Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by hubie on Saturday November 19 2022, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-don't-need-a-weatherman-to-know-which-way-the-wind-blows dept.

https://www.howtogeek.com/848711/waymos-self-driving-taxis-are-becoming-meteorologists/

The Alphabet company announced that the latest version of the sensor array on its autonomous vehicles — using a combination of cameras, radar, and lidar — is able to measure weather conditions the car may face, specifically the intensity of rain drops (or lack thereof), as well as fog. It would turn the vehicles into, as the company puts it, "mobile weather stations."

This doesn't mean you'll be seeing a Waymo car giving out the weather on your local TV station anytime soon, but it will help the robotaxis make real-time decisions in adapting to the weather conditions on the ground. It's being tested to begin with in Phoenix and San Francisco, two very different climates.

But since the sensors ostensibly turn the vehicles into amateur meteorologists, Waymo is also able to use the data to create real-time weather maps on conditions like the progression of coastal fogs, as well as light drizzles that a radar might miss.


Original Submission

This discussion was created by hubie (1068) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @10:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @10:28PM (#1280554)

    What do you think is the likelihood that they would make this data (position, time, and sensor data) available? It would be pretty neat to play with it.

(1)