Germany Says Level 4 Driverless by 2022.

Seems quite broad, but further a large number of commercial vehicles mentioned.  Level 4  ... meaning  " ... Level 4 is considered to be fully autonomous driving, although a human driver can still request control, and the car still has a cockpit. In level 4, the car can handle the majority of driving situations independently. ...  " 

Germany Greenlights Driverless Vehicles on Public Roads

Tech Crunch; Rebecca Bellan, May 24, 2021

Legislation passed by the lower house of Germany's parliament would permit driverless vehicles on that nation’s public roads by 2022. The bill specifically addresses vehicles with the Society of Automobile Engineers' Level 4 autonomy designation, which means all driving is handled by the vehicle’s computer in certain conditions. The legislation also details possible initial applications for self-driving cars, including public passenger transport, business and supply trips, logistics, company shuttles, and trips between medical centers and retirement homes. Commercial driverless vehicle operators would have to carry liability insurance and be able to stop autonomous operations remotely, among other requirements. The bill still needs the approval of the upper chamber of parliament to be enacted into law.  ... " 

Ford and IBM Lead in Edgey Tech

Perhaps most surprised in Ford leading in autonomous vehicles, but having worked with them was impressed with their analytical system offerings.

IBM Leads in Quantum Computing, Ford in Driverless Car Patents

By Susan Decker  January 12, 2021, in Bloomberg

 American companies lead in technology innovations in 2020

Artificial intelligence, quantum computers and autonomous vehicles are among the fastest-growing areas of technology, with American companies often in the lead, according to a new study of U.S. patents issued over the past five years.

International Business Machines Corp. received the most patents in machine learning and quantum computers, while Ford Motor Co. is the most active in areas of vehicle navigation and control systems, according to the analysis by Fairview Research’s IFI Claims Patent Services.  ..." 

Driverless in San Francisco

And yet more cars without drivers.     A tipping point?

GM to Run Driverless Cars in San Francisco Without Human Backups    Associated Press, Tom Krisher

General Motors' Cruise autonomous vehicle unit said it will remove human backup drivers from the driverless vehicles it is testing on San Francisco streets by year's end, as California's Department of Motor Vehicles has granted the company a permit to do so. This follows Google subsidiary Waymo's announcement last week that it would open its autonomous ride-hailing service in Phoenix, AZ, without human drivers. Said the University of California, Berkeley's Steven Shladover, "I don't see them as revolutionary steps, but they're part of this step-by-step progress toward getting the technology to be able to work under a wider range of conditions."

Fully Driverless Ride Hailing Begins in AZ with Waymo

In Arizona.  Could be a lead in to broad use of fully driverless vehicles.  Consider the data being gathered and leveraged for use.

Waymo Begins Fully Driverless Rides for All Arizona Customers   In Bloomberg  By Ira Boudway, October 8, 2020

Self-driving car company Waymo announced on Thursday that it has opened its fully driverless ride-hailing service in suburban Phoenix, AZ, to the public. Existing Waymo One customers will be able to hail a driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivan from a fleet of over 300 such vehicles; service will be limited to an approximately 50-square-mile area. Waymo intends to extend the service to new customers in a few weeks, and CEO John Krafcik said by then, "we'll have general access to anyone who chooses to download the [Waymo One] app." The company also plans to reinstate safety drivers for some trips, but will not allow passengers in vehicles with safety drivers until it has installed barriers between the front and back seats.  ... " 

Autonomous Cars and the Drive Thru

A considerable discussion and walk-through example of the potential interactions of drive thrus and autonomous cars.  With detailed consideration of the business implications.    Had given this some thought before as how the interaction might work.   Makes the point that drive-thrus are very big business.

AI Trends: Drive-Thrus and Autonomous Cars in AITrends

By Dr. Lance Eliot, CEO, Techbrium Inc. - techbrium.com - and is a regular contributor as our AI Trends Insider, and serves as the Executive Director of the Cybernetic AI Self-Driving Car Institute and has published 11 books on the future of driverless cars ... '

When Autonomous Cars Arrive in the Car Chase

Dr. Lance Eliot spends considerable time and detail in examining how the autonomous car will be included in the classic California 'car chase'.    Also points to a number of his other examination of automobile/people behavioral conundrums, once we go driverless.   Imagine all the new movie plots.  Thought provoking. 

Cop Car Chases And AI Autonomous Cars in AITrends
Dr. Lance Eliot, CEO, Techbrium Inc. - techbrium.com - and is a regular contributor as our AI Trends Insider, and serves as the Executive Director of the Cybernetic AI Self-Driving Car Institute and has published 11 books on the future of driverless cars.

An AI self-driving car has the potential to be involved in a car chase thus the AI needs to be ready with responses and action plans.  ..... ' 

Follow Lance on Twitter @LanceEliot
Dr. Eliot can be reached at ai.selfdriving.cars@gmail.com

AI Framework for Driverless Cars

Late to this, but a question about driver-less had someone send this to me.    Useful thoughts about the how and what kind of data is being gathered.

Framework for AI Driverless Cars: The Big Picture

Dr. Lance Eliot, CEO, Techbrium Inc. - techbrium.com - and is a regular contributor as our AI Trends Insider, and serves as the Executive Director of the Cybernetic AI Self-Driving Car Institute and has published 11 books on the future of driverless cars.

Follow Lance on Twitter @LanceEliot
By Dr. Lance B. Eliot, the AI Trends Insider

When I give presentations about self-driving cars and teach classes on the topic, I have found it helpful to provide a framework around which the various key elements of self-driving cars can be understood and organized. The framework needs to be simple enough to convey the overarching elements, but at the same time not so simple that it belies the true complexity of self-driving cars. As such, I am going to describe the framework here and try to offer in a thousand words (or more!) what the framework diagram itself intends to portray.

The core elements on the diagram are numbered for ease of reference. The numbering does not suggest any kind of prioritization of the elements. Each element is crucial. Each element has a purpose, and otherwise would not be included in the framework. For some self-driving cars, a particular element might be more important or somehow distinguished in comparison to other self-driving cars. You could even use the framework to rate a particular self-driving car, doing so by gauging how well it performs in each of the elements of the framework.

I will describe each of the elements, one at a time. After doing so, I’ll discuss aspects that illustrate how the elements interact and perform during the overall effort of a self-driving car.  .... "

Driverless Services in Japan and France

Continuing to gather information on the use and greater implications of driverless.  My experience is mostly in the supply chain space, but the changes this will produce will be very broad.  Consider too the required data generation and transmission involved, what else will ride on these new channels?

Waymo is developing driverless services with Renault and Nissan
The services will be designed to transport people and goods in France and Japan.

By Mariella Moon, @mariella_moon in Engadget
1h ago in Transportation   .... "

Getting Driverless up to the Doorstop

Most interesting is that the computing power for the 'robot' will be from the vehicle.   Good now, but I wonder if advances will make this unnecessary.   The wheel-less stork like Digit is different too..  First time I have seen such a walking device proposed.  Will make the suburbs a weirder place,  with storks patrolling the front yard.  Can I ask it to do some light chores when it stops by?

Ford’s Way to Finish Driverless Deliveries: Package-Carrying Robots 
Bloomberg   By Keith Naughton

Researchers at Ford are working to incorporate into the company’s driverless delivery system an android capable of carrying a 40-pound load. The Digit android is intended to address what self-driving researchers refer to as "the last 50-foot problem," or how to get a package from an autonomous delivery vehicle to the customer's doorstep. Ford's decision to use a robot with two legs instead of wheels came with help from researchers at the University of Michigan, who emphasized the inherent attractiveness of a bipedal robot. In addition, the Digit system gets most of its computing power from Ford's self-driving vehicle, allowing the robot to have a more lightweight design. Ford would like to deploy Digit delivery robots as soon as 2021, the same year it plans to introduce its autonomous vehicle fleets. ... ' 

Rolling Driverless Convenience Stores

Look forward to seeing something like this. 

Stop & Shop to Test Driverless Mobile Markets  in ThePacker

Stop & Shop customers in the Boston area will be able to shop directly from driverless delivery vehicles in a test set to launch this spring. Shoppers will use an app to request the vehicle and choose their fresh produce, meal kits and other items when it arrives, and the technology records the purchase and sends a receipt.  ... " 

Combining Real and Virtual Worlds

Makes lots of sense.  Essentially leads to simulation and construction of portfolios of test scenarios.

Combining Real, Virtual Worlds Improves Driverless Vehicle Testing

University of Michigan

Researchers at the University of Michigan's Mcity Test Facility are using augmented reality (AR) to create a faster, more efficient, and economical approach to testing connected and automated vehicles. The researchers found AR technology can accelerate testing of connected and automated vehicles by up to 100,000 times, depending on different testing scenarios. In addition, the method can reduce additional testing costs to almost zero. The team created an AR environment where real vehicles can interact with and react to computer-generated vehicles in real time via connected vehicle communications. The University of Michigan's Henry Liu said the new procedure "has the added benefit of allowing us to build a virtual library of computer-generated traffic scenarios that can be practiced without risk of damage or human injuries." .... ' 

Driverless Pizzas to be Delivered before People

Inclined to generally agree, general driver less delivery should precede driver-less vehicles with passengers.   If only for the liability and legal issues involved.    Yet driver-less vehicles will come.  But agree less with the article that we will soon see many customers meeting the driver-less delivery vehicles out by the curb to eliminate the last 100 yards.   It is still extreme convenience that is leading this transition.   Thoughtful piece on business process profitability issues:

Why Self-Driving Vehicles Are Going to Deliver Pizzas Before People     By Bloomberg in Forbes

In the wait for self-driving technology, cell-phone toting tech bros may have to cede their spot in line to pizzas, Craigslist couches and the mounting ephemera of e-commerce.

The future—at least in the near-term—will not only be driverless, but sans passenger as well.

The early conversations around driverless cars have focused on robot taxis because taking the human driver out of a cab seemed like the quickest path to profitability. But an increasing number of companies—automakers, tech giants, startups, parcel services—are seeing autonomous delivery as the more lucrative venture.

“The revolution in commercial vehicles will come first, then the passenger cars” will follow, said Ashwani Gupta, senior vice president of Renault-Nissan’s light commercial vehicle business. “The moment business people start believing this is going to generate additional revenue and that this is going to be more efficient, then I think they’ll start working on it.”  ... ' 

Driverless AI

The term was new to me, but not the concept.   Makes sense,  if it is really AI then it should manage itself.  Easier/cheaper than having room fulls of scientists building systems.   But here also aspects like testing, maintaining and connecting to corporate systems creates most of the difficulty.   How close is this?

H2O.ai’s Driverless AI automates machine learning for businesses
 Driverless AI is the latest product from H2O.ai aimed at lowering the barrier to making data science work in a corporate context. The tool assists non-technical employees with preparing data, calibrating parameters and determining the optimal algorithms for tackling specific ...   In Techcrunch.

(Update):And further, in Datanami:
H2O.ai Boasts New AI Product Like ‘Kaggle Grandmaster in a Box’  by Alex Woodie