27 JUNE 2023 WorldWide Drilling Resource® Autopilot Isn’t Automatic by Britt Storkson Owner, P2FlowLLC For some reason, Tesla cars keep hitting emergency vehicles. There is a lot of speculation about why they keep doing it, but I suggest this is a classic case of “getting too big for your britches.” This informal expression means being conceited, self-important, or overconfident. It suggests someone acts as if they are more important or influential than they really are. Every technology has its limits. There is only so much even the best and brightest technology can do, and if you “push that envelope,” so to speak, you are going to have problems. Most of what I do when I make computers is gauge the limits of the technology I’m using. Microprocessor technology can do a lot - quite a lot, in fact, but it isn’t without limits. One cannot assume if the technology performs satisfactorily under one condition, it will perform correctly under every other condition it is required to deal with. There are many ways to “sense” and identify objects surrounding the car and I don’t know how Tesla deals with that. When it comes to hitting emergency vehicles, a lot of questions come up. I can speculate on some cause and effect scenarios. Does the Tesla technology not see the flashing lights clearly? Does it incorrectly interpret those lights? Do the bright red or lime-green colors emergency vehicles are often painted “confuse” the sensor or the software “reading” the sensor? Other questions come up like: Does the software “get crossed up” in different environmental conditions such as when there is very bright sunlight or dense fog? Do different [car] battery voltage levels alter the sensor output? Do temperature extremes - very hot or very cold - alter the sensor performance? How about humidity extremes? Do very dry, very wet, or humid conditions “mess up” the sensor outputs? When I say “outputs” here, I mean output voltages. All sensors convert whatever it senses into a voltage representative of the force being sensed. It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. For example, with a typical light sensor or electric eye, the electrical resistance of the sensor gets lower as the light gets brighter. This change in resistance is converted to a voltage using another resistor to create a voltage divider. In the interest of time, I won’t explain the voltage divider formula other than to say that if both the electrical resistance value of the electric eye and the electrical resistance value of the series resistor are the same (Ohms), the voltage at the junction of the two components is half of whatever voltage you are feeding into it. This feed voltage must be regulated and stable to get an accurate read from the sensor. So if I feed +5 volts into the resistor, the voltage at the junction of the resistor and the electric eye will be 2.5 volts. Given the electric eye characteristics being that the brighter the light, the lower the resistance and the voltage divider formula, we know the junction voltage will go down when the light gets brighter and the voltage will go up when Storkson Cont’d on page 30.
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