If a Car Is Going to Self-Drive, It Might as Well Self-Park, Too

As reported by NDTV: Technology may soon render another skill superfluous: parking a car. Sensors and software promise to free owners from parking angst, turning vehicles into robotic chauffeurs, dropping off drivers and then parking themselves, no human intervention required.
BMW demonstrated such technical prowess this month with a specially equipped BMW i3 at the International CES event. At a multilevel garage of the SLS Las Vegas hotel, a BMW engineer spoke into a Samsung Gear S smartwatch.

"BMW, go park yourself," and off the electric vehicle scurried to an empty parking spot, turning and backing itself perfectly into the open space. To retrieve the car, a tap on the watch and another command, "BMW, pick me up," returned the car to the engineer.

The i3 was equipped with laser scanners, including two mounted in the front right and left quarter panels. No GPS was used. Instead, the car relied on a map of the parking garage and an onboard cellular data connection.

No smartphone was needed. The Samsung watch includes its own cellular connection, so commands are sent to a BMW server, which then relays the instructions to the car, said Yves Pilat, one of BMW's engineers developing the feature. BMW calls it fully automated remote valet parking.

Several other companies have demonstrated similar self-parking cars, including Toyota, Valeo and Volkswagen. In many ways, the development is an extension of existing parallel parking assist technologies. In such systems, the driver remains behind the wheel, but with a push of a button, the vehicle measures the parking space and then swings backs into it without any input from the human operator.

"Now, the concept is you can do any kind of parking spot," Pilat said, and without a driver.
Aside from preventing Ferris Bueller-like joy rides by garage attendants, the advantage of introducing autonomous car features to handle parking has several benefits, foremost being to win over skeptical consumers.

Parallel parking was "the first step in getting drivers to understand that there are some tasks the car might be able to do better than you," said John Hanson, Toyota Motor Sales USA's national manager for advanced technology and business communication.

Letting the company's electronic park assist do the tricky maneuvering can eliminate dings, wrinkled fenders and embarrassing scrapes. But cars that park themselves without a driver in the front seat are still research projects, which may face more regulatory than technological hurdles.

Valeo says consumers will see its self-parking technology introduced in a production vehicle within the next 12 months. To overcome possible regulatory objections, Valeo includes one additional piece of technology: a 360-degree, bird's-eye view video camera.

The live video view is displayed on the owner's smartphone, and the user must keep a finger on the screen until the car is finished parking. If the finger is lifted, the car will stop automatically.

"So the driver remains in control of the operation to conform to current regulations," said Guillaume Devauchelle, Valeo's vice president for innovation and scientific development.

The camera is also used to recognize blue lines demarcating handicapped zones and other restricted parking spots.

That sense of control may seem like a mere technicality when standing 100 feet away from the car. But not being behind the wheel does have one distinct advantage: There is no trepidation about being trapped inside a robotic car that might crash.

Then there is the matter of simply finding an available spot.

Several companies, like Parkopedia and ParkMe, have been working for the past couple of years to collect that information in real time. There are smartphone apps to help drivers find a spot, and last year Volvo began offering a feature that enables drivers to find the closest available space and pay for it.

Parkopedia has parking information including real-time availability and prices for 6,000 cities in 52 countries, said the company's chief executive, Eugene Tsyrklevich. He said that drivers could even set preferences, like selecting the nearest available spot or least expensive space.

Gathering the information has presented some challenges. Garage owners were initially reluctant to share their pricing information online, but more operators are realizing that if they are not included in apps or on dashboards, they may lose business.

"Right now we have close to 15 percent of all parking lots across the nation with refreshed information," said Mark Pendergrast, director of product management at the traffic firm Inrix. "Two years ago that number was zero."

Inrix uses information from Parkopedia and ParkMe and says that in metropolitan areas the percentage of garages covered is closer to 30 to 40 percent. But there is still the issue of including available street parking. Several municipalities, like San Francisco and Washington, have worked on trying to solve the problem using sensors and networked payment systems to deliver real-time information on availability.

Simply tracking payment information is not enough to guarantee accuracy, however, because some drivers will park illegally or exceed their allotted time. So cameras with software intended to recognize open spaces may have to be used.

Even the cars themselves, peppered with sensors and connected to the Internet, could report on available spots near them, Pendergrast said, much in the way that cars can automatically report their location and speed to provide information about traffic conditions.

Indeed, BMW is working with another company, Parkmobile, and is considering integrating parking location and payment features with its robotic valet in the future. It would mean that drivers would never have to worry about finding a spot or learning how to parallel park.

Such parking nirvana may still be years away, however, said Devauchelle of Valeo. The reason: The real challenge for autonomous car technology isn't pulling into an empty spot in a garage; it's pulling out of a space on the street into traffic.

"And the difficulty is to do it 100 percent of the time," he said. "It would be a disaster to put something on the market that works 95 percent of the time."

The Rise of Fake Engine Noise

As reported by the Washington Post:  on the gas in a new Ford Mustang or F-150 and you'll hear a meaty, throaty rumble the same style of roar that Americans have associated 
with auto power and performance for decades. It's a sham. The engine growl in some of America's best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing, boosted through special pipes or digitally faked altogether. And it's driving car enthusiasts 
insane.

Fake engine noise has become one of the auto industry's dirty little secrets, with automakers from BMW to Volkswagen turning to a  sound-boosting bag of tricks. Without them, today's more fuel-efficient engines would sound far quieter and, automakers worry, seemingly less powerful, potentially pushing buyers away.

Softer-sounding engines are actually a positive symbol of just how far engines and gas economy have progressed. But automakers say they resort to artifice because they understand a key car-buyer paradox: Drivers want all the force and fuel savings of a newer, better engine but the classic sound of an old gas-guzzler.

Enhanced engine songs have become the signature of eerily quiet electrics such as the Toyota Prius. But the fakery is increasingly finding its way into beefy trucks and muscle cars, long revered for their iconic growl.

For the 2015 Mustang EcoBoost, Ford sound engineers and developers worked on an Active Noise Control system that amplifies the engine's purr through the car speakers. Afterward, the automaker surveyed members of Mustang fan clubs on which processed sound concepts they most enjoyed.

Ford said in a statement that the vintage V-8 engine boom has long been considered the mating call of Mustang, but added that the newly processed pony-car sound is athletic and youthful, a more refined growl with a low-frequency sense of powerfulness.

Among purists, the trickery has inspired an identity crisis and cut to the heart of American auto legend. The aural experience of a car, they argue, is an intangible that's just as priceless as what's revving under the hood.

For a car guy, it's literally music to hear that thing rumble, said Mike Rhynard, 41, a past president and 33-year member of the Denver Mustang Club. He has swayed between love and hate of the snarl-boosting sound tube in his 2012 Mustang GT, but when it comes to computerized noise, he's unequivocal: "It's a mind-trick. It's something it's not. And no one wants to be deceived."

That type of ire has made the auto industry shy about discussing its sound technology. Several attempts to speak with Ford's sound engineers about the new F-150, a six-cylinder model of America's best-selling truck that plays a muscular engine note through the speakers, were quietly rebuffed.

Car companies are increasingly wary of alerting buyers that they might not be hearing the 
real thing, and many automakers have worked with audio and software engineers to make their cars synthesized engine melody more realistic.

Volkswagen uses what's called a 'Soundaktor', a special speaker that looks like a hockey puck and plays sound files in cars such as the GTI and Beetle Turbo. Lexus worked with sound technicians at Yamaha to more loudly amplify the noise of its LFA supercar toward the driver seat.

Some, including Porsche with its 'sound symposer', have used noise-boosting tubes to crank up the engine sound inside the cabin. Others have gone further into digital territory: BMW plays a recording of its motors through the car stereos, a sample of which changes depending on the engine's load and power.

Orchestrated engine noise has become a necessity for electric cars, which run so quietly that they can provide a dangerous surprise for inattentive pedestrians and the blind. Federal safety officials expect to finalize rules later this year requiring all hybrid and electric cars to play fake engine sounds to alert passersby, a change that experts estimate could prevent thousands of pedestrian and cyclist injuries.  

That said, Tesla representatives have indicated they have one of the highest safety ratings in the industry (5 stars), and they do not have a system in place to generate noise for their luxury electric vehicles; they feel the road noise that the vehicle makes is loud enough to alert the pedestrians and cyclists around them.

With traditional engines, some boosters have even celebrated artificial noise as a little added luxury. Without it, drivers would hear an unsettling silence or only the kinds of road racket they would rather ignore, like bumps in the pavement or the whine  of the wind.

Yet even drivers who appreciate the accompaniment have questioned the mission. A SlashGear reviewer who otherwise enjoyed the new F-150 said the engine sound was piped in arguably pointlessly.

Which raises a more existential question: Does it matter if the sound is fake?  A driver who didn't know the difference might enjoy the thrum and thunder of it nonetheless. Is taking the best part of an eight-cylinder rev and cloaking a better engine with it really, for carmakers, so wrong?

Not everyone is so diplomatic. Karl Brauer, a senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book, says automakers should stop the lies and get real with drivers.

"If you're going to do that stuff, do that stuff. Own it. Tell customers: If you want a V-8 rumble, you've gotta buy a V-8 that costs more, gets worse gas mileage and hurts the Earth," Brauer said. "You're fabricating the car's sexiness. You're fabricating performance elements of the car that don't actually exist. That just feels deceptive to me."

Google to Sell Wireless Service in Deals With Sprint, T-Mobile

As reported by the Wall Street Journal: Google Inc. is preparing to sell wireless service directly to consumers after striking deals with Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc., a move likely to prod the wireless industry to cut prices and improve speeds, according to people familiar with the matter.

It isn’t clear how widely the Internet search giant plans to offer wireless service, how much it will cost or when it will go on sale. Google might start small by limiting the new service to certain U.S. cities or to users of its Google Fiber broadband Internet service.

The move is one of the strongest signals yet that Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., is stretching its ambitions far beyond YouTube videos and the Gmail email service. Google executives also want the company to have a major role in how those services are delivered to consumers.

Sprint, of Overland Park, Kan., is the third-largest wireless carrier, while T-Mobile, of Bellevue, Wash., ranks fourth. Under separate agreements with each carrier, Google will resell service on the Sprint and T-Mobile networks, according to people familiar with the plans. Such wholesale agreements are common, essentially allowing sellers such as Google to pitch wireless service under their own brand names.

Google’s entry into the mobile-phone business would create a new headache for an industry already struggling with a price war and soaring costs for wireless spectrum. Sprint executives are betting that the boost from an influx of new Google customers outweighs the risk that the Internet search giant will learn too much about the ins and outs of the wireless business.

Still, Sprint is hedging its bet by putting a volume trigger into the contract that would allow the deal to be renegotiated if Google’s customer base swells, said one person familiar with the matter.

Google executives first approached Sprint more than 18 months ago about a potential resale deal, known as a mobile virtual network operator agreement, or MVNO. MVNO agreements are a standard, high-margin business for carriers, which get to sell excess capacity on their networks and gain customers without having to bear the costs of marketing to them or signing them up.

The decision to sign an MVNO agreement with Google wasn’t a normal deal, however. Google’s reputation as a potential disruptive force worried executives that Sprint might be letting a rival into the gates, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision went all the way up to Sprint’s chief executive at the time, Dan Hesse, and the company’s chairman, SoftBank Corp. chief Masayoshi Son .

The arrangements with Sprint and T-Mobile would give Google a way to offer wireless service without taking on the daunting, expensive burden of building and maintaining a network. Google still would have to wrestle with the tasks of customer service and billing that it has generally avoided by offering its advertising-supported services free.

A number of other companies already operate as virtual wireless carriers. Most are small, but Tracfone Wireless, a unit of Mexican carrier America Movil, has grown into the fifth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. by offering cheap service carried on other companies’ networks.

Google already has a strong position in wireless through its Android software, which powers more than half of the smartphones sold in the U.S., and the Google-branded Nexus phone, made by a variety of manufacturers. Carrier support helps Google sell those products, and the company will have to be careful not to upset those relationships as it moves into wireless service.

Google’s plans were reported earlier by The Information, a publication covering technology industry news.

Google officials have been working on the wireless project, led by company veteran Nick Fox, for more than a year, one of the people said. The preparations are part of a broader effort to increase Internet coverage. As more people get better and cheaper access to the Internet, Google benefits because they are more likely to conduct searches, stream YouTube videos, send emails through Gmail or text using an Android smartphone.

Separately, Google has been lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to free up vast amounts of low-quality wireless spectrum that could be used to provide cheaper wireless access. The airwaves aren’t much use to wireless carriers, because the airwaves can’t transport wireless signals across long distances.

But they could be useful in cities and handle a lot of the traffic that now gets carried and billed by big companies like Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.

Google hinted at its wireless ambitions in a letter to the FCC last week, which said higher-frequency spectrum might be used for “the next generation of unlicensed broadband services,” including complements to Wi-Fi networks, “or entirely new technologies and innovations.”

“We are helping to make Internet bandwidth more abundant,” Google executives told an FCC commissioner during a September meeting in Mountain View, Calif., according to an FCC filing. “The broadband ecosystem will be well-served by a policy environment that removes barriers to investment, discourages monetization of scarcity, and empowers consumers.”

That spectrum could figure into a Google wireless offering, which could give priority to cheap or free Wi-Fi networks, one of the people said. Under that model, calls and data would be routed over Wi-Fi networks if available and fall back to the cellular network only when Wi-Fi is out of reach.

“It’s probably an attempt to put pressure the carriers to improve their own products by showing new ways of offering service,” said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research. “When Google enters existing markets it tries to do things differently, rather than just doing something slightly better or cheaper.”

Second Wayward Galileo Satellite Moving Higher in Orbit

As reported by GPSWorld: At a press conference on Jan. 16, Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain of the European Space Agency (ESA)  announced that the second errant full-operational capability (FOC) satellite, launched in August, had started its orbital change maneuver the previous day. He anticipated that the orbital change would be completed and the final orbit — “albeit somewhat lower in height than the one into which it was supposed to go” — achieved in “a few weeks.” He confirmed that both in-orbit FOCs are working well, fully operational, and providing excellent “on specification” positioning data.

Two more FOC satellites are ready for launch, and a third has undergone thermal vacuum testing at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) facility in the Netherlands. Dordain said four would be available to launch soon, and he anticipated up to six FOCs being ready for launch during 2015.

Jean-Jacques Dordain

The previous plan had called for four for 2015, but the year’s anticipated total now includes the two that were held back from launch during a December 2014 window, so the total number is the same. The actual launch schedule and launch vehicles are still under discussion, according to Dordain, and he said the European Commission (EC) would make a decision at the end of January on this issue. He refused to be drawn out on what ESA would recommend to EC on this front.

“As you know, Soyuz did not place the first two FOC satellites in the right orbit. They only achieved very low orbits. This led and is still leading to delays in the deployment of the Galileo constellation. However, it’s not all bad news, because the two FOC satellites are working perfectly,” Dordain said.

“One of the two has already had its orbit changed, last November, and once in its new orbit, we ran all the new payload tests, and all the data that we have show that the FOC payload is the best in orbit today of the Galileo satellites. We were able to achieve on-spec positioning with the first FOC and the IOV satellites. It provides us with highly accurate positioning data,” Dordain said.

“Once we have both FOCs in their final orbits, not their nominal orbits, it’s true, but they are orbits that mean they will be usable for a long time, because they no longer go through the Van Allen belts.”

A video of the news conference is available here. The Galileo portion of the 2-hour video begins at 11:45. The event took place at ESA-HQ, Paris, France.

DoD Seeks Sources for 50,000 eLoran/GPS Receivers

As reported by Inside GNSS: In a nod to the usefulness of international enhanced Loran (eLoran) systems the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in January began a search for companies able to supply some 50,000 eLoran receivers. Meanwhile a multi-agency team continues sketching out the structure of a potential U.S. eLoran system for federal officials weighing a relaunch of the program as a backup to GPS.

Worried about GPS vulnerabilities, the Department of Defense has become increasingly interested in being able to use the nearly jam-proof eLoran “signals of opportunity” in Europe, South Korea, and other countries. Even NATO is looking at the issue and was briefed on the technology in December.

On Wednesday (January 14, 2015) the Army issued a “Sources Sought” RFI (request for information) for potential receiver suppliers. The announcement makes clear that no funds are available (yet) to buy equipment but also says that the data may be used in development and acquisition strategy. Responses to the solicitation, which is number is W56KGY-15-R-ELOR, are due February 13.

Officials are seeking information on both stand-alone eLoran receivers and receivers that integrate eLoran and GPS. More specifically they are looking for data on the size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) of eLoran receivers designed for maritime, aviation, vehicular, and timing applications.

Acquisition managers also want to know about antennas, how quickly receivers could be demonstrated, potential one-way messaging capabilities using the eLoran data channel and orientation capabilities from a single signal when the receiver is not moving. They told would-be suppliers to assume an order quantity of 50,000 when developing “Rough Order of Magnitude” per-unit costs.

Perhaps more intriguing to would-be vendors, the Army is asking suppliers to consider how they might be able to improve their designs after a five-year development program. In addition to advancing the characteristics and capabilities described earlier, the Army also wants to know about developing signal tracking in environments where GPS is often unavailable, such as indoors, underwater, and in urban environments.

The RFI came out as civil and military officials prepared to meet to develop a concept of operations for an eLoran system in the United States. When done, the CONOPS document will lay out how the system will be operated and by whom. A source familiar with the effort said it is a necessary step before deciding whether to undertake the program and will help determine what the system will cost.

In the past year, support has blossomed again for eLoran in other nations, on Capitol Hill, and among industry and section of the navigation community. Most approaches would repurpose some of the remaining assets of the old Loran system, which President Obama ordered to be discontinued in 2010.

The cost has been a key stumbling block. Although eLoran has been widely endorsed as a practical and cost-effective backup for system by experts, including the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board, and many agencies agree they would use it, no government organization has been willing to accept financial responsibility for the program. Concerns over jamming, however, and an increasing understanding of how GPS, and especially GPS timing data, have become integrated into critical infrastructure may be enough to push it over the funding hurdles.

Although not directly related the widely anticipated Army RFI is seen as a plus by proponents for eLoran in the United States.

“The effect of the RFI is definitely positive for us just by nature of the fact that [the Department of Defense] is interested in the technology,” a source told Inside GNSS. “DoD as usual,” they said, “is stepping out to see the art of the possible.”

Google Could be Funding SpaceX's Satellite Internet

As reported by The Verge: After introducing the idea of creating a satellite-based internet back in November, Elon Musk went into further detail last week on his $10 billion plan to build out a network over the next five years. Now, The Information is reporting that Google might be a main investor.

According to an unnamed source in the article, Google has agreed to value SpaceX north of $10 billion, and the inclusion of other investors would make for a big round of funding. It would be another of a handful of network projects the company is invested in — most notable of which is Project Loon. A follow-up report from The Wall Street Journal pegs Google's actual investment at $1 billion, or a tenth of what the project is expected to cost.

Over the last few years Google was working on a similar satellite project with industry expert Greg Wyler, who left to form a company backed by Qualcomm and Virgin called OneWeb. (At one point last year OneWeb, then known as WorldVu, was rumored to be partnering with SpaceX.) That project — which Richard Branson is chipping in some of his own money to fund — is based around the technique of linking the satellites over specific radio spectrum. Musk's new idea, conversely, would reportedly connect the satellites with a laser-based system.

The micro-satellites would orbit the Earth at an altitude of just 750 miles, far below the typical satellite orbit of 22,000 miles. The biggest advantages to putting the internet in orbit — as opposed to terrestrial options like fiber — are speed and coverage. "The speed of light is 40 percent faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber," says Musk. The expansive network would also allow for everything from improved coverage in rural areas to, one day, connecting us to Mars.

Elon Musk's Space Internet Venture Could Link With Future Mars Colony

As reported by Hot Hardware: You have to hand it to Tony Stark, err, I mean Elon Musk. The man helped to co-found PayPal and he’s the CEO of Tesla Motors, which has brought us wonderful electric vehicles like the Roadster and the outrageous Model S P85D. Musk also helms SpaceX, which just recently made its fifth successful trip the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver supplies via the Dragon capsule. The secondary mission of the latest ISS launch resulted in the “successful failure” of the Falcon 9 rocket, which Musk described as a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) event.

And let’s not forget that Musk is also the chairman of SolarCity, which produces commercial- and consumer-grade solar panels. You would think that Musk already has enough on his plate, but you’d be dead wrong. In addition to his Hyperloop side project, Musk is eyeing a space-based Internet network that would be comprised of hundred of micro satellites orbiting roughly 750 miles above Earth.

Elon Musk with President Barack Obama (Source: NASA)

The so-called “Space Internet” would provide faster data speeds than traditional communications satellites that have a geosynchronous orbit of roughly 22,000 miles. “Our focus is on creating a global communications system that would be larger than anything that has been talked about to date,” said Musk. He hopes that the service will eventually grow to become “a giant global Internet service provider,” reaching over three billion people who are currently either without Internet service or only have access to low-speed connections.

And this wouldn’t be a Musk venture without reaching for some overly ambitious goal. The satellite network would truly become a “Space Internet” platform, as it would form the basis for a direct communications link between Earth and Mars. “I think this needs to be done, and I don’t see anyone else doing it,” Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek.

Elon Musk has his eyes set on a Mars colony. (Source: SpaceX)

Musk’s endgame is to help establish a colony on Mars and all of the pieces of the puzzle (including SpaceX’s rapidly-reusable Falcon rockets) are slowly coming together. "The reason SpaceX was created was to accelerate development of rocket technology, all for the goal of establishing a self-sustaining, permanent base on Mars," said Musk at the 33rd annual International Space Development Conference in May of last year. "And I think we're making some progress in that direction — not as fast as I'd like."

Space Internet would also help to fund Musk’s efforts to establish a colony on Mars; well, that and the half billion price tag for a private citizen to make the trip according to his calculations.