Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans underwent the first emergency vehicle testing day with help by the Chandler, Arizona Fire & Police Department. Such testing is instrumental in making sure the vans function safely alongside emergency vehicles like firetrucks, police cars and ambulances.
Collecting sensor data, Waymo can ensure that these public service vehicles can be be identified and responded to appropriately by the self-driving cars. “The resulting data helps form a library from which Waymo can pull when training its vehicles on the proper behavior and set of responses to use when encountering ambulances and the like on real roads — obviously a key ingredient that needs to be addressed before public road tests can become commercial service deployments,” Tech Crunch provides.
New audio sensors were tested that can detect sirens up to twice as far away as before, and new vision, radar and LiDAR equipment proved to be able to see emergency vehicles from greater distances.
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