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A Cruise robotaxi didn’t brake shortly sufficient behind a metropolis bus in San Francisco. | Source: Cruise
Cruise issued a voluntary recall with the National Highway Transporation Safety Administration (NHTSA) in response to a minor collision the place a Cruise autonomous car (AV) hit the again of a San Francisco bus. The recall impacts 300 AVs.
The Cruise AV concerned within the crash didn’t brake shortly sufficient after the town bus in entrance of it slowed, in keeping with the corporate. While the car did brake, it utilized the brakes too late and rear-ended the bus at about 10 MPH, Cruise stated.
After the collision, Cruise started an investigation and located the reason for the crash was an error associated to predicting the motion of articulated autos, that are autos with two sections related by a versatile joint permitting them to bend within the center, just like the bus within the accident.
According to Cruise, the robotaxi noticed the entrance part of the bus and acknowledged that it was an articulated car that would bend, so it predicted the bus would transfer as related sections with the rear part following the anticipated path of the entrance part. As the bus pulled out, Cruise stated the AV reacted primarily based on the anticipated actions of the entrance finish of the bus, which it may now not see, fairly than the precise actions of the rear part of the bus, making it gradual to brake.
Once the corporate discovered the foundation reason behind the accident, it began engaged on a software program replace that it stated would enhance efficiency close to articulated autos. When the replace was accomplished, examined and validated, Cruise’s operations workforce rolled the change out to the fleet, simply two days after the incident occurred. Results from testing point out the particular subject that prompted the accident received’t recur after the replace.
“Our data and simulations showed that it was exceptionally rare. At the time of the incident, our AVs had driven over 1 million miles in fully driverless mode. We had no other collisions related to this issue, and extensive simulation showed that similar incidents were extremely unlikely to occur at all, even under very similar conditions,” Cruise founder and CEO Kyle Vogt wrote in a weblog. “The collision occurred resulting from a singular mixture of particular parameters comparable to the particular place of the autos when the AV approached the bus (with each sections of the bus seen initially, after which just one part), the AV’s pace, and the timing of the bus’s deceleration (inside only some seconds of the entrance part turning into occluded).
“We will undoubtedly continue to discover ways in which we can improve, even if that involves changing software that is currently deployed in the field,” he continued. “We think any potential improvement to roadway safety is worthwhile, and we will approach it with the same level of rigor as we’ve demonstrated here. These continuous improvements are likely to make voluntary recalls commonplace. We believe this is one of the great benefits of autonomous vehicles compared to human drivers; our entire fleet of AVs is able to rapidly improve, and we are able to carefully monitor that progress over time.”