Waymo, a subsidiary of the Alphabet holding company specializing in the development of autonomous driving technologies, published a pair of videos dedicated to the safety of self-driving cars as part of an advertising campaign.
They demonstrate how Waymo's autonomous driving system recognizes and responds to two of the most vulnerable "objects" on the road: schoolchildren and cyclists.
βSafe general use of the road is an important part of driving. β said Deborah Hersman, Waymo's chief safety officer, βAnd the Waymo driver tirelessly scans objects around the car, including pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, road workers, animals and obstacles, and then predicts their future movement based on this information such as speed, trajectory and traffic situation.β
Waymo's first video of a self-driving car crossing a crowded school crossing uses a split screen, with the right side showing the situation as seen by a human traffic controller and children in a crosswalk, and the left side showing how the automated driving system "sees" the situation. β people in the field of view (yellow objects), parked cars (magenta objects), and moving vehicles (green objects).
The second Waymo video demonstrates the virtual driver's ability to predict the behavior of a cyclist. In the video, the car's system predicts that the cyclist will move into the car's lane to avoid a parked trailer.
Source: 3dnews.ru