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Everybody gets poppedDavid Runciman
Everybody gets popped
David Runciman
The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups and Winning at All Costs
by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle.
Bantam, 290 pp., £18.99, September 2012, 978 0 593 07173 1Show More
I was one of those Olympics gloomsters who, as Boris Johnson gleefully pointed out when the Games had finished, were scattered and routed by the rip-roaring success of London 2012. I assumed something would go wrong; everything went right. I thought people would complain about the cost; no one seems to have begrudged a penny. It was a triumph: I accept that now. But in one respect I still refuse to buy it. Before the Olympics began there were fears that the event would be overshadowed by a drugs scandal or by the steady drip-drip of multiple failed drugs tests. In the end, although a few athletes were caught (including the winner of the gold in the women's shot put and an American judo competitor who blamed his positive marijuana test on eating the wrong cakes), the Games were more or less drugs-free. There were some dark rumours early on about the Chinese teenage swimming sensation Ye Shiwen, but she passed her tests and kept her medals; Colin Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympic Association, declared that she was a natural talent and told the doubters to shut up. These Games were 'clean', which was a big part of the success story. That's what makes me suspicious. In an event on this scale, where the stakes are so high for competitors and organisers alike, an absence of failed drugs tests does not prove no one is cheating. More likely it indicates that no one is really looking.
When it comes to drugs in sport, what matters is how the incentives are aligned: the incentives of the people who might take them and the incentives of the people who might stop them. In some sports the temptations for the athletes are relatively slight. Premier League footballers might mess around more than they should with recreational drugs; but the use of performance-enhancing drugs is unlikely to be commonplace, since the skills required at the highest level in football are so various. The clearest evidence for this is the wide variety of body shapes you see in the top leagues. The world's best player, Lionel Messi, did take growth hormones as a child to compensate for a height deficiency. Without them he would not have grown much above 4'7"; even now he is only a dumpy 5'7". He is also amazingly durable (he has played the full ninety minutes in his last hundred appearances for Barcelona), which can be an effect of steroid use. But you don't get to be like Messi by taking steroids: no one sets out to be a dumpy 5'7". In American football, by contrast, steroid abuse is almost certainly widespread. Here, being the right shape – big and strong – and having the ability to recover quickly from injuries are the primary requirements in many positions. NFL players do not often fail drugs tests, but that does not mean the sport is clean. It means the people who run the sport are not overconcerned about the players' underlying health: it would be bad for business. The clearest evidence for this is the brain damage we know is caused to American footballers by the repeated head trauma they undergo, which the helmets they wear do little to protect them from. The people who run the sport have done next to nothing about that either.
However, there has never been a sport where the incentives of the drug-takers and the drug-testers have been so out of kilter as in professional cycling during the Lance Armstrong era, which ran from the mid-1990s until a few weeks ago. The temptation for the cyclists to cheat was almost irresistible, once it became clear that 'blood-doping' – the use of erythropoietin (EPO) and blood transfusions to increase the levels of oxygen-carrying red cells in the bloodstream – could give them a clear advantage in the big races, including the three-week-long Tour de France, the sport's premier event. How large an advantage is open to dispute: one study puts the increase in 'peak power output' for recreational cyclists taking EPO at 12-15 per cent, which translates into an 80 per cent increase in endurance (time riding at 80 per cent of maximum capacity). Professional cyclists are already operating at much closer to maximum capacity than recreational riders, but even if EPO gave the top riders only a 5 per cent boost, that could be the difference, as Tyler Hamilton puts it, 'between first place in the Tour de France and the middle of the pack'.
But it would be a mistake to assume that most cyclists doped in order to give themselves a shot at ultimate glory. In many ways the biggest difference is not between coming first and being in the pack, but between being in the pack and not being in the race at all. Professional cycling is a team sport, and most members of the team are there to support the team's star riders, who might have a chance to win. Their job is to do the donkey work, protect their leader, chase down rivals and sacrifice themselves for the common good. It is often soul-destroying work; it can also be very well paid. Tyler Hamilton started taking drugs, as he reveals in this gripping tell-all memoir, to give himself a shot at being part of a successful team. It meant the difference between scraping a living on the fringes of the circuit and becoming rich. Not Lance Armstrong rich; but non-sportsman rich. When Hamilton got onto Armstrong's US Postal team he went from living on scraps to earning a six-figure salary. When Armstrong won the Tour de France with Hamilton's help, that salary went up from $150,000 to $450,000. Hamilton's fear when he was starting out was that he would not make the cut to be a Tour rider: blood-doping gave him the boost he needed to get in the game. This is consistent with the evidence from other sports. In baseball, for instance, studies suggest that the highest prevalence of steroid abuse is among players on the fringes of the major leagues. These are the guys with the most to lose by not taking drugs. It makes sense: the difference between the salaries of the top players can be measured in millions, but that's because they are all being paid millions; the difference between being an obscure major league player and a permanent minor league player can be the difference between earning $500,000 a year and earning $50,000 – all the difference in the world.
Taking EPO was not without risks: the medical consequences were often unpredictable. It makes your blood 'healthier' in the sense that it makes it thicker, which can cause your arteries to clog up entirely if you are not careful. It is not clear how many cyclists died of heart attacks in the experimental phase of the EPO era, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the athletes were less adept at monitoring their reaction to the drug. They didn't die on their bikes; they died in their sleep when the blood stopped moving ('stories from that era tell of riders who set alarm clocks for the middle of the night so they could wake up and do some pulse-increasing callisthenics'). Why would super-fit athletes take such insane risks with their health? Part of the answer, as Hamilton explains, is that professional cycling is an inherently unhealthy sport.
It is, to start with, extremely dangerous: cyclists crash all the time, breaking bones and risking permanent injury. Then there is the need to eat the bare minimum consistent with surviving the demands of a long race. Along with having thick blood, the other crucial requirement for a Tour de France rider is to be extremely thin. Hamilton says that during his doping years he also had a borderline eating disorder, which meant he spent far more time thinking about the food he was keeping out of his body than he did about the drugs he was putting in. The truth is that long-distance road racers only feel healthy when they are on their bikes: the rest of the time they feel horribly out of shape. They are achy, wheezy, bent up; they walk like old men; they sit when other people are standing, and they lie down when other people are sitting. When Hamilton was at the height of his cycling powers, he infuriated his wife by being unable even to take a short walk with her to the shops: he never felt fit enough.
The other thing cyclists need is an extraordinary tolerance for pain. That, in many ways, is what the competition is about: who can hurt the most, for the longest, without cracking or doing something stupid. Hamilton's calling card was his superhuman pain threshold: he became a legend of the sport in 2003 when he continued in the Tour de France despite having fractured his collarbone in a crash. The pain was so bad that he ended up grinding his teeth down to stumps. But he got to the finish, eventually placing fourth overall, and he even managed to win one of the most arduous mountain stages. It hurts just reading about it. Blood-doping does nothing to take the pain away; if anything, it makes the sport hurt more, because riders can push their bodies harder and for longer. For Hamilton, as for many of the other leading cyclists, doping did not constitute an unfair advantage. Instead, it was a way of sorting out who was really the toughest. In an extraordinary passage, Hamilton writes that EPO made the sport fairer, because it 'granted the ability to suffer more; to push yourself farther and harder than you'd ever imagined, in both racing and training'. Races 'weren't rolls of the genetic dice, or who happened to be on form that day. They didn't depend on who you were. They depended on what you did – how hard you worked, how attentive and professional you were in your preparation.' One of the frustrations for a rider like Hamilton had been the moments when he was willing to take the pain, but his body packed up anyway: cyclists call this 'bonking', the point where the metabolism shuts down regardless of the rider's will to keep going. Blood-doping meant that if you could take the pain, your body would keep up. Now success would simply go to the person who wanted it more.
No one in the history of the sport has wanted it more than Armstrong. The blood-doping era rewarded his insatiable appetite to win. But Armstrong was also lucky. Hamilton is being slightly disingenuous when he suggests that the drugs simply levelled the genetic playing field. Because there was no effective test to detect the presence of EPO in the bloodstream, the cycling authorities instituted a rule that suspended cyclists whose hematocrit level (the percentage of red cells in their blood) rose above 50, which was taken to indicate something was amiss. Normally the level for men shouldn't be much above 45. But people differ. Some are naturally closer to 50, others struggle to get much above 40 without artificial help. These latter included Armstrong, whose standard hematocrit reading was around 39 (Hamilton's was 42). So Armstrong benefited disproportionately from EPO, gaining nearly a 30 per cent boost while staying within the rules compared, say, to a rider whose normal level was 48, who would get only a 4 per cent boost before breaching the limit. Without EPO, Armstrong wouldn't have been at the races.
Armstrong also got a lucky roll of the genetic dice when he contracted the testicular cancer in 1996 that nearly killed him. His luck wasn't merely in surviving (and Armstrong, in his own tell-nothing memoir, It's Not About the Bike, accepts it was luck: 'The cancer does not care if you are a good or bad person'). Cancer also changed his body shape, making him much thinner and leaner. Before he got sick Armstrong was a top rider but few people's idea of a future Tour de France winner: he was far too bulky, good for speed and for barrelling his way through one-off road races, but unlikely to survive the rigours of a three-week grind through the French countryside. Armstrong's pre-cancer physique probably had something to do with steroids, and the steroids may or may not have contributed to his getting cancer: we can't know. In a conversation with his doctors during his cancer treatment that Armstrong now denies ever took place, but which two friends who were in the room at the time have testified under oath to hearing, he admitted that he had been taking EPO, cortisone, testosterone, growth hormone and steroids. When he emerged from his truly gruelling chemotherapy regime, he seems to have realised that it made no sense to carry on as before. He was not going to dope indiscriminately. He was going to tailor his drug-taking to go for endurance rather than brute strength.
Blood-doping was what gave Armstrong a shot at becoming one of the legends of the sport. But it is clear that in his own mind what made the difference was how he doped: he simply did it better than anyone else, more creatively, more ruthlessly, more fearlessly. He exploited the same opportunities that were available to everyone. For Armstrong, drugs added an extra element of competition to the sport: the competition to be the person who made best use of the drugs. Armstrong never doubted that everyone was at it. His mantra, according to Hamilton, was: 'Whatever you do, those other fuckers are doing more.' So there was nothing to be gained by being squeamish. The challenge was to be ahead of the curve. Armstrong hired the 'best' doctors (meaning both the most imaginative and the most unscrupulous), monitored the latest developments in testing and research, kept a fearsomely beady eye on his own teammates as well as on the performance of rival teams, and paid out of his own pocket to secure his supply. He was all over it, and that's what made him a winner.
Hamilton's memoir establishes beyond doubt that Armstrong is not a nice person to be around. His take-no-prisoners approach to all aspects of competition made him devious, insensitive and cruel. He bullied his teammates and then, when they showed signs of resistance, replaced them with someone more pliant. Hamilton was forced out after the 2001 Tour, which Armstrong won (the third of his seven consecutive victories), because his heroic performance made him suspect in Armstrong's eyes: could he still be trusted to know his place? Armstrong even suspected that Hamilton might have been taking something 'extra', a new drug that he was keeping all to himself. As Hamilton points out, none of the cyclists taking EPO considered it cheating, because they all recognised that doping was what it took to compete ('You could have hooked us up to the best lie detector on the planet and asked us if we were cheating, and we'd have passed'). But in this, as in everything else, Armstrong had to go further. He wasn't just a cheat who thought he was doing nothing wrong; he managed to cast himself as a whistleblower. When he thought other athletes were taking drugs not available to him (his term for this was that their performance was 'not normal'), he informed the authorities and asked that they be checked out. After a successful race in 2004 Hamilton found himself, to his alarm and astonishment, summoned to the headquarters of the sport's governing body, the UCI, in Switzerland for a thinly veiled warning and dressing down about his 'health'. Only later did he discover that it was Armstrong who had ratted him out.
It is commonplace in accounts of the Armstrong years to remark on his brash and abrasive Texan personality, which is what made him so unusual in the world of European cycling. No one had ever encountered someone quite so crude and so open in his desire to dominate: the Europeans were used to putting up at least a veneer of civility (which helps to explain cycling's popularity among the intelligentsia). But Armstrong's cowboy persona, though untypical of European sportsmen, perfectly suited his chosen sport, given the way it was regulated. One of the ironies of the sporting world is that Americans run their sports as though they were Europeans, and Europeans run theirs as though they were Americans. The NFL, for instance, is practically a socialist organisation, with its strict rules about redistribution between the richest and poorest teams and its tight regulation of unfair competitive advantage. The Tour de France, by contrast, is the Wild West. Teams get to take part on the basis of their ability to attract sponsorship, which often depends on the whims of some very unsavoury people. Money swirls around the sport, but little of it is being monitored. There is no job security and plenty of scope for bribery and coercion. The riders, Hamilton included, like to talk about the teams as though they were 'families'. But these are more like the families that rule the five boroughs of New York than the ones where mum and dad keep an eye out for the kids.
Armstrong's recovery from cancer and return to bike racing in 1998 coincided with the biggest scandal to hit the Tour de France in its history to that point. It broke when a Belgian physiotherapist working for the Festina team was stopped at the Belgian-French border with a car stuffed full of anabolic steroids, EPO, syringes and other doping products. The French police searched Festina's headquarters and arrested the team's chief, who eventually confessed to a widespread programme of blood-doping. Even the UCI, usually reluctant to act, had no choice but to expel Festina from the Tour. This event had two consequences, both of them highly favourable to Armstrong. First, the other riders, almost all of whom were also doping, had a choice to make: did they stop for fear of getting caught, or did they take matters into their own hands and start managing their own supplies of EPO? No one could trust their own team doctors, who were now under the suspicion of the French police. So they had to be creative. It became a world of smuggling and subterfuge: 'Quick drop-offs in hotel parking lots from girlfriends, mechanics, cousins, a bartender friend of the coach. That's how it works. The authorities shut one door, riders open two windows.'
Now there was a new game in town: who had the guts to outwit the police. 'In the wake of the busts,' Hamilton writes, 'the 1998 Tour became a different sort of contest, less about who was the strongest and more about who was the ballsiest, who had the best Plan B.' If this was a ballsiness competition, then Armstrong, back from his near-death encounter with testicular cancer, was going to be the winner. No one was more fearless. This was the other thing that worked in his favour: the people in charge of the sport, having survived their own near-death experience in 1998, were desperate for a good news story to change the image of the Tour. Armstrong fitted the bill perfectly. His miraculous recovery was ideal cover. Accusing Armstrong of doping always seemed in desperately poor taste, given what he had been through. Armstrong himself exploited this advantage ruthlessly. In It's Not About the Bike, which was first published in 2000, Armstrong's denials of doping now look distinctly half-hearted (he spends far less time discussing what he was doing to his own body than he does describing what was being done to his wife's body as she underwent IVF treatment). One line stands out, however: 'After chemo, the idea of putting anything foreign in my body was especially repulsive.' This was bullshit, but it was gold-plated bullshit, and it protected him for more than a decade.
The French police continued to monitor the sport, and the French cycling federation came down hard on their own athletes when they were caught cheating. But this is where the incentive structure worked to Armstrong's advantage. The Tour was French, but the French authorities did not control it. The UCI, which had the power to clean up the sport, was located near Lausanne, a stone's throw from the headquarters of that other bastion of probity and good practice, the IOC. The view from Switzerland was that Armstrong was not to be touched. The other problem was that the non-French cyclists were only in France for the duration of the race; most of them lived elsewhere, often in Spain, which was far more lax about enforcing drug laws. Everyone knew the difference: 'Racers used to say you could tape EPO syringes to your forehead and you wouldn't get busted in Spain.' Armstrong moved himself and some of his teammates to Girona, a small town in north-east Catalonia. Still, once he could afford it, he preferred to get his blood work done in Switzerland, where he could be confident the medical standards were higher. That's where he liked to 'train' before the Tour. One of Armstrong's many exquisite hypocrisies was an ongoing suspicion of riders who spent too much time in Spain: he was afraid that they might be taking advantage of the inattention of the local authorities to try out new treatments. If he thought you were a little too fond of 'Spanish practices', he would notify his friends in the UCI to warn them.
As well as the French police, who lacked the resources to get at Armstrong (they needed enough evidence to charge him with a crime on French territory), and the sport's governors, who had the resources (all they needed to show was that he had broken their own rules) but lacked the will, there were also the anti-doping agencies. These people wanted to catch Armstrong, but he always managed to stay one step ahead. The contest between drug testers and athletes is often described as an 'arms race': each side is trying to gain the advantage in a battle of technological resources. 'But,' Hamilton points out, 'that wasn't quite right, because it implied that the testers had a chance of winning. For us, it wasn't like a race at all. It was more like a big game of hide-and-seek played in a forest that has lots of good places to hide, and lots of rules that favour the hiders.'
Sometimes, the hiding was done in plain sight. During the 2002 Tour not a single rider failed a drugs test. This included Raimondas Rumsas, who finished third overall, and whose wife was caught with a cache of EPO, corticoids, testosterone, anabolics and HGH in the trunk of her car. She gamely claimed they were for her mother (who, as Hamilton writes, 'must've been quite a racer'), and Rumsas got to keep his place on the podium. This showed that the UCI would buy any excuse to keep the Tour clean, and that it was possible to take a boatload of drugs and not fail a test. The way it was done was called 'micro-dosing', which meant injecting small amounts directly into the bloodstream, making any traces far harder to detect. This was the equivalent of dotting tiny markers around the forest rather than piling your stuff up in a single hiding place. But it also helped that no one told the testers that this is what the cyclists were doing. The authorities only discovered that the cyclists were micro-dosing when one of Armstrong's former teammates, Floyd Landis, confessed to the practice in 2010.
The testers did have one thing in their favour. A cyclist only had to make one mistake, or be unlucky once, and he would become damaged goods. The code of omertà, which guaranteed that the riders on the Tour never discussed what they all knew was happening, also meant that if one of their number got caught, he had to be ostracised. The only way to keep up the pretence was to pretend to be outraged by any evidence of cheating. And over the course of a long career, it was almost impossible for the top riders to keep out of trouble. This became Hamilton's private motto: 'Sooner or later, everybody gets popped.' Not because, as he puts it, 'the testers suddenly became Einsteins, though they did get better. I think it has more to do with the odds over the long run. The longer you play hide-and-seek, the more likely it is that you'll slip up, or they'll get lucky.' Hamilton got his own comeuppance in 2004, when a test showed that he had another person's blood in his system. By this point most of the top riders were using 'blood bags', storing samples of their own blood taken at a time when their hematocrit level was high, and then re-injecting it into their bloodstream during a race to give themselves a boost. Somehow, Hamilton had been supplied with the wrong bag.
He was outraged, and protested his innocence, because this was clearly a mistake: no rider would deliberately boost with another athlete's blood. He had the sense of injustice of the perennial cheat who finds himself accused of the one thing he never tried. A doctor must have screwed up, making Hamilton the victim. But Hamilton couldn't win, either under the official rules or under the unofficial ones. He took his case to court and lost, because the scientific evidence against him was overwhelming: the blood really wasn't his, a fact for which there could be no innocent explanation. He had also fallen foul of Armstrong's unspoken rule for the sport, which was that you have to be better at breaking the rules than anyone else. If your doctors screwed up, you were at fault for having hired the wrong doctors. Armstrong knew that the medics who ended up servicing cyclists were there for two reasons: first, to make money (some were charging hundreds of thousands for their services); second, because a career in conventional medicine had somehow passed them by. These people were not to be trusted: had they been, they would have become regular doctors. Armstrong never stopped monitoring the men who were monitoring his body, because he knew his fate was in their hands. Hamilton took his eye off the ball, and paid the price.
In the end, Armstrong was the shining exception to Hamilton's motto: he never got popped. As the rumours swirled around him, Armstrong's first line of defence, along with the cancer, was always that he was the most tested athlete in sporting history – five hundred times and counting – and he had never failed a single one. Nonetheless, it was Hamilton's motto that got him in the end. As other athletes failed tests, and found themselves both ostracised and outraged by Armstrong's censorious treatment of them (he never gave a sucker an even break: if you failed a test, he would dump on you), the wall of silence began to crack. It began with Floyd Landis, who had won the first post-Armstrong Tour in 2006 and then been stripped of his title when he tested positive for testosterone. After serving a mandatory suspension, Landis tried to make a comeback but Armstrong, still the power in the sport, blocked him. The two men had been friends but Armstrong never forgave friends who displayed the potential to make him look bad. He tried to crush them instead. Luckily for us, unluckily for him, Landis was tougher than most. In 2010 he responded to the threats and the cold shoulder by confessing all to the authorities, implicating Armstrong. This kick-started a US government probe into the activities of the US Postal team during Armstrong's time, led by a tough attorney at the FDA called Jeff Novitzky. Novitzky started to gather a mountain of evidence as, one by one, different riders, bridling under their own disgrace, started to open up. Armstrong responded as he always did, by raising the stakes. He lobbied Congress. He revived a long-held plan to buy the Tour de France – not to bribe the authorities, but actually to purchase the whole damn thing – so that he could run the race his way (he needed to raise $1.5 billion, a figure that eventually proved beyond even him). He hired the best lawyers and continued to issue the most stringent denials. It worked. Earlier this year the FDA dropped its investigation into US Postal, citing insufficient evidence. The incentives were still out of joint: the political rewards of nailing Armstrong did not match the political risks of taking him on.
But Armstrong was not safe. The FDA had to prove criminal wrongdoing. The USADA (the main anti-doping agency) had only to prove that Armstrong was in breach of the rules governing his sport. There was now more than enough evidence for that. In October the USADA issued its report accusing Armstrong of 'a massive team doping scheme, more extensive than any previously revealed in professional sports history'. He has been banned for life and stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by the UCI, albeit somewhat reluctantly (in making the announcement the current head of the UCI, Pat McQuaid, was still channelling Armstrong when he described the true whistleblowers, Landis and Hamilton, as 'scumbags'). Armstrong has now been ostracised by the rest of the sport, though given that he had already ostracised most of them it isn't clear how much difference that makes. If he hasn't seen it, I recommend he takes a look at Ralph Fiennes's recent film version of Coriolanus, for the magnificent scene in which the Roman responds to the news of his impending banishment from the city with the spit-flecked shriek: 'I banish you.'
What happens next? It is hard to believe that Armstrong will not end up in court at some point, either sued for the return of the hugely lucrative sponsorships and endorsements he accumulated over the years, or charged with some criminal offence (the USADA report may have changed the FDA's calculus of incentives). Armstrong himself is concentrating on his charity work, even though he has been forced to stand down as head of the Livestrong charity that he founded to help cancer survivors and their families and which has raised nearly half a billion dollars since 1997. The charity has always been Armstrong's last line of defence: attack him and you are attacking the good work he has done for sick people around the world. As the Livestrong website pointed out on its front page until recently, Armstrong has contributed $6.5 million of his own money to the cause. However, this needs to be set against the reputed $125 million personal fortune he has built up over the same period. Celebrity charities can do a lot of good while at the same time covering up a great deal of bad. They provide camouflage for all sorts of things, from paedophilia to drug-taking to the hoarding of wealth.
Before he gets to court, some people think Armstrong will be forced into some sort of confession, so absurd have his protestations of innocence now become. But that rather depends on who you think he really is. Hamilton's ex-wife, the wonderfully named Haven, was once Armstrong's friend and thought she knew his type: 'Lance is Donald Trump. He might own all of Manhattan, but if there's one tiny corner grocery store without his name on it, it drives him crazy.' If Armstrong really is Trump then he's likely to remain trapped in his bubble of bluster and self-delusion until the money runs out. However, the person he increasingly reminds me of is Malcolm Tucker, the foul-mouthed spin doctor in The Thick of It, who may or may not bear a passing resemblance to Alastair Campbell. For Tucker the only line of defence is attack, because whatever you do, you can be sure the other fuckers are doing more. When he is finally cornered at the end of the last series, trapped in a lie before a lightly fictionalised version of the Leveson Inquiry, Tucker's mea culpa comes out as just another diatribe against his enemies. This is not about me – it's about you. Whatever I am is because of the world you created. In that world, I was the only honest one: I played the game, and spun the facts, and twisted the truth, because I know what it takes to win; you just turned your noses up at me and let me get away with it. I censure you. That's what I imagine an Armstrong confession will be like.
The real Alastair Campbell has always been one of Armstrong's staunchest supporters. In an interview with Campbell in 2004, Armstrong told him: 'Losing and dying: it's the same thing.' Campbell has described this as his favourite quote from his favourite interviewee. He took it to be a declaration of iron resolve (Armstrong kept winning because he could not tolerate defeat) when in retrospect it sounds more like the motto of a cheat (if losing is the same as dying, then anything goes). Campbell, like so many others, believed that Armstrong was the victim of a witch hunt because it suited him not to believe the opposite. Now he has joined the ranks of the disappointed, wondering how their hero could have let them down. Meanwhile, the sport is trying to clean up its act. This year's Tour, won by the British cyclist Bradley Wiggins, was much slower than races during the Armstrong years: at the pace he was going, Wiggins would have finished in the middle of the pack a decade ago. For many fans that is proof enough that the sport is now dope-free. Someone who knows far more about cycling than I do assured me that Wiggins's Sky team, and the other British cyclists who won gold at the London Olympics, don't do drugs. He says that if it turns out otherwise, he will never believe anything anyone says about anything ever again. Fingers crossed then.
David Runciman teaches politics at Cambridge and hosts the podcast Talking Politics. Confronting Leviathan, about political ideas, will be out next year.
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Some people feel that the Cape Cod island of Nantucket, although an amazing place, is a bit too pricey for the simple traveler or the family who is bit more cost conscious.
Today I am here to tell you how to enjoy Nantucket, Mass., a bit more cost-effectively. Let me introduce myself. I am Kate Hamilton Pardee and I have been the Director of Nantucket Visitor Services for 20 years. I am here to help you experience the Island on a budget, but without making you feel you have to cut back on the enjoyment factor. I am sure I will miss some great ideas, and I can't guarantee that there won't be any costs, but I promise you this trip won't break the bank.
Plan to visit in the early summer on a mid-week day. Before your arrival, order a free Travel and Lodging brochure from Nantucket Visitor Services. This will give you travel information along with telephone numbers for restaurants and bed and breakfast, attractions, along with their Island contacts. Remember the best travel experience is made in the information you collect before you depart for your trip.
First book your passage on the boat, and if you are just coming for the day, check for any special travel rates. You can take the Steamship Authority slow boat, which is two hours and fifteen minutes, or a one-hour trip is available on the fast ferry through the Steamship or Hy-line Cruises. You can even bring your bike, fishing rod or your favorite furry friend on board. The slow ferry will give you plenty of time to do some quiet reading about the Island, or talk with friends or family. Sit on the deck with the wind in your hair watching for the Island to appear on the horizon. Rounding the Brant Point lighthouse as you come into port will be your first introduction to the special experience that is Nantucket.
Your first stop should be at the Visitor Center kiosk on Straight Wharf, or the Visitor Center main office located at 25 Federal St. We will provide you with free maps, brochures and informational booklets. More importantly, we will give you the inside local scoop along with introducing you to the many museums, Atheneum events, or sites available to visit on foot. You will have your own personal tour guide helping with any questions you might have. Make sure you check out the bulletin boards as you leave, there just might be a free concert, lecture or Nantucket Historical Association Brown Bag Lunch lecture series being held during your stay.
Begin your day by walking up the cobblestone streets to view the beautiful Main St. homes and gardens, climb the Congregational Church tower for a panoramic view of the island, and then grab a snack at the old-fashioned lunch counter at the Pharmacy on Main Street. If going to the beach is a priority, your wish has been granted. All you have to remember is sunscreen, because all Nantucket Town-owned beaches are not only beautiful, but also open free to the public, and there is a shuttle bus that travels to many of these beaches. Walk for miles, check out the south shore surf or grab a really tasty hamburger at one of the concessions. If you brought your fishing pole, keep in mind to look for a good spot to cast (make sure to order a permit from the state before you do). In town, walk to Children's or Jetties Beach where your younger family members can play on the jungle gyms. Lifeguards are on duty, and you can eat your lunch outside on the deck. You will truly experience a million dollar view as you watch the many boats travel by.
Feel like getting some exercise? Nantucket is over 40% conservation land with many self-guided trails open to the public, a great place to bring your leashed furry friend. There are also many bike shops to rent equipment to explore our incredible bike paths, and there our many sandwich shops along the way. Ride up to the Tupancy Links on the Cliff Road bike path, and walk to the end to be awed by the view of Nantucket Sound. It will take your breath away. For a longer trip, take the Polpis bike path and ride out to the famous rose-covered cottages in 'Sconset. You will most certainly want to have your camera to capture the sight. For a Bird's Eye View you can contact the Linda Loring Nature Center near Eel Point for information about their tours.
After all this walking, exploring and sunshine, you now might be tired and thinking of staying the night. There is a youth hostel located in prime real estate right across from the beach at Surfside. All B&B's, inns and hotels list their last minute accommodation information at the Visitor Center and the staff can help you find the right room. Contrary to some popular beliefs, there are rooms available for one night, and the Information Aides will even make the call to locate one. Have them suggest dinner at one of the area restaurants, or ask if there is early music playing. For one last stroll, go to the Strip on Broad Street and get some food to go. As the sun goes down you can check out a sunset, or as it grows dark, kick up the sparkling phosphoresce in the water close to shore. Still want to get a glimpse of some of the Island's stars? Look up at the beautiful Nantucket's night time sky or stop by the Maria Mitchell observatory for a viewing on one of their open nights.
In the morning before you depart, make time to stop by the local Hospital Thrift Shop where you might find an amazing piece of clothing, book or an old Nantucket souvenir. As you settle back on the boat for your trip home remember to throw two pennies overboard while passing the Brant Point Lighthouse. As this historical tradition signifies, this will be a small investment in your future, to guarantee a return trip to this beautiful Island. On Nantucket we count the measurement of our true success in how welcome we can make all of our many types of visitors feel, and by making them want to travel back to see us again.
Kate Hamilton Pardee has been the Director of Nantucket Visitor Services for 20 years. Please contact at 508-228-0925 or www.nantucket-ma.gov/visitor. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nantucketbuzz.
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text:
Steve Forbes: "Impeachment Is Not Gonna Happen. The Thing To Watch For Is AG Bill Barr's Report – That's Going To Dominate News. Big Scandal Coming" (Video)
(Gateway Pundit) – Steve Forbes was recently interviewed by CNBC in India on the current impeachment proceedings and coup attempt of President Donald Trump.
Steve told the interviewer impeachment will not happen. He then fired a warning shot at Democrats.
Steve Forbes: "Impeachment is not gonna happen. They are doing it for political purposes… The thing to watch for is what our Attorney General in the US is doing, Attorney General Barr is going to be releasing in the next few weeks in terms of his investigations on what was happening with the CIA, the FBI, and cerain White House officials leading up to the 2016 election and afterwards… A lot of bad things were done. That's going to dominate the news. It is a big scandal coming. And it's going to take all this other stuff off the pages."
Flashback: President Trump Offers Subtle Clues That Democrats And The Deep State Are About To Face Justice
President Trump gave a couple of rallies last week, one in Minneapolis and one in Dallas/Ft. Worth. During his rallies the president offered various hints that the Deep State may soon soon face justice.
We know that the IG's report regarding FISA abuse of Obama's FBI, DOJ and Deep State spies around the world, is about to be released. We also know that AG Barr has an investigation into the Deep State actions taken before, during and after the 2016 election led by a man named Durham. We also know that President Trump knows more than any of us civilians regarding what is being done to investigate the Deep State.
The President is very calm and he gets energized from his great and historic rallies. We also know that he works his way around the corrupt media through these rallies and through social media. The President either is able to let the corrupt left's attacks role off his back better than anyone in history or he knows what is coming out soon.
Here are some clips from his speech in Dallas which relate to the corruption in DC that the President is trying to stop. In this first clip at 14:40 minutes the President states that he won't allow the IRS to be a weapon anymore to be used against Americans like what the corrupt Obama administration allowed to take place –
He also discussed crooked Adam Schiff and the whistleblower at the 20:00 minute mark and asks "Is the whistleblower a spy?" He then says there's a lot of bad people out there, but one by one we're advancing" –
He then later discusses Crooked Hillary's emails and he says at the 41:25 mark, "They may find those 33,000 emails. They're looking!" –
President Trump's rallies were outstanding but his delivery is as calm as when he first started campaigning. His crowds are bigger as his administration continues its best to address the corruption in Obama's Deep State.
Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore – flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/25636269475
thegatewaypundit.com/2019/10/steve-forbes-impeachment-is-not-gonna-happen-the-thing-to-watch-for-is/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Kabelo Petrus Motha (born November 27, 1992) is a South African DJ and record producer, popularly known as Kabza De Small. He is a major figure in the amapiano genre of house music. Aside from  his solo career, Motha is a member of the Scorpion Kings. Motha gained international recognition  after the release of "Umshove", in 2018.

Kabza's fourth studio album  I Am the King of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust (2021), debuted number one in South Africa.

Forbes Africa ranked Motha number 18 on Forbes Africa 30 under 30. His accolades include six South African Music Awards, two Mzansi Viewers Choice Awards, three AmaPiano Music Awards and one Sunday Times GenNext.

Life and career
Born and raised in  Mpumalanga, later Motha family relocated to Pretoria. His musical career began in 2009. He was signed under Tyrique de
Bruyne and released his first album Avenuee Sound in 2016 under Bestbyfar Records, Kabza established his own record label PianoHub. His breakthrough single "Umshove" featuring South African singer Leehleza was released in 2018. On 1 October 2019, he released Piano Hub with DJ Maphorisa.  The Extended play was certified 3× platinum in South Africa. The Return of Scorpion Kings was released on 29 November 2019.

On 31 January 2020, Scorpion Kings (Kabza de Small and DJ Maphorisa) announced Scorpion King Live, which was set to be 11 April, at Sun Arena, Times Square in Pretoria. The concert was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and was rescheduled to 9 August.

His studio album I Am the King of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust, was released on 26 June 2020. The album was certified double platinum in South Africa. In December 2020, Kabza was listed  as the most streamed South African artist by Spotify. That same month, Kabza announced collaborative studio album Rumble in the Jungle, and released lead single "Funu", featuring Afro-pop singer Tresor in February 2021. Rumble in the Jungle, a collaborative studio album by Kabza de Small, DJ Maphorisa, and Tresor was released on 9 April 2021.

Motha was ranked at number 18 on Forbes Africa 30 under 30 list in June 2021.

In July 2021, he was featured on Rolling Stone magazine for his musical career.

On 27 September, Kabza and DJ Maphorisa released "Abalele" featuring South African singer Ami Faku. The song debuted number 4 on the Spotify charts and number 1 on the official South African Music Charts.

In early January 2022, he announced his upcoming album KOA II Part 1, on his Instagram account. The album was set to be released on 16 June 2022.

His studio EP Ziwangale was released on 22 April 2022. Its lead single "Ziwa Ngale" featuring  DJ Tira, DJ Exit SA, Beast, Mshunqisi, Young Stunna, and Felo Le Tee, charted number on iTune SA music charts.

The other three songs, "Ebusuku" featuring Nkosazana Daughter, "Kabza" featuring Murumba Pitch, and "Mak'shoni" Langa" featuring DJ Maphorisa, Murumba Pitch, and Da Muziqal Chef, debuted at number 7, number 12 and number 26 respectively, on iTunes music chart.

On 31 May, Kabza released 6 singles; "Khusela" featuring Msaki, "Bathini" featuring Young Stunna and Artwork Sounds, and "Isoka" featuring Nkosazana Daughter and Murumba Pitch, as part 1 of  his album.

KOA II Part 1 (pronounced King of Amapiano 2 Part 1) was released on 16 June 2022.

The album debuted number 11 on iTunes top 100 chart, and "Khusela" peaked  number 1 on Apple Music charts.

In June 2022, Motha announced 3 leg tour that ran from 24 to 26 June.

In early October 2022, he announced working on his upcoming EP via Twitter, and released a lead single "K'shubile" with Kwesta featuring Masterpiece YVK. In November 2022, he worked with Afrika Memani on the Road To Private EP, which was released on the 4th of November.

Scorpion Kings announced Summer Tour which includes 9 dates, it will run from 11 December at Cape Town until 25 February 2023, Gauteng.

Kabza reportedly working on joint extended play together with Ami Faku, announced on his Twitter account on 13 February 2023. Release date and EP title are yet to be announced.

Awards and nominations

All Africa Music Awards

!
|-
|rowspan="3"|2022
|"Adiwele"
|African Fans Favourite
|
|rowspan="3"|
|-
|KOA II
|Album of the Year
|
|-
|Himself
|Artist of the Year
|

DStv Mzansi Viewers' Choice Awards

!
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2020
| "Nana Thula"
| Favourite Song of the Year
|
| rowspan="3"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Himself
| Favourite Rising Star
|
|-
|Favourite DJ
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2022
| "Asibe Happy"
| Favourite Song
|
| rowspan="3"|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Scorpion Kings (Kabza de Small and DJ Maphorisa)
|Favourite music artist/group
|
|-
|Favourite DJ
|

South African Amapiano Music Awards

!
|-
|rowspan="4"|2021
| Scorpion Kings Live
|Amapiano Album of the Year
|
|rowspan="4"|
|-
| Scorpion Kings
|Best Amapiano Male DJ Act
|
|-
|Himself
|Best Amapiano Music Producer
|
|-
|"Emcimbini"
|Best Amapiano Collaboration
|
|-
|rowspan=9|2023
|"Abalele"
|rowspan=3|Song of the Year
|
|rowspan=9|
|-
|"Asibe Happy"
|
|-
|rowspan=3|Khusela" featuring Msaki
|
|-
|Best AmaPiano Produced Song
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Best Amapiano Collaboration
|
|-
|"Asibe Happy"
|
|-
|KOA II Part 1
|Best AmaPiano Album/Ep
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Himself
|Best AmaPiano Producer
|
|-
|AmaPiano Artist of the Year
|

South African Music Awards

!
|-
| rowspan="3"|2020
| rowspan="2"|Scorpion Kings (DJ Maphorisa, Kabza De Small, MFR Souls & Virgo Deep)
| Album of the Year
|
| rowspan="3"|
|-
|-
|rowspan="2"|Best Kwaito/Gqom/Amapiano
|
|-
| The Return of the Scorpion Kings (Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa)
|
|-
|rowspan="6"|2021
|Once Upon A Time in Lockdown – Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa (Scorpion Kings)
|rowspan="2"|Album of the year
|
|rowspan="6"|
|-
|rowspan="2"|I Am The King of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust
|
|-
|Male Artist of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Once Upon A Time in Lockdown (Scorpion Kings)
|Duo/Group of the Year
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|Best Amapiano Album
|
|-
|I Am The King of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust
|
|-
|rowspan="3"|2022
|"Asibe Happy"
|rowspan="2"|Record of the Year
|
|rowspan="2"|
|-
|rowspan=2|"Abalele"
|
|-
|Most Streamed Song of the Year
|
|

Sunday Times GenNext

!
|-
|2021
|Himself
|Coolest Local Club In countrys DJ
|
|

Mzansi Kwaito and House Music Awards

!
|-
| 2021
| "Emcimbini"
| Most Voted Song
|
|

Discography

Studio albums
Avenue Sound (2016)
Pretty Girls Love Amapiano (2019)
Pretty Girls Love Amapiano 2 (2020)
 I Am the King of Amapiano: Sweet & Dust (2020)
 KOA II Part 1 (2022)

Collaborative albums

Scorpion Kings EP  (2019)
Piano Hub EP  (2019)
 The Return of the Scorpion Kings  (2019)
Scorpion Kings Live At Sun Arena  (2020)
Once Upon A Time In A Lockdown  (2020)
Petle Petle EP  & King Deetoy) (2021)
 Rumble in the Jungle  (2021)
Pretty Girls Love Amapiano 3 (with Mdu aka Trp) (2021)Scorpion Kings Live Sun Arena  (2022)
 Speak N Vrostaan (with Kwesta) (2022)

 EPs
 Ziwangale EP'' (2022)

References

External links

South African DJs
South African musicians
Amapiano musicians
Living people
21st-century South African musicians
1992 births

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


In the latest CloudCents podcast, Jack Bouroudjian interviews two of the top Cloud Architects in the country from Asperitas consulting, Jose Girbes and Scott Wheeler.
Both Jose and Scott have impressive backgrounds working with enterprises to enable successful migration of assets to the cloud. Jack and his guests explore the biggest hurdles and mistakes being made by customers seeking digital transformation. They also discuss security, "roadmaps" for migration, and everything a company needs for a successful move to the cloud.
For more information visit https://ucxtranews.com/cloudcents/archive/episode-20-jose-girbes-scott-wheeler-of-asperitas-interview/.
To learn more about UCX visit https://ucxchange.com/.


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How to Reduce Linen-Replacement Costs (Part 2 of 2)
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(Photo: ©iStockphoto.com/EmiSta)
Eric Frederick | June 20, 2011
ROANOKE, Va. — The escalating cost of textile products is causing many organizations to refocus on reducing linen-replacement costs.
During my years in this industry, both as a laundry manager and as a laundry consultant, the challenge of reducing linen-replacement costs has been a recurring theme. Some years ago, I had the pleasure of working with a major hospital on a linen-cost-containment program.
The immediate goal was to lower the hospital's annual expenditures on linens; the hospital had been trying to accomplish this for several years. It was making the same mistakes that many U.S. healthcare facilities make: It was looking for a quick and easy solution.
There is no such quick fix available. But it is interesting and educational to review the efforts of this hospital and compare them with the eventual solutions. In order to save money on the purchase of replacement textiles, this hospital began an aggressive purchasing program designed to:
Limit the amount of new linen stored at the hospital.
Obtain the lowest cost per item based on purchase price.
Reduce the number of linen items in circulation.
Educate the linen users on the cost associated with linen service.
(Editor's note: To review goals one and two, please see Part 1 of this column.)
Goal Three: Reduce Number of Items in Inventory
This process requires a high degree of communication between all parties involved with the linen system, and those responsible for the system must be highly credible. Because there had been problems in trying to achieve the first two goals, all credibility was lost and no real attempt was made at standardization. It was felt that the other problems were more important and should be tackled before linen standardization could be achieved.
Goal Four: Improve User Education
Pursuit of this goal often degenerated into shouting matches. The laundry manager did not realize that true communication is necessary before education can start. He was only prepared to give his side of the story, to instruct the user regarding the problems that they were causing the laundry. He was unwilling to listen and understand the problems that the laundry was causing the users. Without effective two-way communication, much was said and done in the name of education, but little was accomplished.
The solution to this hospital's problem began with rethinking its basic desire to control linen costs.
The original list of goals was reviewed, and it was decided that a couple of important goals had been overlooked. The hospital determined that reducing linen loss and reducing linen utilization should be added to the list. With these new goals in mind, the hospital agreed to go back to square one and re-implement the program.
The first step was to select a prime linen vendor, one that could really help the hospital begin to develop the database necessary to properly manage its linen system.
The vendor needed to have a proven track record in the area of linen system development as well as consistent product availability. Its staff was carefully reviewed to ensure that the knowledge needed to make the system work was in place. The hospital began to view the linen vendor as a major part of the linen system and decided that it wanted a high level of service.
Before the selection, the hospital needed to review its linen purchasing philosophy. I approached the hospital with the idea of buying higher-quality linen as a part of an overall loss-control and utilization-reduction program. The higher-priced merchandise should last longer and the cost per use would be less, I pointed out. Administration was skeptical at first, but it had already tried the other way without success. It was decided to upgrade the linen quality.
Based on the desire for high-quality linen delivered with an equally high level of service, a prime linen vendor was chosen. The hospital realized it paid for the services it wanted as part of the textile purchase price but fully expected to recoup the cost in reduced linen purchases. Almost immediately, plans were set up for the accumulation of linen-usage data, and the vendor assisted with semiannual linen inventories.
A linen committee was established, with all the major linen-using areas represented. Its first job was to review the existing linen inventory, making sure that each item appropriately met the needs of the end-user. It selected patient apparel that was modest, could be commercially processed, and met all clinical requirements.
As the new linen items began to find their way into the system, user satisfaction increased. At the same time, the laundry manager, drawing on his experience from the linen committee, began to fully communicate with the linen users. The effort to establish the lines of communication was so important later on in limiting loss.
Quality Textiles An Important Base
The hospital found that quality textiles, specifically selected to meet the needs of its staff and patients, are an important part of an overall cost-containment program.
The hospital found that by starting out in the right manner the second time, it was able to develop a system to eliminate all new-linen stores at the hospital. But this was not attempted until the hospital database was developed to a point that allowed the facility to accurately project its needs.
Linen users were more willing to help control costs through standardization when it appeared that the laundry was truly interested in meeting their linen needs. Through a linen management committee composed of various linen users, the hospital eliminated the use of bath blankets, draw sheets, X-ray gowns and bedspreads.
The greatest accomplishment, however, was the laundry manager's educational process. His system was designed to show the true cost of linen service. It detailed the roles of linen loss, over-utilization and abuse in the total cost. Reports illustrated the usage by department, and most managers were surprised by how much linen their area used and the cost associated with that usage. This transformed linen from a free supply to a supply that must be appropriately managed. Linen utilization dropped, and linen loss was reduced.
Can an approach like this be tailored to work in your institution? The answer is yes! Any program can succeed if it is based on communication, solid planning and accurate information.
Click here to read Part 1 of this column.
frederick_mug_2009resize.jpg
Eric Frederick
Eric Frederick served 44 years in laundry management before retiring and remains active in the industry as a laundry operations consultant. You can contact him by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 540-520-6288.
In this episode, learn the difference between "leaders" and "managers" and how each style impacts laundry employees and their productivity with guest Deana Griffin, president of The Griffin Group, a recruiting firm that specializes in the rental uniform and linen/textile industry.
Want more? Visit the archive »
View this month's digital edition.
Or browse the archives.
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text:
KR101658609B1 - System and method for testing autonomous emergency braking - Google Patents
System and method for testing autonomous emergency braking Download PDF
test vehicle
안광호
주식회사 인폼
2015-03-06 Application filed by 주식회사 인폼 filed Critical 주식회사 인폼
G01M—TESTING STATIC OR DYNAMIC BALANCE OF MACHINES OR STRUCTURES; TESTING OF STRUCTURES OR APPARATUS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
G01M17/00—Testing of vehicles
G01M17/007—Wheeled or endless-tracked vehicles
B60W—CONJOINT CONTROL OF VEHICLE SUB-UNITS OF DIFFERENT TYPE OR DIFFERENT FUNCTION; CONTROL SYSTEMS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR HYBRID VEHICLES; ROAD VEHICLE DRIVE CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR PURPOSES NOT RELATED TO THE CONTROL OF A PARTICULAR SUB-UNIT
B60W30/00—Purposes of road vehicle drive control systems not related to the control of a particular sub-unit, e.g. of systems using conjoint control of vehicle sub-units, or advanced driver assistance systems for ensuring comfort, stability and safety or drive control systems for propelling or retarding the vehicle
B60W30/08—Active safety systems predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision or attempting to minimise its consequences
B60W30/09—Taking automatic action to avoid collision, e.g. braking and steering
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for testing an autonomous braking system of a vehicle. When it is confirmed that a dummy serving as a pedestrian is located at a starting point through an origin return detection sensor, an autonomous braking test is performed, The movement of the dummy is controlled based on the estimated arrival time of the dummy. Accordingly, it is possible to accurately test the autonomous braking of the test vehicle in various situations, and to improve the accuracy of the test by adjusting the movement of the dummy in accordance with the expected arrival time change of the test vehicle.
TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to an autonomous braking test apparatus,
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for controlling autonomous braking of a vehicle by controlling the motion of the dummy, and more particularly, to an autonomous braking system for precisely controlling the motion of the dummy so as to test the autonomous braking of the vehicle in various driving situations Test apparatus and method.
An ADAS (Advanced Driver Assist System) is a system that assists the driver in the safe driving or driving comfort. Many vehicles equipped with the driver assistance system are provided according to the demand for a safe vehicle.
The autonomous braking system can be used as a driver assist system for a driver's assistant. The autonomous braking system can be used for a driver's assist system, such as an automatic vehicle distance control system (SCC), a lane keeping assist system (LKAS), and an autonomous emergency braking (AEB) Is a driver assistance system that automatically protects a driver, a pedestrian, or a nearby vehicle by reducing the speed of the vehicle when the driver is not able to brak at the time of braking because the recognition of the situation ahead is slow.
A method of testing an autonomous braking system of a vehicle is a method of testing the autonomous braking of a vehicle under operation by allowing the test vehicle to travel along a predetermined path and placing a dummy at a test point.
There are many cases where a pedestrian appears in front of a vehicle while driving, and it is necessary to precisely control the position and movement of the pile that serves as a pedestrian according to each situation. For example, according to the test scenario, the dummy is moved to the center of the front bumper (50%) of the test vehicle or moved to the right 25% or right 75% of the front bumper and the test is performed. Therefore, there is a demand for an autonomous braking tester capable of precisely controlling the motion of the dummy in order to improve the test performance of the autonomous braking tester.
In order to solve the above-described problems, the autonomous braking test is performed when it is confirmed that the dummy is located at the origin through the homing detection sensor disposed at the starting point of the dummy of the autonomous braking tester, and according to various test scenarios And an object of the present invention is to provide an autonomous braking test apparatus and method for controlling the movement of the dummy and adjusting the moving speed of the dummy in consideration of the change in the moving speed of the test vehicle.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a zero point return sensor for detecting whether a dummy is located at an origin before starting an autonomic braking test and outputting a detection signal; And transmitting the test start message to the test vehicle, receiving the position information of the test vehicle in real time, and calculating the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle according to the set scenario if it is confirmed that the dummy is located at the origin from the detection signal And controlling the movement of the dummy so that the dummy is located at a test point at an estimated arrival time.
The control unit checks whether or not the estimated arrival time has changed from the change in the location information of the test vehicle, adjusts the travel speed of the dummy when it is confirmed that the calculated arrival estimated time has changed, And transmits a test termination message to the test vehicle and returns the dummy to the origin when the moving speed of the dummy required is exceeded the limit speed of the dummy.
Wherein the control unit sets an arrival point of the test vehicle to a point that is a predetermined distance from the moving path of the dummy if the set scenario stops in the dummy and calculates an estimated arrival time to a set point, The arrival point of the test vehicle is set as a point on the movement path of the dummy and the estimated arrival time to the set point is calculated. If the set scenario is a dummy stroke, the arrival point of the test vehicle is moved And the test point of the dummy is set as a point on the moving path of the dummy that has passed the arrival point of the test vehicle.
The control unit transmits a test end message to the test vehicle and returns the dummy to the origin when it is confirmed that the test vehicle is located at the arrival point according to the set scenario.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for testing a vehicle, comprising: transmitting a test start message to a test vehicle when it is confirmed that the dummy is located at an origin; Receiving the position information of the test vehicle in real time; Calculating an expected arrival time of the test vehicle according to a set scenario; And controlling the movement of the dummy so that the dummy is positioned at a test point according to the set scenario at an estimated arrival time of the test vehicle.
According to the present invention, it is possible to precisely test the autonomous braking by confirming that the dummy of the autonomous braking tester is located at the origin, and to perform the test, and by controlling the movement of the dummy according to the set scenarios and the running conditions of the test vehicle, Allow autonomous braking in situations to be tested.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of an autonomic braking test apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention and an environment for testing autonomous braking.
FIGS. 2A to 5C are views showing an embodiment in which an autonomic braking test apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention performs an autonomic braking test according to a set scenario.
6 is a flowchart illustrating a method of an autonomic braking test method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The advantages and features of the present invention and the manner of achieving them will become apparent with reference to the embodiments described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. And is provided to fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art, and the present invention is defined by the claims.
It is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. In the present specification, the singular form includes plural forms unless otherwise specified in the specification. &Quot; comprises " and / or "comprising" when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence or absence of one or more other components, steps, operations and / Or add-ons. Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of an autonomous braking test apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention and an environment for performing autonomous braking test by an autonomous braking test apparatus 100.
The autonomic braking tester 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a home return sensor 110 and a controller 120. The autonomous braking tester 100 controls the motion of the dummy 200 acting as a pedestrian, ) Is tested for autonomous braking performance.
The home return sensor 110 is located at a position where the dummy 200 of the autonomous braking tester 100 starts and senses whether the dummy 200 is located at the starting point and outputs a detection signal.
And outputs the output detection signal to the control unit 120. [ Thus, before testing the autonomous braking, it is checked whether the dummy 200 has returned to the origin, and the test is performed, thereby making it possible to perform the intended autonomic braking test in various scenarios through precise control of the dummy 200. [
The home return sensor 110 may be operated only before the start of the autonomous braking test and after the end of the autonomous braking test. In other words, it is operated before and after the test is started so as to confirm that the dummy 200 returns to the origin and to perform the next test.
The control unit 120 transmits a test start message for starting the autonomous running test to the test vehicle 300 when it is confirmed that the dummy 200 is located at the starting point from the detection signal output from the home return sensor 110 And starts the test according to the set scenario.
The control unit 120 receives the location information of the test vehicle 300 from the test vehicle 300 that has received the test start message in real time. The estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300 is calculated based on the set scenario and the received location information, and the movement of the dummy 200 is controlled according to the calculated arrival estimated time.
That is, the test point of the dummy 200 is set at the arrival point of the test vehicle 300 according to the set scenario, and the time required for the test vehicle 300 to reach the arrival point, And the movement of the dummy 200 is controlled.
At this time, the moving speed of the dummy 200 can be adjusted by the control unit 120. However, since the speed of the test vehicle 300 is variable depending on the situation, It is checked whether or not the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300 is changed. When the estimated arrival time is changed, the moving speed of the dummy 200 is adjusted so that the test according to the set scenario can be performed.
If the moving speed of the dummy 200 to be adjusted is out of the limit speed, a test termination message may be transmitted to the test vehicle 300, the dummy 200 may be returned to the origin, and the test may be performed again.
The control unit 120 precisely controls the movement of the dummy 200 according to a scenario set to test the autonomous braking in various driving situations, and examples of the settable scenarios include a dummy front stop, a dummy, a collision, Stroke, and moving to a dummy home before collision.
In addition, various scenarios may be set and tested by setting the arrival point of the test vehicle 300 and setting the test point of the dummy 200. [
FIGS. 2A through 5C illustrate an embodiment in which the autonomic braking test apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention tests autonomous braking according to various scenarios.
2A to 2C show a case in which a test is performed in accordance with a scenario of dummy forward stop. This is because when the test vehicle 300 arrives at a certain distance from the dummy 200 when the dummy 200 arrives at the test point .
The control unit 120 calculates the estimated arrival time using the distance between the test vehicle 300 and the dummy 200 when the test vehicle 300 starts. At this time, since the test vehicle 300 is tested before stopping in the dummy 200, the distance to the dummy 200 is subtracted by a predetermined distance and is calculated.
The control unit 120 starts the dummy 200 when the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300 is equal to or less than the preset arrival time of the dummy 200 and the test vehicle 300 arrives So that the dummy 200 can reach the test point when it reaches the point.
3A to 3C show a case where a test is performed according to a scenario of collision with a dummy and a case where the test vehicle 300 and the dummy 200 reach a test point of the dummy 200 at the same time .
The control unit 120 calculates the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300 based on the distance between the test vehicle 300 and the dummy 200 when calculating the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300, 300 and the time required for the dummy 200 to reach the test point are the same or within a predetermined range, the movement of the dummy 200 is controlled.
As shown in FIG. 3B, when the distance to the test point of the test vehicle 300 is expected to reach 40 m and 2.3 seconds later, the time required for the dummy 200 to reach the test point is estimated to be 2.25 seconds The test vehicle 300 controls the movement of the dummy 200 when the test vehicle 300 passes the 40m point so as to test the autonomous braking of the test vehicle 300 in a collision situation.
FIGS. 4A to 4C show the case where the test is performed according to the scenario of dummy passing, and the dummy 200 passes the test point when the test vehicle 300 reaches the test point.
That is, the control unit 120 is for testing how the autonomous braking of the test vehicle 300 operates when the dummy 200 is passed when the test vehicle 300 reaches the test point. The length of the dummy 200 is calculated by adding a certain distance (for example, the length of the vehicle width) to the distance to the test point, and the movement of the dummy 200 is controlled.
5A to 5C show a case where a test is performed according to a scenario of moving to a dummy groove before collision.
This is to test the autonomous braking of the test vehicle 300 when the dummy 200 reaches the test point or before it reaches the test point while the test vehicle 300 moves toward the test point and then returns to the origin. Thus, the dummy 200 is moving toward the origin when the test vehicle 300 passes the test point.
Therefore, according to the present invention, after the dummy 200 returns to the origin through the homing detection sensor 110, the test can be performed to perform a precise test, and the test can be performed according to various scenarios.
6 is a flowchart illustrating an autonomic braking test method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
The autonomic braking test apparatus 100 sets a scenario for testing the autonomous braking (S600). If the test scenario is set, the autonomic braking test apparatus 100 determines whether the dummy 200 is located at the origin (S610).
When it is confirmed that the dummy 200 is located at the origin, a test start message is transmitted to the test vehicle 300 (S620) and the test is started.
The autonomic braking tester 100 receives the position information of the test vehicle 300 from the test vehicle 300 in real time in step S630 and calculates the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300 based on the received position information (S640). When the test vehicle 300 arrives at the arrival point according to the set scenario, the estimated time of arrival of the dummy 200 is compared with the time required for the dummy 200 to travel. (S650).
At this time, even if the dummy 200 is moved, it continuously receives the location information from the test vehicle 300 and calculates the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle 300 (S660). If it is determined that the estimated arrival time is changed, the moving speed of the dummy 200 is adjusted accordingly (S670) so that the test according to the set scenario can be performed.
When the test vehicle 300 arrives at the arrival point and the dummy 200 arrives at the test point and the test is completed (S680), the test vehicle 300 is sent a test termination message, the dummy 200 returns to the origin, Be prepared to prepare for the test.
The foregoing description is merely illustrative of the technical idea of the present invention and various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments described in the present invention are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, but are intended to be illustrative, and the scope of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. It is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents, which fall within the scope of the present invention as claimed.
100: Autonomous brake test apparatus
110: Homing detection sensor 120:
200: Pile 300: Test vehicle
A homing detection sensor for confirming whether the dummy is located at the origin before the autonomous braking test is started and outputting a detection signal; And
If it is confirmed from the detection signal that the dummy is located at the origin, the test start message is transmitted to the test vehicle, the position information of the test vehicle is received in real time, the expected arrival time of the test vehicle is calculated according to the set scenario And a control unit for controlling the movement of the dummy so that the dummy is positioned at a test point at an estimated arrival time,
The control unit
The control unit checks whether the estimated arrival time is changed from the change of the position information of the test vehicle, adjusts the traveling speed of the dummy when it is confirmed that the calculated arrival estimated time is changed,
Transmitting a test termination message to the test vehicle and returning the dummy to the origin when the moving speed of the dummy required for changing the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle exceeds the limit speed of the dummy
Autonomous braking test apparatus.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control unit
If the set scenario is a dummy stop, the arrival point of the test vehicle is set to a point that is a predetermined distance from the movement path of the dummy, and the estimated arrival time to the set point is calculated
If the set scenario is a collision with the dummy, the arrival point of the test vehicle is set as a point on the movement path of the dummy and the estimated arrival time to the set point is calculated
If the set scenario is a dummy stroke, the arrival point of the test vehicle is set as a point on the movement path of the dummy, and the test point of the dummy is set as a point on the movement path of the dummy that has passed the arrival point of the test vehicle that
If it is confirmed that the test vehicle is located at the arrival point according to the set scenario, the test vehicle is returned to the origin
Transmitting a test start message to the test vehicle when it is confirmed that the dummy is located at the origin;
Receiving the position information of the test vehicle in real time;
The expected arrival time of the test vehicle is calculated according to the set scenario, and if the set scenario is ahead of the dummy, the arrival point is set as a preceding point by a predetermined distance in the travel path of the dummy, and the expected arrival time of the test vehicle is calculated step; And
Controlling the movement of the dummy so that the dummy is positioned at a test point according to the set scenario at an estimated arrival time of the test vehicle
Wherein the autonomous braking test method comprises the steps of:
9. The method of claim 8, wherein controlling the movement of the dummy
Checking whether the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle is changed according to the position information of the test vehicle received in real time, and adjusting the moving speed of the dummy according to the change of the estimated arrival time
Autonomous braking test method.
The method according to claim 8, wherein calculating the estimated arrival time of the test vehicle according to the set scenario
Setting the arrival point of the test vehicle as a point on the moving path of the dummy if the set scenario is a dummy track and setting the point as a point on the moving path of the dummy that has passed the arrival point of the test vehicle Include
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