April 24, 2018
Rajkumar quoted on Uber collision
Bloomberg Technology quoted Raj Rajkumar on sensor and software limitations in the Uber collision in Tempe, Arizona. Self-driving cars rely on sensors and software to detect and interpret surroundings to determine movement. The incident in Tempe, Rajkumar posits, came down to a classification rather than sensor error. The car in the collision used lidar, which functions well in either bright or dark lighting. The car’s sensors likely detected “an interesting combination of bicycle, bags, and a pedestrian standing stationary on the median.” That the software could not identify the pedestrian raises issues of object detection and safety. Read the article here.