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Las Vegas Launches Self-Driving Shuttle, Which Experiences Accident in First Hour of Service
A potential glaring flaw in the software
Yesterday the City of Las Vegas launched ARMA, an autonomous shuttle that provides free rides to passengers along a short route. While the shuttle's circuit is barely over a mile, the vehicle is interacting with regular traffic, which it was hoped would provide public confidence in the viability of the vehicle.
Enter a caption (optional)However, the vehicle was involved in a collision within its very first hour of service. By all accounts this was a minor fender-bender, initiated by the human driver of another vehicle, but it does highlight a glaring flaw (or a potential malfunction) in the technology of the vehicle, which is produced by French company Navya.
Apparently a semi-truck was backing up, did not see the shuttle, and "grazed" it, producing no injuries. Here is how a passenger interviewed by Channel 3 News Las Vegas described it:
"The shuttle just stayed still and we were like, 'Oh my gosh, it's gonna hit us, it's gonna hit us!' And then…it hit us! And the shuttle didn't have the ability to move back, either. Like, the shuttle just stayed still."
A City of Las Vegas representative issued the following statement:
"The autonomous shuttle was testing today when it was grazed by a delivery truck downtown. The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it's [sic] sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident. Unfortunately, the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided."
The key problem, as I see it, is the assertion that "the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident." Yet it didn't avoid the accident. Ideally it would have taken some type of evasive action, although admittedly we do not have the details; was it already boxed in? But failing that, it ought be able to do what a human driver would do if penned in while a vehicle is about to back into it, which is to start frantically leaning on the klaxon.
In any case, the accident was minor enough that the shuttle will continue its trial. "Testing of the shuttle," says the city representative, "will continue during the 12-month pilot in the downtown Innovation District."
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Maybe is because it's unfortunate acronym ARMA which means "weapon" in most Latin languages. This coincidence could be an ironic reminder of how the technology can become a weapon if badly used or if is immature.
The design flaw here is not really the autonomous vehicle, is it? It really did *avoid* the accident. We now have 2 buckets: vehicles that operate near-flawlessly an stop to avoid collisions, and vehicles operated by humans. We are, statistically, TERRIBLE at driving. It's early, there isnt much detail, but I dont think the robot car is really the problem here
I have to admit,"taking an evasive action" to avoid the very simple fender bender could have caused something much worse. It could have sideswiped a car in the next lane if it was two lanes going the same direction. It could have hit an oncoming car head-on. Either one of those could have lead to an even bigger accident. It also could have hit a pedestrian or a cyclist. A human might not have been able to assess all that information in a second to make a proper decision to avoid the larger catastrophes but instead take the fender bender.
Let's assume that its programming wouldnt have driven it into another vehicle, bike, person...etc. How about just slowly backing up to use whatever space was available? Perhaps any car present behind it would have seen the situation and backed up also to provide more room. What if all of the cars behind it had the same programming and backed up in series? The real solution to the problem is vehicle to vehicle communication, to bad that seems to be a ways off now.
Yes if all vehicles spoke to each other and they all could back up in unison, that would solve this problem. But at that point, they would also speak to the truck which backed up into this bus, eliminating that issue from happening as well.