Starsky Robotics Becomes First Uncrewed Truck to Hit 55 MPH

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/28520/starsky-robotics-becomes-first-unmanned-truck-to-hit-55-mph

by DanFeldman • 7 years ago

143 119 7 years ago

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

Starsky engineer here. We spent a few days getting all of our emergency procedures in place and testing all fail-safe aspects of our system on the road in preparation of the run. We've done unmanned runs before (also in Florida), but at much lower speed and with a vastly less sophisticated emergency system.

Happy to answer any questions

cbanek• 7 years ago

First off, congrats! I think self driving trucks have a lot of promise and would really change the American economy.

I'm curious as to the ways that the self driving problems in trucks might be different to the problems of self driving cars. For example, with heavy trucks, your braking distance must be a lot larger than a normal car. So things like following distance must be different. Also having to worry about skidding and the direction the trailer might move.

Also, I imagine that you have to be pretty careful about cars cutting you off. It seems to happen all the time on the road, and is more dangerous than people give it credit for.

seltzered_• 7 years ago

In case anyone isn't reading the article, these aren't "autonomous self-driving" trucks. They're remotely controlled trucks. Though I think Starsky has some longer-term goals of making some highway portions autonomous.

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

I'm curious as to the ways that the self driving problems in trucks might be different to the problems of self driving cars. For example, with heavy trucks, your braking distance must be a lot larger than a normal car. So things like following distance must be different. Also having to worry about skidding and the direction the trailer might move.

Right on the money. If you slam on the brakes on a truck, you and your trailer can jack-knife, sending the trailer the wrong direction. It's a more complicated controls problem than in a car as well!

Also, I imagine that you have to be pretty careful about cars cutting you off. It seems to happen all the time on the road, and is more dangerous than people give it credit for.

I've spent hundreds of hours in our truck over the last 3 years and my god drivers are absolutely terrible around trucks. You have an incredible view of the road from up on high in a semi, and the spatial awareness compared to a sedan is way better, so the crazy maneuvers happening around us seem a lot crazier. In California trucks can only go 55 mph, so we get a lot of folks (even in normal driving) trying to speed around us during merges on/off highways.

bedosh• 7 years ago

Are you worried about (cargo-)theft? The way I imagine it: - (assumption) it takes less criminal energy to steal something when no human observer is around - lonely road in the middle of nowhere - well known driving behaviour means it is easy to stop (overtake, then slow down to a halt?) - enable mobile phone jammer (optional) - take cargo

mdorazio5• 7 years ago

I feel like the risk of this is lower than that of rail car theft (find a place where the train slows down, hop on it, steal stuff, leave before it gets to a depot. Or alternatively disconnect the last car and take everything).

burkaman• 7 years ago

Wouldn't that work pretty well with a human driver? I don't think most truck drivers are going to risk their life for their cargo. If you block a truck in with a couple cars and block them from calling 911, they'll just try to protect themselves and maybe try to film you if they're brave.

kbenson• 7 years ago

Some things might be easier for the thief, but others I imagine harder.

Multiple on-board backup locations of numerous video sensors means unless the entire vehicle is torched (and even then), some evidence of the people who carried out the theft will probably survive.

When talking about autonomous platforms, a jammer might no longer be sufficient. If communication is lost, how hard is it to launch a drone (or multiple) whose job it is to keep visual contact with the vehicle while increasing distance, and relay the feed up when communication is re-established (how large an area does a jammer affect?).

There are ways to mitigate these defenses/logging (reduce all unique visuals, stop vehicle in tunnel), but also ways to minimize those mitigations.

I'm not sure it's any easier than when a human is present to defend the goods.

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

Not sure how we're thinking about this now internally. If there was such a technologically adept actor targeting us I'd be more worried personally about safety than the cargo itself.

LifeLiverTransp• 7 years ago

Easy answer- self destructing cargo. Epoxy Glue tubes which can be exploded on capture inside the container. Goods become unusable, robbery unsubstainable.

stefan8r3• 7 years ago

Starsky CEO here: Currently, cargo theft is less of an issue than F&F would have you believe, and unfortunately seems more driver related than land piracy.

It certainly is something that I think of, but safety engineering requires simpler processes (because simpler means less things need to go right, which is good when things are breaking). I'd rather pay more for cargo insurance than have more complicated logic that causes more accidents with people.

whynolove• 7 years ago

Are there any worries around drivers being more careless with driving since their own live is not in danger like it would be while actually in the truck?

lallysingh4• 7 years ago

I think the regular sleep well compensate compared to truck drivers.

leemac2• 7 years ago

This is exciting technology! My father in-law is a trucker, although nearly retired. He's fascinated by the developments made by you guys.

I'm not entirely familiar with the industry and day-to-day of a trucker, but I'd imagine you'd need some "on the ground" personnel, at least initially, to perform tasks such as fueling on long hauls.

Aside from this, it'd be interesting to see how quickly you can go coast-to-coast without a human needing a break/sleep.

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

Well if your father in law is looking for a different pace of driving have him check https://www.drivestarsky.com/.

With regards to fueling, there are a good amount of fuel stops around the country that will do "concierge" services for fueling up the truck, giving it a wash, etc. There's some infrastructure in place for when we need to get there.

mdorazio5• 7 years ago

How are you guys planning to handle the paperwork, inspection, and liability hand-off tasks typically done by truck drivers today? People at the depots on either side, virtual sign-offs/inspections, or what?

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

Great question. We're now public[1] with the news that we're operating a trucking company, and by headcount a significant amount of starsky employees are truck drivers. Part of how we're approaching the trucking business is to automate as much of it as possible, including all this invoicing, bill of lading movement, automatic payments, doc signing, unloading/loading, and dispatch.

It's pretty easy for a carrier like ourselves to decide how to manage this business process, so we have carte blanche to work with our shipping partners on novel solutions. They're also interested in transparency and speed of transaction, and especially interested in being able to work with a truck that is easily traceable. There are modern shipping depots that have robotic unloading, but also a significant portion of freight is unloaded by the people manning the shipping/receiving offices of our freights' end destination.

[1] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/starsky-robotics-sees-truc...

markstos• 7 years ago

What is the failure mode when connectivity with the truck is lost or jammed?

MegaButts5• 7 years ago

I would love an answer to this, as I believe this is why this approach is fundamentally flawed and why others are not pursuing it.

a_imho• 7 years ago

Handwaving this question says it all really.

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

Got to this question late. We had this happen [1] during our first unmanned run completely unintentionally. We were testing our 1st gen emergency and diagnostics systems, and the truck ground to a halt a few minutes into the test. Our teleoperation center lost complete power (freak outage, no weather or anything) so the teleop station disconnected, even though our UPS was still working along. We've made a few changes to support this case a bit more, but the broad strokes worked in that case. Long story short, the truck will stop itself. There are many different ways we try to do that more safely depending on road conditions, and those are outlined in the VSSA linked elsewhere.

Link below is a dramatized account of the events, couldn't find anything less editorialized, sorry!

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19177797/self-driving-tru...

jacquesm• 7 years ago

What is your liability situation in case of injury or fatalities of other users of the road?

eldavido5• 7 years ago

(Starsky engineer here)

IANAL, however, a lot of road activity is regulated state-to-state in the US. It turns out to be a really fascinating regulatory problem.

To get a flavor of what we're dealing with, we've had some concerns from law enforcement officials that our tele-op drivers need to be sober, and that officers need some mechanism for administering a field sobriety test to someone who may not even be in the jurisdiction.

IMHO, there needs to be a federal solution to some of this. If it becomes common that vehicles and equipment are operated across state lines, it will become increasingly difficult to comply with every state's rules. That said, unlike some other companies, we are very committed to honoring both the letter and spirit of the law. Our view is that this is an important moment for US civic engagement where industry, labor, insurance, vehicle manufacturers, and the public need to come together and work it out. We explicitly are not taking a "move fast and break things" attitude toward legal compliance.

taneq• 7 years ago

Looks very interesting! I think you have the right approach, doing an "easy" thing safely to start with.

Have you experimented with stereo cameras for telepresence? How does it compare with multiple fixed cameras?

petra• 7 years ago

Best of luck!

An automation/teleoperation seems like a great solution for this problem.

Why aren't more teams doing that ?

woodrowbarlow• 7 years ago

how bandwidth-hungry is teleoperation?

eldavido5• 7 years ago

(Starsky engineer) It takes a ton of data. Hundreds of GB/month. I'd provide more specific info but don't have it in front of me at the moment.

userbinator3• 7 years ago

Do you have any thoughts about the "sudden hand-off" problem, i.e. when the "autopilot disconnects" and the human has to suddenly take over and make a decision in the next fraction of a second? This is difficult enough even with the driver in the vehicle, and remote control can only add latency.

StavrosK2• 7 years ago

Why would this ever happen? The failsafe will probably be "hazard lights go on, truck immediately brakes and pulls over", not "goes into super manual mode over slow link".

DrScump4• 7 years ago

Do you support triples in those states that allow them?

DrScump4• 7 years ago

How do you handle refueling?

dmos622• 7 years ago

Maneuvering a truck in an urban area looks really hard for a by-stander. The proposition here is to do it with remote control, that sounds even harder. On second thought, it might be an easily solvable problem with the proper sensors and UI.

penagwin• 7 years ago

That's exactly what I was thinking, I can't imagine driving a semi on a busy road, let alone doing so remotely.

Then again based on those pictures the operates have far better views around their truck then you would sitting in it.

But then again the UX of looking around vs a computer screen has to be another hurtle.

scohesc• 7 years ago

Would be interesting to have a head-mounted display a la VR headsets and model a truck with the virtual windscreens being the camera outputs on the truck. Would be interesting to see.

dmos622• 7 years ago

I've seen a video of experimental tech where a military humvee had a 360 array of cameras, whose feeds were collaged into a live 3rd person perspective feed. I think the humvee also had all its windows boarded up. The idea was for the crew not to use in-vehicle perspectives at all. I could see that working when you have to do tricky slow speed maneuvering. A top down view, where you could also see projections of how the truck would shift given different steering angles.

anchpop• 7 years ago

The other day I saw a truck carrying a blade of a wind turbine. It was gigantic, looked around half the length of a city block. Driving with one of those must be nearly impossible, I can't imagine how you would make a turn

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

This is REALLY hard stuff, but fascinating from a UI/Human-machine interaction perspective. Shameless plug - we're actively hiring for software engineers and product management around the Teleoperation system. We need more people fully focusing on making this better and working with our drivers on feedback, features, and other enablers for the remote-control experience.

https://jobs.lever.co/starskyrobotics/

mdorazio5• 7 years ago

For those unaware, this part is key:

"Unlike some other "driverless" truck companies, Starsky isn't building a completely autonomous solution. Instead, it uses teleoperation to remotely drive the truck between freight depots and the freeway where a highway-only automated driving system takes over."

Starsky is doing really impressive work, but the trucks aren't designed to be 100% autonomous 100% of the time. I think this is a great solution to the last-mile problem for freight logistics, however.

Robotbeat• 7 years ago

I was wondering when teleoperation was going to be taken seriously to plug the gaps in full autonomy.

If Starsky is successful, I suspect this will be used a lot of places. For instance:

Image vision detects a police officer. Maybe a police officer doing hand signals. Immediately switches to teleop (with last several seconds replayed) if in a safe situation to do so. Corner case: solved.

MegaButts5• 7 years ago

Pretty much all of the self-driving car companies use remote assistance to help out with difficult cases and have been for years. The other companies just realize it's another tool in the arsenal with its own limitations, whereas Starsky seems to push hard on it being the magic sauce.

The problem with remote assistance is it's only useful for static scenarios, like getting a vehicle unstuck. It can't help you make a left turn due to lag (cellular networks are not reliable for real-time safety critical systems), but it can tell you whether or not you can proceed after stopping for a paper bag in the middle of the road.

closeparen• 7 years ago

Which RF communication system is reliable enough for this? Surely not cellular data.

tomglynch• 7 years ago

Surely teleop has the same issues as regular trucks though - they are a danger to pedestrians and cyclists sharing the roads.

dymk• 7 years ago

How much of a hazard have semi truck operations been to pedestrians and cyclists? They can only use large arterial roads.

I'd wager that a primary motivator for self-driving+teleoperation is increasing the amount of time that trucks can be hauling, not necessarily making them safer than existing trucks.

adrianN3• 7 years ago

At least the truckers have an easier time being with their families if they don't have to drive all over the country all the time and can instead do their job from an office. It's also easier to switch drivers so that they don't have to drive when they're tired.

bobthepanda• 7 years ago

If it only goes between depots on highways, isn’t that the opposite of last-mile?

dan678• 7 years ago

Teleop is a good solution for last-mile.

pugworthy• 7 years ago

I'm guessing this is being driven on a closed off express lane, but the fact that the video image shows signs facing the "wrong way" makes it look like the truck is going the wrong way on the highway.

bluescrn2• 7 years ago

Remote truck driving sounds like a scary job, driving a heavy vehicle capable of causing major fatal accidents, via tech that could lag or drop out at any time, with none of the tactile feedback that you normally get from a vehicle?

What does the interface look like? 2D screens (no depth perception), or something more VR-like with stereoscopic vision and head tracking?

onion2k• 7 years ago

You can see a version (maybe old) of the UI in this video - https://youtu.be/rFEmj6Wks7c

DanFeldman10• 7 years ago

There are updated videos of our UI floating around the internet. This one is pretty recent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HtOhbMSv5c&amp

Excuse the mood lighting, we're experimenting with eye-strain on the remote drivers.

joering22• 7 years ago

Truly incredible project that I would never wanted to work on because when it suceed, all drivers can go look for another job.

The video is nice to see a professional driver even in his orange vest driving truck ten thausand miles away. And once he is done he shuts down his laptop and walks to the room next door, where his wife cooks dinner to play with their kid. Right?

If reality of automatization learnt us anything so far, is that all these people will be fired almost overnight, and the huge hangar of $2/hour Phillipino “drivers” will be hired to most drive most likely multiple trucks at once, because why the hell not to divide screen in four.

The only good thing is that we are some 10-15 years away from full implementation, but if I were you I would not look for long and prosperous career as a truck driver.

jimktrains2• 7 years ago

Agreed; it sounds scarier than a fully autonomous vehicle.

Driving is a very tactile activity, but I'd also worry about lag, network congestion, network outages, &c.

dwighttk• 7 years ago

Because of that focus we've been able to develop a highly reliable SAE Level 2 system and a highly reliable teleoperation and supervision system, and it turns out that's all you need.

level 2!

i_am_proteus• 7 years ago

Interesting to see the ubiquitous dual antennas on the side mirrors preserved here--- ostensibly no longer for CB, but for tele-operation.

apo• 7 years ago

Unlike some other "driverless" truck companies, Starsky isn't building a completely autonomous solution. Instead, it uses teleoperation to remotely drive the truck between freight depots and the freeway where a highway-only automated driving system takes over. ...

The video hints at "lane keeping." How much automation is involved?

However much it is, it's not hard to imagine a smooth transition between remote operation and autonomous driving over time. Each iteration would eliminate one more thing the driver needs to be concerned with until nothing is left.

ricardobeat• 7 years ago

One would assume Tesla has tested their semi somewhere?

flexer2• 7 years ago

One thing I like about their business model is that it isn't just the autonomous/teleoperation tech, but also that they're a full-service trucking company. That kind of integration should hopefully allow them to provide the same service as a normal trucking company but with much lower cost.

Even if the company just serves long-haul routes from depots in less congested areas very close to freeway on-ramps, that's still a huge market, and the labor cost savings would likely be huge if humans are just driving from the depot to the freeway.

Related, I was thinking about the idea of teleoperation for drone deliveries recently as well. The same kind of "last mile" problem exists for landing cargo from a drone. Have the drone fly from the warehouse to the customer location, and then pass it over to someone sitting in their house with a joystick to control landing and delivery of the cargo. Once the delivery is complete and the drone is airborne again, have it fly autonomously back to the depot. Pay people $1/landing or something like that.

The last mile is going to be the hardest part of any of these autonomous businesses. The hybrid teleoperation model where the computer handles the relatively easy (but mundane) parts makes total sense.

lallysingh4• 7 years ago

So how do you gas it up? Full service stations are rare outside of NJ these days.

woodandsteel• 7 years ago

It seems to me there are two smart ways to go about this. One is Startsky's path of starting their own company. The other is a company like Tesla teaming up with one or more existing big trucking companies, which would be motivated to do that to lower costs and overcome their huge problems hiring drivers.

xwdv• 7 years ago

The cybersecurity implications here are chilling, it’s only a matter of time before a hacker takes over a truck and drives it into a crowd from a remote location. Where there is a shell, there is a way.

gazzik• 7 years ago

Amazing accomplishment, well done!

sys_64738• 7 years ago

Does it have a Hutch at the back?

userbinator3• 7 years ago

Personally, I'm most worried that this will reduce the attention or personal responsibility that a driver would normally have --- if you're actually in the vehicle, anything that goes wrong has a very real chance of injuring you, possibly fatally; whereas if you're safely sitting far away, then you may feel like nothing can happen to you even if your vehicle gets into a horrible crash (you may get arrested, but there's no immediate risk of death from doing anything wrong.) That lack of subconscious fear for your own life is IMHO not at all a good thing, because I think it's really that --- and not the law --- that keeps most drivers on the road from being dangerous and compels them to attention.

HeWhoLurksLate• 7 years ago

I personally don't like crashing my RC car or quadcopters, either- it isn't something I like to do. I'm also a new driver, and I've had several near misses. One of the possibilities with tele-op is that someone entirely different can take over if someone else falls asleep, messes up, or does something belligerent. Technology is a double-edged sword.

userbinator3• 7 years ago

is that someone entirely different can take over

That doesn't solve the "hand-over" problem --- which I already mentioned in another comment here --- if you were suddenly given control of a moving car headed in a dangerous direction, how long would it take to assess the situation enough to make a decision on what to do? You have to be already paying attention to react in reasonable amount of time.

Of course there is the "workaround" of having multiple (alert) drivers per vehicle, but that seems more trouble than it's worth just to avoid putting a single driver in a vehicle. (In addition, as all the stories about self-driving-car accidents have shown, even when people are in the vehicle itself, they don't tend to pay as much attention if they already have the "someone/thing else is driving" notion anyway.)

jchallis• 7 years ago

An amazing accomplishment. Your entire team should be justifiably proud.

Traster• 7 years ago

What I don't understand about this solution is that if you have full automation on the highways then what you need isn't really remote control for the rest, all you need is to get regulation change so that drivers aren't considered to be driving during autonomous periods. In most of Europe this would mean you could have a driver in the vehicle but they could use the long periods of automated highway driving as their rest time meaning they can travel almost non-stop, as opposed to how they operate at the moment where they are forced to pull over for several hours a day.

Starsky Robotics Becomes First Uncrewed Truck to Hit 55 MPH

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