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Waymo

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@diplomat33 , do you know what Waymo's policy is on school zones? Does Waymo travel through school zones, or does it navigation avoid them whenever possible? We're having a discussion on Telsa's handling of school zones, and I'm curious how Waymo handles them. Does it just travel at school zone speed (typically 25MPH), even when school is not in session? Do the sensors detect the presence of people and adjust speed if it detects them?
 
If Waymo can handle rural roads would the Waymo know not to cut in front of the Horses or Horse and Buggies? Would it know not to get too close the Horse while passing it. Will it be able to see a persons hand waving you by on a Horse or in a Buggy? Does the Waymo backup or pull over onto the grass when a vehicle is taking up the entire road coming the other way such as a large piece of Farm equipment?
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@diplomat33 , do you know what Waymo's policy is on school zones? Does Waymo travel through school zones, or does it navigation avoid them whenever possible? We're having a discussion on Telsa's handling of school zones, and I'm curious how Waymo handles them. Does it just travel at school zone speed (typically 25MPH), even when school is not in session? Do the sensors detect the presence of people and adjust speed if it detects them?

AFAIK, Waymo can detect school zones and adjust speed accordingly. School zones would likely be marked on the HD map. Additionally, Waymo can read "school zone" signs. And yes, the sensors can detect people and adjust speed accordingly. We've seen Waymo handle busy streets like after a football game or a parking lot full of pedestrians. So if the Waymo detects people around a school zone, it would slow down.

If Waymo can handle rural roads would the Waymo know not to cut in front of the Horses or Horse and Buggies? Would it know not to get too close the Horse while passing it. Will it be able to see a persons hand waving you by on a Horse or in a Buggy? Does the Waymo backup or pull over onto the grass when a vehicle is taking up the entire road coming the other way such as a large piece of Farm equipment?

Yes, Waymo would know how to safely handle all those cases.
 
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What does Waymo consider rural? Would they offer a service in a county with the population of less than 3,000 people?

Certainly not initially. This type of service would require extremely reliable vehicles as a sending a trained tech to fix a stuck or disabled vehicle would be a massive cost. That said, there's also a fairly lucrative market for transporting 12 year old farm kids to baseball practice, bringing drunk teens and adults home, and doing deliveries in these areas. My parents coordinated running errands around hockey practice because they couldn't get home and back during it; many days they would have happily paid $50 for a cab instead.

If Waymo can get cleaning and charging (plug it in then unplug ~6 hours later) done gig-economy style by a random local, then I can see a way of turning a profit on the vehicle capital/operating costs. The long distances from town make a fully automated transport more valuable than in a city.

If GM, Waymo, and a 3rd company are battling for market share then they'll even take a loss on this type of service just to say they go everywhere and their $500/month subscription can be an alternative to the $800/month lease for a private vehicle.
 
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Consider the following situation:
If I am in a Waymo car, following another Waymo car, and followed by another Waymo car, and a Waymo car on my left and a Waymo on my right, how reliable will their autonomous driving be?
 
Consider the following situation:
If I am in a Waymo car, following another Waymo car, and followed by another Waymo car, and a Waymo car on my left and a Waymo on my right, how reliable will their autonomous driving be?

From the perspective of a Waymo software engineer, that's a nearly ideal situation (better would be slightly staggered to allow for emergency manoeuvres). Waymo software should have high confidence in predictions over near-future behaviour of the other instances. If this becomes common, vehicles might even share some real-time sensor and routing information (treated as a hint or an intention rather than a guarantee) so all vehicles can make better decisions.
 
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It would be just fine. Why would that be an issue?
I was curious about interference of the radars and lidars.

"Lidar interference has been shown to happen if the lidars' optical axes intersect and if a hard or volumetrically scattering target is present where they intersect. If multiple self-driving vehicles are at a busy intersection, the lidars from each vehicle would have the potential to interfere with the others."
 
From the perspective of a Waymo software engineer, that's a nearly ideal situation (better would be slightly staggered to allow for emergency manoeuvres). Waymo software should have high confidence in predictions over near-future behaviour of the other instances. If this becomes common, vehicles might even share some real-time sensor and routing information (treated as a hint or an intention rather than a guarantee) so all vehicles can make better decisions.
What's you take on the radar and lidar interference?
 
I was curious about interference of the radars and lidars.

"Lidar interference has been shown to happen if the lidars' optical axes intersect and if a hard or volumetrically scattering target is present where they intersect. If multiple self-driving vehicles are at a busy intersection, the lidars from each vehicle would have the potential to interfere with the others."

I am not an expert, but I believe that in designing it in the right way, a swarm of LIDARs should not interfere with each other:


There have been concerns that 5G would crash airplanes. Sounds good in theory but not in practice.

Designing it the right way, 5G should not crash any airplanes.

It's the same with if I select channel 5 on my TV, in theory, other channels can interfere with my channel but not in practice.

Same with RADAR congestion: In theory, that would crash AVs but by designing them correctly, it's not the reality.

Same with e-mails. If there are too many e-mails overwhelming the system, in theory: People can get the wrong e-mails from the President, but not in practice.