EuroWire January 2016

42 / 122

Transatlantic cable
January 2016 38
According to the TelecomTV editor, the density of the commuter
population of Silicon Valley increases by the day and is putting
immense strain on already creaking transport infrastructure and
housing stocks. He wrote: “From San Francisco all the way down
some 45 miles to the back end of San Jose the roads are almost
continually full to choking point – as are the trains and buses –
and the constraints of physical geography mean there is no easy
way (or perhaps no way at all) to bring relief.”
† But despite the “nightmare tra c” and associated air
pollution, the “ludicrous expense” of living and working in
the area, the persistent drought in the USA far West, and
the prospect of water rationing in California, Mr Warwick
observes that more companies all the time are drawn to
Silicon Valley.
The crowded conditions apparently agree with the AI and
robotics people who throng the area. The Toyota lab is to
be led by Dr Gill Pratt, formerly of the US Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who oversaw the recent
DARPA Robotics Challenge – a bruising competition among
25 advanced automata. Dr Pratt told Mr Warwick: “The
density of people doing this kind of work [AI and robotics]
in Silicon Valley is higher than any other place in the world.”
† For his part, Mr Warwick noted that Silicon Valley’s main
artery is Route 84 – El Camino Real, there since California was
an outpost of Spain and donkeys were the fastest things on
the road. He wrote: “Were there any donkeys on the Royal
Road today they’d probably still be the fastest things on it.”
Covering 250 to 300 incident-free miles
a day, researchers along for the ride set a
1,500-mile record for a self-driving car
While tech companies and auto makers have been testing
self-driving cars on the roads of North America for some time
now, few accounts have emerged of the passenger experience
on such a ride. Recently the IEEE Spectrum, published by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (New York),
carried a report from one member of the four-person crew
aboard an experimental car that set a record for a “no hands”
road trip from the USA to Mexico border south to Mexico City.
The self-driving car was a 2010 Volkswagen Passat Variant known
as Autonomos. The modi ed vehicle can automatically control
speed, direction and braking without human intervention, but it
also relies upon the US Global Positioning System (GPS) to safely
follow preset routes. The researchers also prepared customised
maps containing terabytes of data detailing the number of
lanes, highway markings, exits, intersections and tra c lights.
(“Autonomous Car Sets Record in Mexico,” 26th October)
“We covered 250 to 300 miles daily, so it took a week to arrive
in Mexico City,” said Raúl Rojas, a professor of computer
science and mathematics at the Free University of Berlin and a
visiting professor at the University of Nevada (Reno), in a press
release. “Some parts of the highway were scary, but we had
no important safety incidents.” “We” were Dr Rojas and three
colleagues from Germany. Taking it in turns, one person kept an
eye on the road from the driver’s seat and one person watched
the computer and navigation systems to learn what moves
the autonomous car planned next. The other two followed in a
support vehicle.
The 1,500-mile road trip, the rst leg of a planned 4,000-mile trip
from Reno to Mexico City, kept to Mexico’s north-south Highway
15. About ve per cent of the route took the self-driving car
through construction work and potholes. But a bigger challenge
came from the absence of lane markings along lengthy stretches
of highway due to repaving work over the summer. Dr Rojas
and his colleagues have out tted Autonomos as a “driving
laboratory” with seven laser scanners, nine video cameras, seven
radars and a GPS roof antenna. They previously tested the same
car in autonomous driving mode in Germany, on a 190-mile
round trip from Berlin to Leipzig.
† As noted by Jeremy Hsu of the IEEE Spectrum, Dr Rojas hopes
eventually to improve the ability of Autonomos to predict
the behaviour of other drivers and also pedestrians. “If a
human can drive with two eyes,” Dr Rojas said, “I am sure that
we will be able to drive autonomously with a computer the
size of a notebook and just a handful of video cameras in a
few more years.”
† Mr Hsu also observed that semi-autonomous features have
been “creeping into” existing cars. Tesla Motors recently
uploaded new Autopilot software to its Tesla Model S
vehicles. And the Mercedes-Benz S Class has since 2014
o ered adaptive cruise control and automatic collision
prevention.
As Volkswagen presents its remediation
plan, the diesel-emissions scandal
continues to widen around the company
On 20th November, a little more than two months after the
company’s cheating on diesel emissions tests was revealed,
Volkswagen AG submitted its recall plan to regulators with the
California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
The German automaker had been negotiating with the
authorities on details of a plan to deal with 482,000 2.0-litre
diesel vehicles sold in the USA that used deceptive software to
evade emissions requirements. Having met California’s deadline
for submitting a plan, VW awaited the CARB and EPA response.
In the interim, the automaker said, it continued to work with
both sets of regulators toward an approved remedy.
Focusing on California, Dana Hull and Je Plungis of Bloomberg
News noted that – beyond developing an e ective x for each of
three types of non-compliant four-cylinder engines – VW must
document any adverse impacts on vehicles and consumers.
And, since the emissions scandal centres on Volkswagen’s use of
a sophisticated defeat device, “Any proposed remedy – whether
that’s retro tting cars with new parts or revising software codes
– will need to be tested by California technicians before the plan
is rolled out to consumers.”
The Bloomberg reporters reviewed the three categories of cars
that are problematic for Volkswagen. The older cars – known
as Gen I – will be the hardest to x, as they lack the Selective
Catalytic Reduction device that, starting in 2012, VW added to
models like its Passat. Retro ts are often di cult and expensive.
So-called Gen 2s may need additional hardware as well as
software alterations, while Gen 3s may require just a software x.
(“Volkswagen Submits Recall Plan to California Air Regulators,”
20th November)
Advocacy groups weigh in on mitigation
But the xes are not the whole of Volkswagen’s problems.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris as well as several
attorneys general of other states are conducting criminal