Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
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Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#2Waymo’s tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#3Waymo’s tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?
Roads in Chandler are very regular (nice, wide grid), and the weather is clear and sunny the vast majority of the days. The particular geography helps isolate the number of factors the car needs to consider besides "just" driving.
From a NYT article[0],
>"The company did not say whether it was testing the driverless cars in environments considered challenging for autonomous vehicles, like bridges or tunnels, or more difficult conditions, like driving at night or in rain and snow — usually not a big concern in the dry Phoenix climate."
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/technology/waymo-autonomo...
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#4Waymo’s tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?
Probably a solved problem in the eyes of Google..
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#5Is there a website/document that compare the status of all existing self-driving cars initiatives?
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#6Waymo’s tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?
There's little external information about how map dependent their implementation is.
They certainly have meticulous maps available in areas they operate, but it is easy to imagine other reasons for that. Like they could be using the map to separately process their sensor data, producing a reliable diff and evaluating the sensor only scene based on that.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#7Waymo’s tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?
This article from Dec 2016 seems to suggest that's still the case [0]. However, it also looks like those maps can be built by the cars themselves, which should simplify expansion.
[0]: https://medium.com/waymo/building-maps-for-a-self-driving-ca...
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#8I'd like to see successful rain/night/snow/road construction/fog condition tests before I get in one
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#9Is there a website/document that compare the status of all existing self-driving cars initiatives?
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Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#10Waymo’s tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?
Roads in Chandler are very regular (nice, wide grid), and the weather is clear and sunny the vast majority of the days. The particular geography helps isolate the number of factors the car needs to consider besides "just" driving. From a NYT article[0], >"The company did not say whether it was testing the driverless cars in environments considered challenging for autonomous vehicles, like bridges or tunnels, or more…
So crazy to see this video shot in the neighborhood I lived in the summers as a kid. Chandler's got a lot of good things going for it as eggpy mentioned -- well marked roads, wide, very little rain. On the downside, the entire Phoenix area has some terrible drivers, which I suppose is good training for the Waymo cars. It will be interesting to see if they park the cars during monsoon season; conditions can get pretty treacherous on the first rainy days of the season -- roads get very slick, drainage isn't always the best so you can end up with large puddles of water on the road that cause hydroplaning, etc.