Mercedes S Class Active Lane Assist Hack
Why Hacker News recommends it
Used in driver-assistance threads as an example of defeating hands-on-wheel checks on level 2 systems.
What it is
A short clip of a 2014 Mercedes S-Class driving itself with adaptive cruise control and Active Lane Assist, with the hands-on-wheel timeout defeated.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2015 to 2016.
What Hacker News said
Cites mblakele · 2015-03 · on “Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer”
If it's working: [LINK] describes a head-on collision between two trains. Apparently a handy new automation feature on one train fooled the vigilance device. Then there are all the jokes about using a [LINK] in situations like that. And then there's [this video] to hack the Mercedes ALA.
Critical Animats · 2015-09 · on “Cruise Raises $12.5M for Self-Driving Cars, Poaches Tesla’s Lead on Autopilot”
All "Cruise" seems to be talking about is lane keeping plus radar cruise control. BMW, Buick, Cadillac, and Volvo had that years ago. Mercedes is shipping it now. The big problem is keeping drivers from relying too much on a dumb system that almost works[1]. Everyone with a clue in the industry realizes the problem. Semi-automatic driving, with the expectation that the driver is alert and ready to take over, is an accident waiting to happen. Mercedes has a device to check if hands are on the wheel. (See video below for someone defeating that.) Cadillac has a seat vibrator. Most of those semi-auto systems are unable to detect junk such as a mattress on the highway, deer, pedestrians, and work
Critical Animats · 2015-10 · on “Tesla Model S Autopilot Features”
This is similar to what other high-end cars have, lane-keeping and smart cruise control, usable only in freeway-type situations. "Drivers must keep their hands on the steering wheel." Mercedes calls this "Active Lane Keeping Assist", and has offered it for several years now. Here's someone using it with a can taped to the steering wheel to defeat the "hands on steering wheel" requirement.[1] All the major manufacturers have demoed this. This is NTSB level 2 automation, (Combined Function Automation).[2] ("An example ... is adaptive cruise control in combination with lane centering.") Google is at level 3 (Limited Self-Driving Automation), and going for level 4 (Full Self-Driving Automation).
Critical maratd · 2016-07 · on “Misfortune”
> Do you disagree that Tesla is using autopilot and not 'drive assist' or something like that to make the potential think their implementation is so much better than the rest of the world? Their implementation is much better than the competition. [LINK] > Or the fact that they don't push so much on keeping the hands on the wheel to make this more comfortable for the users vs. the rest. I'm glad they don't. Here is why: [this video]