That motion prediction enables the planning software to know that the space in front of your vehicle will be unoccupied by the time you reach it.
I think we're all on the same page about this part but what's confusing and hilarious is why would the correct answer ever be to drive into an unmoving object?
If they tried to avoid the truck and swerved and hit a different vehicle there would be no confusion here. But the self driving algorithm is effectively committing suicide (Kamikaze). That's novel.
My guess is that the self-driving car was not able to recognize the truck until it was very close and the sudden appearance of the truck is interpreted by the algorithm as if the truck is moving very fast. And the best answer in that case would be to let the truck pass (basically do what the waymo did).
But that means the lidar information about the shape not moving is being deprioritized in favor of the recognized object being calculated to move fast. A situation which could only really occur if a speeding vehicle plowed through a stationary object.
Who said it was an unmoving object? Maybe I missed something in the story, but I got the sense that this happened in motion. The towed truck would have essentially been moving forward at an angle, hanging across the lane boundary.
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I think we're all on the same page about this part but what's confusing and hilarious is why would the correct answer ever be to drive into an unmoving object?
If they tried to avoid the truck and swerved and hit a different vehicle there would be no confusion here. But the self driving algorithm is effectively committing suicide (Kamikaze). That's novel.
My guess is that the self-driving car was not able to recognize the truck until it was very close and the sudden appearance of the truck is interpreted by the algorithm as if the truck is moving very fast. And the best answer in that case would be to let the truck pass (basically do what the waymo did).
But that means the lidar information about the shape not moving is being deprioritized in favor of the recognized object being calculated to move fast. A situation which could only really occur if a speeding vehicle plowed through a stationary object.
Fantastic solution for avoiding a situation like this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbjjlvOxDYk
But a bad solution for avoiding a stationary object.
Who said it was an unmoving object? Maybe I missed something in the story, but I got the sense that this happened in motion. The towed truck would have essentially been moving forward at an angle, hanging across the lane boundary.