Tag Archives: autonomous driving

Motorcycle News, News

Riders help develop autonomous cars

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One of the biggest problems with the development of autonomous cars is the detection of small and vulnerable motorcyclists in traffic.

So the San Francisco chapter of the Iron Order Motorcycle Club recently volunteered the services of seven members to help develop Aurora Driver technology.

They spent a day riding around with cars driven in manual mode by testers from Californian autonomous vehicle company Aurora.

Some of the unique situations tested were detecting riders who were lane splitting, which is only legal in California in the USA, and stopping in an offset position, rather than right in front of a car.

The bikes included four Harley-Davidsons, a KTM, an Indian and a Yamaha cruiser.

One of the biggest problems with the development of autonomous cars is the detection of small and vulnerable motorcyclists in traffic.
Volunteers (Images: Aurora)

Autonomous cars

Detecting motorcycles is a bit of a headache for autonomous cars development.

In one incident in San Francisco last year a lane filtering rider was hit by a Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle being driven in autonomous mode.

And police had the hide to blame the rider!

The Australian Motorcycle Council and other motorcycle representative groups around the world have called on authorities to slow down the testing and introduction of autonomous vehicles.

A motorcycle industry group in the USA called Give a Shift went so far as to say that “the single biggest threat to motorcycling overall (particularly in urban and higher density environments) will be the incompatibility between autonomous vehicles and existing motorcycles”.

However, motorcycle, car and tech companies such as Bosch are continuing to work together to develop systems that better identify and communicate with each other.

So while we still have grave concerns, it appears technology is starting to find solutions that just might make us safer.

In fact, BMW Motorrad spokesman Karl Viktor Schaller declares they will make riding safer because autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be virtually crashproof.

Tesla Autopolit

Electric car company Tesla has launched its Version 9 software update to Autopilot 2.0+ hardware that has a more advanced “neural net” to detect smaller and faster-moving objects around the vehicle.

That is supposed to include lane-filtering motorcycles.

However, Tesla Model 3 owner Scott Kubo shot this video to show the difficulties it has detecting motorcycles.

There are several examples of lane-splitting riders in LA travelling at much higher speeds than the 30km/h lane filtering maximum in Australia.

The system struggles at times to detect them both day and night.

Tesla detects lane filtering riders
Tesla detects lane filtering rider in video, but not on the sidescreen graphic.

In some cases it mistakes a bike for a car and in others the bike is in the next lane and passing right through cars!

Scott says drivers also use their ears to detect motorcycles and suggests an audio sensor to help the camera and radar sensors.

However, the bikes — including a couple of loud Harleys — are only audible for the last couple of seconds as they are coming from behind.

With the crackdown on exhaust noise and the coming wave of quiet electric motorcycles, an audio sensor would probably be pointless.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com

Motorcycle News, News

Why Has BMW Built A Self-Driving Motorcycle?

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(Contributed post by Steve Charli) 

With artificial intelligence and self-driving cars dominating the automotive industry, one can’t help but wonder if there’s any technology that’s similar in the motorcycle industry. And to my delight, I’ve found that BMW has already made something similar. 

CES 2019, Las Vegas.

Cue BMW engineer Stephan Hans, as he steps off the new BMW R1200GS.

He gives it a gentle nudge, and the R1200GS proceeds to speed off, looping around the parking lot. 

The audience is intrigued. 

The bike handles the loops the way a human biker would, leaning into the turn.

The motorcycle ends this spectacle by rolling to a calculated stop right in front of its engineer.

Hans sets the kickstand like a writer punctuating the end of a sentence. It is an exclamation point.

Self-riding BMW technology Connectride
Self-riding BMW prototype (Image: BMW Motorrad)

If you think that the idea of a fully-automated motorcycle seems strange, you’re not alone in that thought. I share the sentiments. While the reasons that a person would grow a love for motorcycles vary, one of those reasons will always be the thrill of the ride. It is an experience that is unique to motorcycles and to have self-driving motorcycles is anathema to that joy.

But even as this would seem like nothing more than a really cool party trick, there lies a necessity in creating a self-driving motorcycle, and it’s not with the intention of replacing human riders as was initially assumed.

The wisdom behind building a self-driving motorcycle is to enable the motorcycle to take necessary corrective measures that are going to help put a rider back on track. This is based on the rationale that motorcycles are less stable than cars. After all, if most modern cars have driving assistive technologies, wouldn’t these technologies have a more significant effect on motorcycles?

This is especially true when you consider that unlike cars that have extra external protection, motorcycles are built to be light and compact, and therefore do not enjoy the same level of protection. This means that motorcycle riders have a higher risk of sustaining injuries in the event that they find themselves in an accident. 

Besides human error, the loss of control — even momentarily — is the leading cause of accidents. Add the fact that like bicycles, motorcycles are also difficult to see according to this site cohenjaffe.com/accident-lawyer/types-of-accidents/bicycle-accidents/.

This is the rationale upon which the development of the R 1200 GS was built. In the moments where a rider may lapse in judgment, whether because of a lack of experience or because they simply made an error, the self-driving motorcycle can step in subtly. 

This can be in the form of a slight adjustment to steering in order to navigate a turn better, or the prompt applying of brakes, or automatic stabilization when the motorcycle senses that the rider is off-balance. 

This direction makes so much sense, especially in an age where car manufacturers seem to cram as many safety features as they can into every new  model. We definitely have the technology, all we need now is the intention. And with the development of the R1200GS, it would seem that motorcycles are about to get much more secure and beginner-friendly.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com

News

Automated cars ‘increase SMIDSY crashes’

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Hi-tech automated cars make drivers lazy and less likely to see motorcycles which could lead to an increase in Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See You (SMIDSY) crashes, a new study has found.

Rice University and Texas Tech University studied 60 drivers over a 40-minute drive in a “simulated partially automated vehicle” and found their hazard perception decreased.

Partially automated vehicles are those with sensors that detect hazards and apply drive aids such as steering and brake application to avoid a collision.

These systems don’t totally take over, so the driver need to monitor for hazards and react to them by taking avoidance action.

Automated complacency

However, the study found that drivers in these vehicles depend on the tech and become complacent, losing attention to the road ahead and its various hazards.

The study found that “safe operation becomes less likely when the demands associated with monitoring automation increase and as a drive extends in duration”.

So the longer they drive, the worse their inattention and complacency becomes.

“This study also supports the notion that vigilance performance in partially automated vehicles is likely due to driver overload,” according to the study, “Driver Vigilance in Automated Vehicles: Effects of Demands on Hazard Detection Performance,” in the publication Human Factors.

It’s not good news for motorcyclists who are already largely unseen by motorists.

And as more and more tech is included in cars, it could get worse, says study lead author Eric Greenlee, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Texas Tech.

“The bottom line is, until automated driving systems are completely reliable and can respond in all situations, the driver must stay alert and be prepared to take over,” he says.

“These vehicles have a lot to offer, but we’re a long way from being able to detect everything going on,” the researchers say.

“Until that day comes, we hope this research will raise awareness about the limitations of automated cars and their operators.”Riders ‘risk cancer from autonomous cars positive automated

Death knell

However, a 2017 US report by a motorcycle industry panel, cleverly called Give a Shift, says automated vehicles could kill off motorcycling.

“There is a “very real risk of motorcycling being completely cut out of the conversation for future vehicle infrastructure systems,” the group concludes in its report.

“As this (autonomous vehicles) technology grows, contemporary motorcycles will be even further elevated into higher risk categories in the eyes of traffic systems technologies, insurance companies, city planners and autonomous vehicle manufacturers who currently own and direct the conversation.

“The panel feels strongly that the single biggest threat to motorcycling overall (particularly in urban and higher density environments) will be the incompatibility between autonomous vehicles and existing motorcycles.”

The group says the technology will push self-operated vehicles such as motorcycles “out of the transportation matrix”.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com

News

Will 5G networks make riding safer?

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5G phone networks may make autonomous driving and vehicle sensors more sensitive and reliable, but will the faster networks also increase driver distractions?

A Spanish automotive company has demonstrated how 5G capability will improve inter-vehicle communication to detect vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists.

Ficosa used Barcelona’s 5G network to demonstrate its Bitax telematic platform which combines Wi-Fi and cellular technology to operate vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) technology.

V2V and V2X uses sensors in each vehicle to detect the other, or an obstacle and then send alerts to the other vehicle to avoid a collision.

Ducati has been working with Bosch on a similar system and plans to introduce it next year.

Bosch radar warns riders of traffic autonomous 5g
Bosch radar warns riders of traffic

However, Ficosa is the first to launch the technology after connecting 500 vehicles in Denver, Colorado.

In its Barcelona demonstration, Ficosa showed how Bitax could detect a pedestrian via a thermal camera in traffic lights, a cyclist equipped with a “high-precision geolocation” unit and a car stopped by the roadside in low-light conditions.

The company says this proves the tech can also detect other vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists.5g V2V autonomous automated

“These use cases show how C-V2X technology offers a safer and more comfortable driving experience by allowing the vehicle to communicate with everything around it (other cars, traffic lights, traffic signals, pedestrians, cyclists, motorbikes, etc).

“For cars to ‘talk’ to the city, however, latency must be kept to a minimum. So, it is essential to roll out 5G capabilities.”

That means they need the higher-frequency signals of the next-generation network which has shorter range but less radio interference.

5G advantages/disadvantages

However, there are advantages and disadvantages in the faster network.

Speeds can be up to 10Gbps which is about 1000 times faster than most 4G signals. It is claimed it will download a movie in 10 seconds.

That would make it even faster than the best broadband network.

Great! So drivers will be tempted to watch Netflix instead of paying attention to the road.

Distracted drivers are already a major danger to riders.

St Paul Police Department has even axed its popular motorcycle unit over distracted driving crashes.

cops distracted drivers
Image from St Paul Police Department Facebook page

Apart from Barcelona, 5G has already been rolled out in some parts of the USA, South Korea, Sweden, Estonia, Turkey, Japan and China. Australia is expected to introduce 5G next year.

Samsung and several other Android brands will release 5G phones this year, but Apple will wait until 2020.

While 5G might help with the coming wave of automated and semi-automated vehicles using VC2V and V2X technology, it may not work in remote areas where riders are more likely to travel.

However, like current 4G phones, your next-gen phone will also be able to use previous generation signals for phone calls and data use.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com