Skip to main content

Waymo is teaching its autonomous cars how to better react to emergency lights

waymo self driving cars emergency vehicles 0 mpqky5tjhb9 6ig0
Image used with permission by copyright holder
You know what to do when you hear the blaring sirens of an ambulance or the flashing lights of a police car. But does a self-driving car know the same? Here to ensure that the answer is a resounding “yes” is Waymo, which has begun improving the way its autonomous vehicles detect emergency vehicles.

While the ability to discern an approaching emergency vehicle isn’t brand new technology for Waymo (per a recently published blog post, they have actually be working on that for years), in the last month, the Alphabet-owned company noted that it has been doubling down on its efforts lately. Thanks to a collaboration with the Chandler Police and Fire Department in Arizona, Waymo recently executed its first emergency vehicle testing day with the company’s new self-driving minivans.

Recommended Videos

“Throughout the day and into the night, our vehicles — equipped with a powerful suite of sensors — observed police cars, motorcycles, ambulances, firetrucks, and even a few undercover vehicles as they trailed, passed and led our self-driving cars,” the company wrote in a blog post. “As these emergency vehicles drove around, our sensors collected samples at various speeds, distances, and angles — all with the goal of building up a library of sights and sounds to help teach our self-driving cars to respond safely to emergency vehicles on the road.”

Per the latest tests, these autonomous vans are able to “hear” twice as far as was previously possible thanks to the cars’ new suite of sensors. Moreover, these sensors have made it possible to determine where the siren’s sounds are coming from, allowing the self-driving cars to make better decisions when it comes to their reactions. For example, one of these Waymo vehicles could pull over if it senses an emergency vehicle approaching from behind, or yield if it realizes that an emergency vehicle is coming from ahead.

So what exactly are these new sensors? All the technology is said to have been developed in-house, including custom audio detection and vision systems, as well as radars and LIDARS (Light Detection and Ranging). “These advanced sensors allow us to both reliably detect emergency vehicles in real time, and collect better information to train our software,” Waymo concluded. “That way, when we’re on the road, we can recognize an emergency vehicle even if we’ve never encountered it before (or if it appears differently because of the angle or lighting conditions).”

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
An autonomous car in San Francisco got stuck in wet concrete
A Cruise autonomous car.

A self-driving car operated by General Motors-backed Cruise got stuck on Tuesday when it drove into a patch of wet concrete.

The incident happened in San Francisco and occurred just days after California's Public Utilities Commission made a landmark decision when it voted to allow autonomous-car companies Cruise and Waymo to expand their paid ridesharing services in the city to all hours of the day instead of just quieter periods.

Read more
Waymo taps the brakes on its autonomous-trucking project
A Waymo autonomous trick undergoing testing on a highway.

Six years after launching its autonomous-truck program, Waymo has said it’s decided to focus more on developing its ridesharing ambitions using its self-driving cars and minivans.

The California-based, Alphabet-owned company said its decision to effectively put autonomous trucking on the back burner is down to the “tremendous momentum and substantial commercial opportunity” that it’s seeing with the pilot ridesharing service it launched in Arizona in 2018 before taking it to several other states. Customers involved in the program can use an app to call a Waymo driverless car in the same way they would book an Uber.

Read more
Volkswagen is launching its own self-driving car testing program in the U.S.
Volkswagen self-driving ID. Buzz in Austin

Volkswagen is taking autonomous driving a little more seriously. While the likes of Tesla and Waymo have largely led the development of next-gen driving tech, the legacy automakers are certainly starting to invest more heavily. To that end, Volkswagen has announced its first autonomous driving program in the U.S.

As part of the program, Volkswagen has outfitted 10 all-electric ID. Buzz vans with autonomous driving tech, in partnership with autonomous car tech company MobileEye. Over the next few years, Volkswagen says it'll grow this fleet of autonomous cars to cover at least four additional cities, with the current fleet operating in Austin, Texas. By 2026, Volkswagen hopes to commercially launch autonomous cars in Austin.

Read more