Autonomous Self-Driving Vehicles - Talk at AGI 2011 by E.D.Dickmanns

From 1990 - 1996 I worked with Prof. E.D.Dickmanns in Munich at the UniBW on developing a computer vision system for autonomous road vehicles. This was a great experience, and I also got my PhD degree from that work. It was therefore a delight to see a recent presentation given by my "doctor father" (that is how we call our PhD supervisors in Germany) about his work in computer vision based autonomous vehicles. I remember taking part in these technical demonstrations, for example the PROMETHEUS presentation in 1994 near Paris, and the road trip from Munich to Odense (Denmark) with my colleague Markus Maurer (now Professor at Uni Braunschweig). When the autonomous vehicle (a nice Mercedes 500 SEL) went with 180 km/h (110 mph) on the Autobahn near Lueneburg, we were quite a bit tense, hoping that the car would not suddenly decide to swerve to the side...

Here is Prof Dickmanns' talk, given at the recent http://agi-conf.org/2011/:

A lifelong dream came true: driving an Auto-Riskshah - and I mean "driving", not being driven

Before we went to India, I had toyed with the idea of renting a car in India for a few days and to travel around a bit, independently, just following the road signs, stopping wherever I felt. From my first visit here I knew about the road rules, or more correctly, about the absence of those, so I felt I could do this without a lethal accident. But when searching on the internet for opportunities to rent, I noticed that this would only be possible in Ahmadabad, about 2 hours away from where we are. So I almost gave up that idea. Jokingly I told Brian that I might rent a rikshah instead, just to drive around a bit in Vallabh Vidyanagar. And yesterday, Dr Jadeja told me that it would be possible to rent a rikshah - with an accompanying driver. Great! So on Thursday morning at 9:30 I went to the HM Patel institute where the driver Harish with his rikshah was already waiting. First I got a brief instruction: there are three gears, to he shifted with the left handle. The "neutral" is between gear 1 and 2. The clutch is operated with a lever at the left handle. The right handle turns the throttle. There seems to be no idle, the throttle has to be operated always, during starting, and during idling when standing, otherwise the engine dies. The brake is operated by the right foot. The horn (very important) is operated with a button by the right hand, which then has to be removed briefly from the throttle handle (or you need to have a large hand). The blinker is a switch near the left handle, but no finger can reach it while the hands are on the handle, so one has to remove the left hand from the gear switcher. Very un-ergonomic design, that 1950s Pioggo from Italy. But as we slowly do a test ride around the block, I get the hang of it. Brian sits in the back and enjoys the ride. The test ride immediately develops into the real ride, and we drive out of Vallabh Vidyanagar towards west, on the road to the temple town Vardtal. Traffic is light. The speed indicator is not working, but I have my GPS: it shows almost 40 km/h. The driver keeps telling me "slo, slo"... While driving this rikshah I can now appreciate the difficulty in multitasking which these drivers have to do: in addition to the actual driving task, meaning operating the non-ergonomic machine, one also has to pay attention to the traffic situation, watch vehicles in the back, front, and sides, swirve around potholes and avoid speed bumps, overtake pedestrians, cows, dogs, camels, and tractors, be overtaken by basically everybody else, and avoid any kind of collission with anyone. This is quite a number of tasks, and I hardly manage. Especially because the side mirrors are not well adjusted - I have to move my head very far out of the way to see anything, and they I miss what is ahead of me. So I simply rely on other vehicles sounding their horns, and I also use every opportunity to beep the horn, to warn everybody that I am approaching. The turn signal indicators are of no use, because our accompanying driver has wisely switched on the alarm blinker, indicating that an "incompetent driver" is now operating his machine.

On the way we pass the village "Jobanpura", and I decide to stop and have a brief look.

We go on towards Vadtal, and that town always has a special flair to it, with its temple in the center, its gates, the buzzing crowd around the stalls. I take a few pictures, then we return. We stop at the guest house to pick up Gina and Deborah, to give them a lift as they have to go to their next appointment at a local school. So I am now officially acting as a rikshah chauffeur. But their destination is too far away for me, the two hours rental are soon over. So we drop them at a busy intersection where they take another auto rikshah. A few minutes later they overtake me laughing.

A brief stop at a bank for exchanging some money, then we are driving back to the HM Patel institute.

That was fun!

Snow in Leeds

The snowfall started on last Friday. I had just arrived from my trip to St.Poelten in Austria, it was shortly after midnight, temperature was just below 0 Celcius. My car on the airport long term parking had been frozen over, so I had to scratch the windows free. Shortly after I had started driving, it began to snow. I came home safely, and in the morning there was a snow cover of maybe 1-2 inches in and around Leeds.

This is very unusual here in UK, to have snowfall that early in winter. In the astronomical calendar it is officially not yet winter ...! Only the Eastern part of the UK seemed to be hit by that snowfall, when looking towards the Yorkshire Dales, the mountains there appeared to be bare without any snow.

The following days and nights there was some further light snow, and since the temperature remained below freezing, the snow kept accumulating. And then today after 10:00 am there came a big snowfall, as I was at work: there were thick snow flakes, and they began to accumulate quickly. When I checked my car, there was a cover of about 4-5 inches on it!

When I returned from lunch, my colleague from the neighboring office asked me if I could give him a lift home. He only lives a 15 min driving distance from our campus, but in the morning it had taken him almost 4 hours to come to work, using buses. A main meeting that had been scheduled for the afternoon was cancelled - many people could not make it because of the snow. And Leeds Met closed down at 3pm. So I drove my colleague to his home; took about 30 minutes. The road was quite full, traffic was moving slowly. Cars started to skid as soon as there was a slight incline.

The Smart car is not really ideal for these snowy conditions: it has rear wheel drive, and its automatic clutch does not give me any control over a soft starting. But I managed anyway, just had to be very careful when accelerating - and avoid using the brake, just rolling out a slow speed instead. The northern Ring Road in Leeds was full of cars in both directions: this road has quite a few hills, and any incline, either downhill or uphill, present a major problem for driving, as cars easily start to skid. I avoided Ring Road by driving through local roads in Adel and Alwoodley.

I had promised another colleague at Leeds Met to give him a ride home too, so I drove back to Leeds Met. Since the Ring Road was full, I had to drive a longer way than I had anticipated, going all the way East to the A61, then driving south to the city centre. This direction was quite empty, but long lines of standing or slowly driving cars were heading out of the town, inching along through the slippery roads. At one point I missed a right turn and had to drive quite a detour because I did not want to drive back into that long line of waiting cars, and in one location I also started to skid and almost hit a fence at the side of the road. But I managed to avoid the collision and slowly moved further on. 35 Minutes later I was back at Leeds Met, picked up my colleague, and drove him too to his home.

In the news today on TV the main topic was the weather and the traffic chaos. Not sure if LeedsMet is open tomorrow. I have teaching of a class scheduled for 9am - and I will try to be there. As a reward for students who will show up to this lecture I will bring some German Lebkuchen and Pfeffernuesse - if I manage to keep away from eating them myself tonight.

New Haven to Poughkeepsie

On Tuesday morning I check out from the accommodation in New Haven. I now have the option to drive in any direction. Have no hotel reservation, so I can completely arbitrarily move anywhere. I decide to drive up Northwest, towards Poughkeepsie. Since my GPS does not have the map data, I drive just following the signs. Very nice landscape throughout Northern Connecticut, into New York State. Drive through the Bulls Bridge in Kent, one of the many covered bridges in New England.



When I come closer to Poughkeepsie, I suddenly see a large wooden derilict building on the right side of the road, hidden behind bushes and partially overgrown. I stop and take a few pictures, for later assembly into a Photosynth:



It turns out to be the former Bennett School for Girls near Millbrook and has been decaying for more than three decades. It appears to be a quite magical place, and there are many sympathetic posts on a forum with many entries about this building and its history.

I continue driving and soon am in Poughkeepsie in the Hudson River Valley. Appears to be a relatively sleepy town at the River Hudson, where the river banks have some remnants of former industrial installations.



A large bridge across the Hudson Valley captures my eye: it is very rusty and appears to be no longer in use, but there is construction and repair around it. Later I find out that this is a former railway bridge which is being converted into a pedestrian bridge. This will be the largest pedestrian bridge in the world!



It is getting towards evening, and I soon need to find a motel. When browsing the web, I had seen several motels in the area, but when driving now, I seem to be in the wrong area. I decided to drive for a few more miles north of Poughkeepsie, then I will return and search the south side of the town for a motel. But luckily I see a nice place appearing shortly after passing the Culinary Institute of America: The Golden Manor Motel in Hyde Park looks very inviting, and the do have a vacancy at a very reasonable price: $55 per night. So I found my next stay for the night.



In order to use their free WiFi, I have to do a strange thing: enter a pin number which is printed on their router into a form which appears on my laptop... no other guest ever had to do this.

I briefly have a look at the FDR Presidential Library which is just across the street. Very interesting museum and gift shop.



Afterwards I have dinner at the nearby Applebees. There are a few special offers: get two small beers for the price of one, and have a combo of three different small dishes. I have Chicken Wings, Burgers, and Mini Quesadillas.

Driving to New Haven, CT

The rental cars at JFK are at one spot that can be accessed by the AirTrain. There is no rental shuttle bus from the terminal, as it is customary at most other airports, but one uses the driverless train to go to the station "Federal Circle" - a map shows the route of this train.

The car is a Chevy Cobalt. The usual mushy and soft handling of a typical US car with automatic driving and soft suspension, but this is also a welcome change to the rough surface-deficiency-detector that I am usually driving (Smart Car). It is slightly raining, but quite warm. I head north, through the evening rush hour traffic of New York City, through Queens on the 678 Freeway, then further on the I-95. The traffic appears to get denser the later it gets and the further I am away from NYC... where are all these people going, on ah Thursday night around 21:00?

When I want to upload my map set from the laptop to my GPS, I realise that this laptop does not have the dataset... so I am without any map. And I had not printed out anything regarding directions... all I have is to rely on my instinct. Well, it works well. Arrive in New Haven around 22:00, and just follow the signs for "Yale University". Once in the city center, I can use the Campus map which I did print, and I find the dormitory fast.

The room is quite sparse, is a suite with two separate single bedrooms. But should be ok for the next few days. Tired and exhausted I fall asleep - did not even twitter my arrival.

Visit at IET, and Driving Back

The educational institution which Adam wanted us to get in contact is IET. This institution has the main mission to bring education to the tribal communities around Surat. They teach English and other subjects which are relevant to these communities in order to not stay behind in this rapidly developing country. IET has a great campus at the River Tapi.



We are welcomed by Ashok Vyas, the director of the institute. He shows us around and explains us the situation. We also realise that Adam and Dr. Jadeja (Sardar Patel University) are on the advisory committee of this institute. Beccy and myself are taking with us information material which we can then present to our home institutions. We visit the president of IET who is located at another building.

Afterwards, we drive through the city to Ashok's home, where he invites us to the usual great tea, and where his wife performs a puppet theatre performance for us, with her hand-made dolls. On a laptop computer we are shown a video recording that was taken in this flat during Brian's first visit back in January. The video shows him and the singer Ray Hearne, sitting in those seats were we are sitting right now.

We take off. Driving back through the town, on that elevated motorway. The city appears very contemporary, but somewhat run-down. Many glass facades of buildings are damaged. We are told that this city has many diamond processing factories and a large textile industry. I would be curious to see the old town centre. There is supposed to be a fort here. But interestingly, our hosts do not mention it, nor do they recommend anything in the old town. Instead they point out the factories and shopping centres that we are driving alongside.

We continue towards North. The road is a long construction zone, due to the conversion into a motorway. We drive again through many potholes. Our driver appears to be even more agressive than before, and even more than all the other drivers around. He honks a lot, speeds at intersections and roundabouts. But the most life-threatening scene happens when our part of the quasi-motorway is very slow, and he just moves across an intersection onto the other lane, right into the oncoming traffic. Lots of honking, but everybody sees our vehicle and moves to the side. This goes so for about 1/2 km, then he returns back to the correct track. From now on nothing can shock me anymore. Beccy is half unconsious and says nothing.

We drop off Adam near the town of Bharuch. No time for sighseeing, we drive further into the night. Eventually the road becomes better. After about 4 hours of driving we are back in Vallabh Vidyanagar.

Somehow after all this Indian food, vegetarian and spicy, I have an appetite for pizza. There is a place, and we all go. The pizza is quite a bot different than expected: an almost solid bottom crust, and on top some tomato paste, with grated cheese strips.

Arrival in Surat

Back at the hospital, our group splits. Most people will drive back to Vallabh Vidyanagar. But Adam has offered to visit another educational institution which is interested in establishing links with overseas contacts. This would be in Surat, a few hours more to drive from here. Beccy and myself have been interested in this, but she does not feel so good today - some of the spicy food has not been kind to her. We are considering cancelling that trip, but Adam convinces here that it would be good to go. So the other ones take off, and Beccy, Adam, Asha, and myself stay behind.

We sit in the garden, chat with out hosts while it gets dark. A great view onto the starry sky. At 8pm the driver from Surat arrives, we say good-bye and drive off into the darkness. The driver seems to want to make up time, he drives quite energetically over the potholes. Often we "test the suspension" - yes, it still works ok.

After 45 minutes we get a call, from the people back at the hospital. They found an ID card, with the name "Reinhold Behringer". What the hell...? I check my wallet, everything is there. I did not take my passport with me. What could this ID card be? Then I realise: it is my German driver license! Just a few months ago I had been looking for it for a few weeks, because I had replaced it and could not find it. And now this old grey paper document has again disappeared. Fortunately Dr. Yoshi would bring it to Vallabh Vidyanagar on Thursday, so I would have it back then. I have to find a better place to carry it with me than the mobile phone pocket.

A few times we cross railway tracks of those narrow gauge lines. I mark the position on my GPS, to be able to explore them sometime in the future, maybe. The ride goes through a lot of construction. After a while, the air begins to smell "chemically" - there are many factories outside, we are driving through a very industrial area. Around 11:30 we arrive in the outskirts of Surat, at the Pacific Inn Hotel. Makes a nice impression in the dark - before I enter the bath room. There are the usual buckets and fossets/taps on the wall, no surprise there, but the bath tub is something that I must take a picture of: it has stains, traces of dirty water, I would really not want to step in there and take a shower, not talking about a bath. And the toilet... well, I will be kind to the readers and spare them a detailed description of what was swimming in there... I wanted to take a photograph as evidence, but then I shy-ed away because it was just too disgusting. The whole think looked like something from the movie "Trainspotting"...

Well, no time to think much, I switch off the air conditioner and go to sleep.