[HN Gopher] Openpilot - Operating system for robotics
___________________________________________________________________
Openpilot - Operating system for robotics
Author : punnerud
Score : 164 points
Date : 2024-09-20 09:19 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| colesantiago wrote:
| I am not surprised that comma is still around.
|
| Minimal VC funding, less than 100 employees, not outrageously
| increasing headcount each month, profitable and sells a product
| with good margins.
|
| Not many startups do this anymore, they are just chasing funding
| every 3 months using OpenAI's API, comma has their own models
| before the AI hype.
| solarkraft wrote:
| It's cool to see that it's possible to innovate sustainably, in
| a niche. So refreshing to see something stick around rather
| than become a bubble with a billion dollar valuation that
| either takes over the world and enshittifies or implodes and
| takes the product with it.
|
| Make business chill.
|
| That said: The larger they get, the more regulator attention
| they'll attract. If some government entity wanted to, they
| could probably easily kill them.
| mdaniel wrote:
| kill the company, probably, but the source is MIT and there
| doesn't appear to be any copyright assignment, so no rug pull
|
| https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/v0.9.7/LICENSE
|
| https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/32eecd721129b9215030c5.
| ..
| edude03 wrote:
| IIRC the actual model is private and only downloads once
| you activate the device so presumably if the company was
| shutdown you couldn't use the device anymore unless someone
| shelled out for training
| mdaniel wrote:
| Makes sense. Given what I have seen of geohot's
| personality, I would bet dollars to donuts that he'd post
| a link to it in such an outcome
| KTibow wrote:
| I'm inclined to say the model is open because I've seen
| PRs that just update the various models
| bks wrote:
| I chose the Hyundai Ioniq 5 as my current car specifically
| because it's compatible with OpenPilot. It's been a total game-
| changer for my driving experience. Just like their tagline says,
| "make driving chill," and for me, it truly delivers on that
| promise.
| zrt1019 wrote:
| I'm confused:
|
| "THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
| THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COMPLYING WITH
| LOCAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS. NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED."
|
| Where can this be used? In a private parking lot?
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| The driver takes liability, of course, and this can be used
| wherever the driver deems it safe and useful.
| diggan wrote:
| > this can be used wherever the driver deems it safe and
| useful
|
| With the disclaimer that this depends on the location of
| course. For example, I think in Spain (and probably EU
| wide?) modifications that affect steering and throttle
| control would need to undergo local homologation before
| you're legally allowed to drive with that on public roads
| at all.
|
| Which, to be honest, makes a lot of sense. I don't think
| anyone would be happy if cars start using software MVPs
| automatically controlling throttle and steering while in
| real traffic.
| edude03 wrote:
| I mean let's be frank here. The sort of people who are
| enthusiastic about this also aren't going to be stopped
| by the law especially with the low risk of getting
| caught.
| diggan wrote:
| If I were to personally install this and use it anyways,
| my biggest worry would be the additional punishment if I
| cause an accident. Not sure exactly what the punishment
| is for driving a vehicle you know isn't road worthy, but
| I bet it aint pretty.
| targetx wrote:
| While the chances of getting caught are low, I wouldn't
| want to risk this for insurance. If you are involved in a
| crash for any reason I don't think they are going to
| cover it if you modified this stuff on purpose.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Aka, this will drive your car into a ditch and it will be
| your fault.
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| It really bothers me when people make statements like
| this. I propose a bet:
|
| If you're so confident this will drive my car into a
| ditch, then front the money for me to buy a compatible
| car & this kit. If it drives my car into a ditch, I'll
| pay you back double that money.
|
| That's an easy bet for you, right?
| moffkalast wrote:
| If a piece of software that has the capacity to kill
| people is provided without any kind of assurances or
| warranty with the sole responsibility placed solely on
| the user, then that already tells me all I need to know,
| no bet needed to settle it.
|
| Would you buy an angle grinder that's specifically been
| designed to not have a guard so it can be more useful,
| made by random contributors on the internet without any
| official certification? I'll stick with the ones that
| needed to pass the CE mark and you can sue the company
| responsible if it chops your arm off thank you very much.
| They at least have a required level of anxiety needed to
| patch anything serious knowing the level of
| responsibility they carry and what's coming if they mess
| up.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| They're just trying to scare away people who thing they can
| chuck this on their car and suddenly have a self-driving
| robot that they don't have to pay attention to.
| torlok wrote:
| You pay a thousand bones for a device you have to babysit.
| What's confusing about that?
| thatgerhard wrote:
| Is it like an app you install on the car or is it a custom
| integration?
| rvnx wrote:
| It's a dashcam that you put on the windshield with 2 cameras
| pointing forward and one inward (filming the driver).
| ozzyphantom wrote:
| It's my understanding that in addition to the cameras it
| also uses the sensors already built in to the car which
| would include blind-spot detection, no?
| diggan wrote:
| It says my car is supported and my car doesn't have any
| blind-spot detection, nor does the requirements list that
| as needed, so maybe it's optional but not required?
| falcor84 wrote:
| What is filming the driver used for? Can you disable that?
| world2vec wrote:
| To ensure the driver has eyes on the road all time. It
| detects if you're not paying attention and beeps at you.
| I don't think it can be disabled.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Ah, thanks, I just found more detail here - https://githu
| b.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/docs%2FSAFE...
|
| They say it's required for ISO compliance with Level 2
| autonomous driving
| sofixa wrote:
| This reminds me of Waymo's approach to self-driving cars.
| Paraphrasing, but basically they found that _progressively_
| adding self-driving to help human drivers is bad, because it
| leads to the humans becoming complacent and not paying enough
| attention. Therefore they decided on an all or nothing
| approach, where their cars would be only and entirely self-
| driven.
| typewithrhythm wrote:
| This always seemed like a bit of bull from waymo. It's not an
| easy problem to work with existing manufacturers to give a
| better and or cheaper solution... Especially when there are
| established competitors with efficient verification and
| validation processes (that every manufacturer requires).
|
| They decided it wasn't worth explaining that their techniques
| don't generalise to a driver assist. It would not be good or
| cheap enough to be worth developing the compliance and
| integration frameworks.
| jowday wrote:
| The first thing Waymo tried building (way back when, circa
| 2010 or so) was highway based driver assist in the style of
| Autopilot. They did a ton of testing with it and didn't
| like how quickly their testers stopped paying attention
| despite a ton of instruction not to. I've seen clips from
| these tests.
|
| It's also possible they shifted direction because the long
| term vision of robotaxis is much more lucrative.
| warble wrote:
| Maybe I'm being ignorant about something here but isn't
| paying less attention the whole point?
| mook wrote:
| Isn't the point to pay _no_ attention? The difference is
| when an accident occurs, was the person in the car at
| fault for not vigilantly watching everything.
| sofixa wrote:
| Unless you assume that self-driving software is perfect,
| no, it really isn't. That's the whole problem - the
| drivers would get complacent, so _when_ there 's an
| issue, they'd be caught by surprise and wouldn't be able
| to react.
| Veserv wrote:
| You can already do that by just closing your eyes and
| letting Jesus take the wheel. No, the point is doing so
| while maintaining safety.
|
| It is materially less safe to operate a ADAS while
| distracted than driving manually. Humans are
| exceptionally good drivers on average, only encountering
| minor crashes on timeframes measured in years to decades.
| As such, if safety critical ADAS errors occur more
| frequently than every ~100,000 miles and you are
| attentive in less than 100% of all such occurrences, you
| are operating your vehicle multiple times more
| dangerously than the average driver (which is a number
| that _includes_ drunks and distracted drivers).
|
| That is why it is critical to deliberately downplay the
| capabilities, to avoid wishful over-reliance, and enforce
| strict driver awareness (through techniques such as
| driver monitoring) to avoid operating multi-ton killing
| machines in ways that are multiple times more dangerous
| to the occupants, other drivers, and pedestrians. Without
| that, people are prone to over-generalization of safety
| capabilities, extrapolating that a single success means
| robust, continued success thousands to tens of thousands
| of times in a row.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You want the curve of total attention to be always above
| a baseline human in an unassisted car. The car can do
| some attention and the human can do some. But if the sum
| of the two falls below the threshold, you're in trouble.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| If I was in law enforcement, I'd be rubbing my hands in glee to
| get ahold of that saved video.
| xipix wrote:
| I'd be even more gleeful if I was in car insurance.
| "Openpilot's not covered, your insurance is invalidated."
| AyyEye wrote:
| Insurance is a non-issue with openpilot.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Geico will cover you. You can disclose ahead of time that you
| have an aftermarket ADAS if you want. If it drives you off
| the road, it will be as if you drove off the road and you
| will be declared at-fault, of course.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I can't wrap my head around the fact that 275 car models include
| all the actuators needed for self driving driving and there's
| some kind of port third party software can hook into.
| flessner wrote:
| I don't know if there's a physical port in most cars, but it
| uses the CAN bus which has been around since the 1980s.
|
| Also, most cars that have distance assist and lane keeping
| probably have the required hardware to control speed and
| steering to some extent.
|
| Nevertheless, it's still impressive that so many cars are
| supported... and that it can be retrofitted like this at all!
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| They also lie about models that are supported and won't
| assist you when you run into that. Had to return one myself.
| Found no evidence anywhere that my model/year was ever
| actually supported and anyone was using it either.
| jmacd wrote:
| Sounds like they refunded you?
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Yeah, that process at least was painless
| olabyne wrote:
| Could you say what car ?
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| 2023 Forte
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Comma_ai/comments/197k04q/2023_k
| ia_...
|
| https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/issues/30936
|
| You can find a few attempts of people trying to get it to
| work in their discord with no clear positive outcome,
| discord is unfortunately not search indexed.
| BitsAndBlobs wrote:
| It looks like support was added in February
|
| https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/pull/30761
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Yeah it was on the supported list when I bought it in
| October of 2023. The website asks your make/model/year
| when you buy if I recall correctly, that's how it tells
| you which harness to get.
|
| I found out I needed to update some files in the
| firmware, followed the guide for that. Asked for help in
| the Discord. I could never get it working though and
| returned it after a week. I was going to hang on to it
| and harass people on Discord, but didn't want to lose
| track of time and go beyond the return window. Believe
| me, I really wanted it to work.
|
| Looks like it was added to the supported list before the
| explicit support I guess
|
| https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/commit/e3275e9183549
| 45d...
| Teknomancer wrote:
| > discord is unfortunately not search indexed.
|
| Using discord, etc for any open source project
| discussions is really unproductive.
|
| Get it that people like the immediacy of chat style
| communication. But it seems to encourage way more noise
| and less thoughtful dialogue. The worst aspect is that it
| locks away a lot of useful information. Trying to dig
| through chat histories for information is a horrible
| experience.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > But it seems to encourage way more noise and less
| thoughtful dialogue.
|
| But compare it to something like Microsoft support forums
| and you immediately realize why people are using it. It
| might not be the best implementation of chat, but the
| immediacy and lack of formality are undeniably valuable.
| BitsAndBlobs wrote:
| There's a very active community on Discord that would have
| been happy to help you add support for your car assuming it
| has the right hardware.
|
| https://comma.ai/vehicles has also been improved quite a
| bit in the past year.
| michaelmior wrote:
| I beleive in the US OBDII ports are required in all vehicles
| 1996 and later.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| I suspect it may be even more than that theoretically. A lot of
| VAG cars based on the same platform are missing.
| kube-system wrote:
| Level 2 driving assistance is commonplace on many new vehicles,
| often as a standard feature. They are just significantly more
| conservative in their functionality compared to the level 2
| offerings from Tesla, and marketed as safety features rather
| than "self driving" features.
|
| It's important to note that nothing we're talking about here is
| actually "self driving" per SAE standards. Openpilot, Tesla's
| Autopilot/FSD, Honda Sensing, Toyota Safety Sense, Hyundai
| SmartSense, etc are all level 2 driving assistance features.
|
| This turns level 2 driver assistance features into ... nicer
| level 2 driver assistance features.
| mavhc wrote:
| Really need some decimal points in the SAE list. Fully self
| driving but a human has to watch, and lane keeping are both
| level 2
| kube-system wrote:
| "Fully self driving but a human has to watch" is
| nonsensical. Responsibility for observing the road and
| making decisions is a very important and inseparable part
| of driving. Mechanistically manipulating the steering,
| brakes, and accelerator is not the hard part.
|
| https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update
|
| Vehicles with levels 0-2 of driver support are never self-
| driving at any moment of operation. These systems might be
| able to manipulate the controls of the vehicle, but they
| are not good enough to make decisions without constant
| supervision at all times.
|
| Level 3 is _partial_ self-driving, where the vehicle can
| assume responsibility for driving under some narrow
| circumstances.
|
| Full self driving doesn't happen until level 4.
|
| I think the reason that there's no decimal points is
| because J3016 is really a road-map of the milestones on the
| way to full automation, not a buyers guide.
| edude03 wrote:
| I've been saying this since Tesla released autopilot
| because I personally think teslas implementation is the
| best but there isn't an easy way to compare it to something
| like radar cruise with lane keeping other than saying
| they're both level 2.
| RIMR wrote:
| Somebody should make an adapter so I can plug a PS2 Controller
| into it.
| akgrd wrote:
| This seems to be a mix of C++ and Python, including a script
| called "realtime.py" (oxymoron?). So am I now exposed to other
| people using Python on the roads to operate heavy machinery?
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Is this legal in the US?
| traverseda wrote:
| Well NIST says don't use C++ either:
| https://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/software-quality-group/safer-la...
|
| So what, you want everything written in RUST on a linux kernel
| with hard real-time patches? It uses machine vision anyway,
| which has no hard guarantees at all. The software it uses to
| detect lanes or cars is probabilistic by it's very nature.
|
| Python does pretty good at soft real time if you manage your
| own event loop and disable the garbage collector, and you're a
| lot less likely to get "crash the entire stack" style memory
| allocation bugs. Sure, GO or RUST would be better, I think CPP
| could be worse if handled inexpertly.
| tmarkman wrote:
| Python has segfault issues, surprising exceptions and version
| incompatibility.
|
| I've been using Linux/BSD for over a decade now. No C or C++
| application has ever crashed, I cannot say the same about
| Python applications. Outright segfaults are rare but happen.
| Rogue exceptions are much more common and could basically
| have the same detrimental effect on a self-driving system as
| a segfault. And let's not talk about logic bugs due to
| version incompatibility and the obsessive rewriting of those
| who took control over CPython.
| traverseda wrote:
| Ahh, you've been running some grad students first python
| project as if it was a serious project like curl with 20
| years of history, and expecting it to have the same
| quality. But you've somehow avoided the tons of grad-
| student CPP programs with similar quality issues, or the
| broken code pushed by companies like crowdstrike or IBM.
|
| Fair enough, your experience may vary. I'd suggest not
| judging the language by the standards of some hobbyist code
| that just so happened to end up on github. I've had tons of
| bugs in c/cpp programs over the years, some more critical
| than others.
|
| I've seen a lot of shitty and unreliable python code, and a
| lot of good and mature C/CPP projects. I've also seen
| really bad security issues and crashes with bad C code,
| heartbleed, crowdstrike, etc.
|
| For what it's worth I've never had youtube-dl hard crash on
| me, and I could argue that it's a more complicated problem
| to solve than what curl is solving. In an apples-to-apples
| comparison I think it does pretty well.
|
| No matter what language you use for this you're going to be
| relying on an AI vision model with no hard guarantees.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Actually Python was insufficient for the sort of grad
| student bugs I wanted to write, I was able to just wrap
| everything up in giant try blocks and then,
| except: print("Something happened", i)
|
| (Where I might be an index. Or an element).
|
| Fortran is able to generate better bugs, because it has
| allocate/free.
| plrandk wrote:
| You have much more control over a pure C/C++ application
| because it does not involve the Python runtime.
| Crowdstrike etc. are exploits that don't really matter
| here: If you are on the CAN bus it's game over already.
|
| That said, I'm pretty sure CPython has exploits, too.
| They'll be harder to find and trigger though.
| traverseda wrote:
| Sure, runtimes exist and have engineering trade-offs. You
| avoid a whole class of memory related bugs but you lose a
| lot of control over memory allocation. You can do soft
| real-time as long as you manually manage the garbage
| collection and accept that there will be some (bounded)
| jitter on memory allocations.
|
| The first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of
| the tautology club. Things have trade-offs. Python
| removes (or at least significantly reduces) a whole class
| of bugs that appear when using lower-level languages,
| that's part of why it's a good glue language.
| thisismyswamp wrote:
| exception handling in GO makes it unusable IMO
| jedberg wrote:
| Sort of. It operates after your vehicle safety systems, so yes,
| python is controlling the car to an extent, but only within the
| limits of the built in safety systems.
| AyyEye wrote:
| The interface between the openpilot and the car is a standalone
| device (the panda) that provides and enforces the safety model.
| All code is written in C to automotive safety standards
| including ISO26262, ISO11270, ISO15622, and MISRA-C. 100% line
| coverage for all safety unt tests.
|
| They also run pretty extensive tests (regression, unit,
| hardware/software-in-the-loop, mutation, and vehicle specific)
| on every commit and have actual hardware devices continually
| running real routes looking for regressions.
|
| https://github.com/commaai/openpilot?tab=readme-ov-file#safe...
|
| https://github.com/commaai/panda?tab=readme-ov-file#code-rig...
| bobsomers wrote:
| Just so we're all clear here, there is a lot of gobbly-gook
| in this answer which is either off target or irrelevant.
|
| > a standalone device (the panda) that provides and enforces
| the safety model
|
| What the actual safety model _is_ that is being enforced is
| far more important here. The safety model could be "there is
| no safety guarantee whatsoever" and this sentence would still
| be true.
|
| > All code is written in C to automotive safety standards
| including ISO26262, ISO11270, ISO15622, and MISRA-C.
|
| 26262 says practically nothing about software, what you
| really want is 21448. And 11270 and 15622 are super low
| targets for the amount of control authority available here.
|
| MISRA-C is mostly a waste of time when it comes to safety. It
| gives software developers the warm blanket of having a
| checklist they can tick items off of, but does little to
| prevent unsafe systems from being built. Programmers have
| gotten pretty good about at least using tests and other
| analysis tools to make sure they're not doing the wildly
| stupid things that MISRA tries to prevent.
|
| > 100% line coverage for all safety unt tests
|
| 100% like coverage is also rather trivial to achieve and
| doesn't say much. Branch coverage would be better, but being
| able to make some claims about state space coverage with
| exposure numbers would be what I'm expecting here.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > So am I now exposed to other people using Python on the roads
| to operate heavy machinery?
|
| yes in the sense that python is running the ML models and
| deciding what the vehicle should do, but it is heavily bounded
| in what it can do by the safety model which is implemented in
| bare-metal MISRA C running on the microcontroller that
| interfaces between openpilot and the CAN bus (panda). It
| enforces things like accel/braking limits and steering rate
| limits along with consistency checks, heartbeats, vehicle
| status checks, etc.
|
| Level 2 self driving is already only a best effort system so if
| python caused an issue it would just fall back to the safety
| model on the panda and ultimately the driver to operate the
| vehicle safely.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| Without taking away anything from the substance or achievement of
| this release, I find phrases like _" openpilot is an operating
| system for robotics."_ always quite fishy.
|
| No, it's not an OS for robotics. You can't do actual robotics
| stuff with it, like drive actuators to control limbs or grippers,
| do motion control or SLAM or perception or any of the usual
| robotics stack.
|
| Their website correctly says _openpilot is an open source
| advanced driver assistance system that works on 275+ car models
| of Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, and many other brands._ Should 've
| stuck to that.
|
| Thinking about it some more, it's probably just another
| engagement baiting strategy to get attention and I'm their
| gullible puppet. Well played.
| metal_am wrote:
| I definitely thought it was a ROS clone based on that first
| line.
| notum wrote:
| ROS doesn't need a clone, it needs a successor.
|
| Took the bait as well.
| spookie wrote:
| ROS2? I'll see myself out...
| failbuffer wrote:
| Could someone explain the joke? I've been dabbling with
| learning robotics and I've been confused by how ROS and
| ROS2 both appear to be actively developed/used. Is ROS2 a
| slow-moving successor version (like Python 3 was) or a
| complete fork?
| causal wrote:
| Slow-moving successor, which the community isn't exactly
| going wild over. It offers modest improvements in
| exchange for a painful upgrade process, and many of the
| original issues with ROS1 remaining unsolved.
|
| The other half of the joke is that ROS was never an
| operating system either.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well there is one thing that ROS 2 does better, you can
| declare params directly inside nodes and reconfigure them
| all without building extra config files. And it doesn't
| stop working if your local IP changes.
|
| But the rest are firmly downgrades all around. It's
| slower (rclpy is catastrophically bad), more demanding
| (CPU usage is through the roof to do DDS packet
| conversions), less reliable (the RMWs are a mess), less
| compatible (armhf is kill). The QoS might count as an
| improvement for edge cases where you need UDP for point
| clouds, but what it mostly does on a day to day basis is
| create a shit ton of failure cases where there's QoS
| incompatibility between topics and things just refuse to
| connect. It's lot more hassle for no real gain.
| causal wrote:
| Config generally feels more complex though, since there
| isn't a central parameter server anymore. The colcon
| build system also just feels more complex now, which I
| thought was already impressively complex with catkin.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Yep it takes super long to get parameters from all nodes
| cause you need to query each one instead of the DDS
| caching it or something.
|
| And yeah I forgot, there's the added annoying bit where
| you can't build custom messages/services with python
| packages, only ament_cmake can do it so you often need
| metapackages for no practical reason. And the whole deal
| with the default build mode being "copy all" so you need
| to rebuild every single time if you don't symlink, and
| even that often doesn't work. The defaults are all around
| impressively terrible, adding extra pitfalls in places
| where there were none in ROS 1.
| ModernMech wrote:
| It does a lot of things _better_ but it also does a lot
| of things _worse_ and also doesn 't fix a lot of the real
| problems with ROS as a system.
| ModernMech wrote:
| ROS2 has been pushed a the successor to ROS for like a
| decade, and people still prefer ROS for various reasons.
| So yeah like Python 2/3 kinda.
| punnerud wrote:
| Isn't the software for training end-to-end NN to be used in
| automation? Just a first version that it's used for cars, and
| they have been using it for their own robot.
|
| So the claim still stands?
| tamimio wrote:
| Yeah came to say the same, I thought a new big player is in the
| market. It looks great nonetheless.
| conradev wrote:
| I believe the idea is that openpilot replaces the usual
| robotics stack with an end to end neural net.
|
| While I agree operating system is usually a marketing term, it
| does feel correct in this case as it is the operating system
| for the Comma Three, which can operate cars but also this
| thing: https://www.comma.ai/shop/body
| modeless wrote:
| George Hotz says: "we developed a proper successor to ROS.
| openpilot has serialization (with capnp) and IPC (with zmq + a
| custom zero copy msgq). It uses a constellation of processes to
| coordinate to drive a car."[1] And Comma sells a robot that
| runs Openpilot: https://comma.ai/shop/body
|
| > You can't do actual robotics stuff with it, like drive
| actuators to control limbs or grippers, do motion control or
| SLAM or perception or any of the usual robotics stack.
|
| A lot of the "usual robotics stack" is not going to be relevant
| for the new wave of consumer robotics that is coming soon. It
| will be enabled by end-to-end machine learning and stuff like
| traditional SLAM methods will not be a part of that. The Bitter
| Lesson[2] is coming for robotics.
|
| [1] https://x.com/__tinygrad__/status/1834792473081815259
|
| [2] For those unfamiliar:
| http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html
| GabeIsko wrote:
| In the robotics community, the stuff coming out of George
| Hotz has always been considered a kludgy mess, and unsuitable
| for serious work. Dude is a talented hacker, but the idea
| that this will replace ROS is kind of a joke.
| tamimio wrote:
| To be fair, even ROS I would consider a hobby one.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I enjoy Hotz as a hacker, but I'm really allergic to this
| kind of oversold language. "[W]e developed a proper successor
| to ROS" is a past tense statement, as if they've already done
| this thing. In reality, at best they have presented a roadmap
| for a thing that could approximate ROS one day.
| moffkalast wrote:
| The point of the bitter lesson is "leverage compute as best
| you can" not "use DNNs everywhere just because". Oftentimes
| your available compute is still a crappy ARM machine with no
| real parallel compute where the best DNN you can run is still
| not large nor fast enough to even be viable, much less a good
| fit.
|
| And well some classical algorithms like A* are mathematically
| optimal. You literally cannot train a more efficient DNN if
| your problem needs grid search. It will just waste more
| compute for the same result.
|
| Besides, the nav stack is not really the point of ROS. It's
| the standardization. Standard IPC, types, messages, package
| building, deployment, etc. Interoperability where you can
| grab literally any sensor or actuator known to man and a
| driver will already exist and output/require the data in the
| exact format you need/have, standard visualizers and
| controllers to plug into the mix and debug. This is something
| we'll need as long as new hardware keeps getting built even
| if the rest of your process is end to end. It doesn't have to
| be the best, it just needs to work and it needs to be widely
| used for the concept to make sense.
| modeless wrote:
| The future of consumer robotics will not be built on "a
| crappy ARM machine with no real parallel compute".
| Traditional robotics has failed to produce machines that
| can operate in the real world outside of strictly
| controlled environments, and more of the same isn't going
| to change that. Fast hardware for running DNNs will be a
| hard requirement for useful general purpose robots.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I agree that it'll be needed, but that hardware that can
| provide enough compute at acceptable wattage is yet to
| materialize. Only once that changes the equation will
| change. Today you'd be surprised how many production UGVs
| run off an actual Pi 4 or something in a comparable
| compute ballpark.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| With due respect, this has to be one of the most ignorant
| takes on robotics I have read in a while. Yes, you can always
| slap serialization and ZMQ on your framework. That doesn't
| make it an OS.
|
| And no, the usual robotics stack is not going away anytime
| soon. Maybe develop some actual useful robots before posting
| like an expert on robotics topics.
| rkagerer wrote:
| The docs (https://docs.comma.ai/) begin with a more honest -
| and useful - description:
|
| _openpilot is an open source driver assistance system._
| FullGarden_S wrote:
| for a second, I though this was the ROS alternative I've been
| forever waiting for smh
| torlok wrote:
| I always wondered who would pay $1000 for a device you have to
| babysit, just so that you can become an unpaid beta tester and
| data drone for SV millionaires. I guess all you have to do is
| tell people they're a part of a revolution?
| jmacd wrote:
| I have a Dodge Ram. Last night I had a 400km drive to do after a
| very long day. I wasn't exhausted, but I certainly felt like I
| did not want to drive an extended period of time.
|
| I have a Comma 3x in the truck and felt way more confident, alert
| and comfortable for the entire drive.
| OpenPilot/Sunnypilot/Frogpilot are not FSD, but they are hands
| off driving assistance. The 2020 Ram performs incredibly well.
| The latest driving models are very smooth as well, no ping-
| ponging and they handle passing and traffic extremely well.
|
| A legacy car maker would be smart to acquire Comma if its for
| sale. They would be extremely close to a viable assisted driving
| capability with it.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Mind boggling to me that a non-ping pongy lane keeping is not
| standard in cars. Is it standard in luxury cars? Seems like an
| obvious thing to add/upsell.
| hasperdi wrote:
| Non ping-ponging lane following assist is already available
| in many cars including KIA and Hyundai models. They're very
| conservative and disengage very easily. I think it's by
| design to minimise their legal accountability
| judge2020 wrote:
| Also Honda. In my Accord 2018 it lane kept but didn't even
| play a sound when it lost tracking.
| kube-system wrote:
| Not just legal accountability, but actual safety. They are
| designed so that they do not give the user a false
| impression of the extent of their capabilities.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Hyundai actually has two systems, LKA and LFA. LKA just
| tries to bounce the car back when it detects lane edges,
| LFA actively keeps the car in the middle of a lane.
|
| All Hyundai models in Europe have LKA, some (more
| expensive) also have LFS.
| arjvik wrote:
| I've been incredibly surprised to see that lane assist in
| my Kia is significantly better than that of most other
| (legacy non-hi-tech, think nicer hondas and lexus
| ICE/hybrid) cars I get a chance to drive.
|
| I unfortunately don't have radar cruise control on my Kia,
| though, which would make highway driving even in traffic
| completely effortless, and this seems to be standard on
| themore expensive cars. Maybe it's for the better, though,
| because it does force me to be much more attentive on the
| road.
| residentraspber wrote:
| My 2019 Audi S5 was excellent at this. It would ping pong at
| most once then auto-correct itself to be perfectly centered
| in the lane.
|
| It did some weird things like if the car in front of you was
| driving a bit too far to the left/right of a lane, it would
| copy them. Other than that it was nearly perfect, though.
| Never had it take an exit by accident, etc.
|
| Their tuning on when to accelerate/brake and make it smooth
| needed a fair bit of work, but I found that switching the
| drive mode from Dynamic (Sport) to Comfort changed the
| eagerness of the system and smoothed things out.
| mdaniel wrote:
| > It did some weird things like if the car in front of you
| was driving a bit too far to the left/right of a lane, it
| would copy them
|
| Wouldn't that conceptually be the right thing for the
| software to do, copy the human in front of it (unless it
| has demonstrably better information)? OT1H, "lemmings," but
| OTOH unless the whole line of cars were all on openpilot my
| life experience has been that the person in front of me by
| definition has more visibility than I do since their car is
| not blocking their view as it is mine
|
| I am totally talking out of school, because I'm not in that
| space and my poor BMW chose to do its own thing[1] so it
| doesn't work with openpilot[2] -- although they have a
| dedicated #flexray channel[3] so hope springs eternal
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexRay
|
| 2: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/issues/44#issuecomm
| ent-...
|
| 3: https://discord.com/channels/469524606043160576/53383849
| 2443...
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > A legacy car maker would be smart to acquire Comma if its for
| sale
|
| My impression is that the Comma guys were never in this to sell
| their business
| guyfromfargo wrote:
| I'm surprised to see so many people disliking Open Pilot on
| HackerNews. I have one of these, and it's a total game changer on
| long trips. I drove from Texas to California using my Comma 3 and
| I didn't have to overtake it a single time on the interstate.
|
| Sure you have to actively be alert your entire drive, but it's
| still significantly better than actually doing the work of
| driving.
| 1shooner wrote:
| I've only driven a driver-assist system once and kind of hated
| it, but I've always assumed that the mental work of remaining
| attentive as a passive participant would actually be more
| mentally taxing than just driving. It seems like you're
| inevitably going to lose attention.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I wonder why the website doesn't say "operating system" but
| instead calls it an "advanced driver assistance system"
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Been following Openpilot for awhile, would totally use it if I
| had a supported car. Though these days most cars come with
| 'pretty good' ADAS, even 'hands free' in some situations, so I
| wonder how much it's "worth it" to DIY compared to factory
| default.
| sfblah wrote:
| There's an element of using these systems that people don't
| usually discuss. One of the forks, Sunnypilot, enables a mode
| where you control the pedals but don't have to do the steering.
| What I've found is you do pay attention in this mode, and since
| you're controlling the brakes you can easily avoid most issues
| that you would get with self driving. But, not having to have
| your hands on the steering wheel makes the experience a lot more
| pleasant. Also, with traditional lane keeping systems, the so-
| called "longitudinal" control (accelerator and brakes) is where
| in my experience the system makes the most mistakes.
|
| I think this mode is something car manufacturers should enable in
| general. I actually suspect it's significantly safer than
| completely hands- and feet-free driving modes, and you get most
| of the benefit of lane-keeping assist.
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