didn't want the Volvo system interfering with their own system that is being tested
Click to expand...


I agree with this, Volvo is all about safety Reminds me of Subaru's comments on autonomous driving. "When we can make a vehicle accident free, then we'll worry about autonomous driving" --paraphrase
 
BSmith said:
That assumes Uber is creating their own systems, which seems silly and not cost effective at all, when they can just buy a system already to go. It also helps to absolve them of liabiliy, unless they start disabling things.

Missing something here. It does not add up.

Also note, the software is provided from the sensor manufacturer ot the buyer of the system. In this case, Volvo. If Uber was preparing their own system, then they would also have gotten the same software provided to Volvo. Something really strange going on here. Hope it is not a finger pointing war.
Click to expand...

All the major AV programs are largely creating their own systems. Yes they are using OTS sensors and might be using OTS libraries here and there, but that is a minor part of an overall AV system. The Volvo system is a self contained system that may or may not be there on other vehicles that UBER ends up using, so they need to make sure that their system can handle it all.
 
///AMG said:
I dont know about you guys but I think 1 second before is really crappy for LIDAR and RADAR. If you are going 30mph you would travel 44 feet in the second (it was going faster than that I think), IMHO she still would have gotten hit, not at full speed but at a speed high enough to cause serious injuries.
Click to expand...

Thats been my point all along. Slowing down from 40 to 35 reduces the energy in the impact by around what half? That one second of braking may have meant a 40% chance of living vs 0% chance...
 
Funny, the same guy as the "register" article, however in that article he was quoted as saying "may have disabled" yet on Bloomberg "they did disable"... sorry calling shenanigans on this entire cluster fuck fest of news agencies going for clicks, various soft/hardware guys trying to deflect blame, seriously fuck everyone.
 
kju1 said:
Thats been my point all along. Slowing down from 40 to 35 reduces the energy in the impact by around what half? That one second of braking may have meant a 40% chance of living vs 0% chance...
Click to expand...
76% the energy at 40mph.
 
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///AMG said:
You're right, I didnt read that part. But I'm not even sure how doing it through a Monitor would even work.
Click to expand...

Interesting look at what's possible just from the images from the camera:

 
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Not surprising it was disabled, the question would be why was Volvo's system able to detect the imminent collision when Uber's was not.
 
"The Uber self-driving Volvo car that killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz. spotted the woman about 6 seconds before impact, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday. The self-driving system software determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed 1.3 seconds before impact, but the system wasn't turned on and doesn't have a way to alert the human operator. Uber told the NTSB the system was turned off to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior" -- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u...-before-impact-investigation-finds-2018-05-24
 
nice!

Uber is just taking care of the growing homeless population in America, one jaywalker at a time. Just need it to drive though those tent "cities" that pop up on sidewalks next.
 
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