barjohn
Member
I would like to clear up a misperception on the doppler radar. Doppler radar will pick up stationary objects. Doppler just means that part of the signal processing is to measure the frequency shift of the return to determine the speed of the object and since you are in a moving vehicle to subtract out the shift caused by your speed. In the Navy we used doppler radar for navigation all of the time. Other ship traffic in narrow shipping lanes and ability to see stationary channel markings in low visibility settings. Apparently, in Tesla's AP and probably other AP systems, the software is designed to filter out stationary objects to avoid false braking because there are numerous stationary objects that will be detected but are not a threat. This aspect of the software needs to be refined and improved. A window could be created with a limited vertical height from the road and a limited horizontal width slightly wider than the vehicle and any stationary object within a specified distance that falls in that window coupled with the vehicles known trajectory should start to apply the brakes to slow the vehicle down. With automotive radars having ranges up to 250 meters there should be time to determine, first there is a threat of collision and subsequently, the threat is not going away but in fact increasing in probability. The vehicle could be also alerting the driver. Where a sudden fixed obstacle appears like the fire truck scenario, it would have to take more aggressive action. If continuous awareness of the surrounding were part of the equation it could use evasive maneuvers if the maneuver would be safe to execute. More info on automotive radar attached.