If you are aware of the great technological challenges that self-driving cars pose to their makers then you can truly appreciate the work that companies which are developing self-driving cars are doing. There are literally countless parameters that an autonomous system has to take into account to ensure that the passengers and everybody else on the road remain safe. Google has taken the opportunity that Halloween offers to reveal that its self-driving cars are more careful around children.
In an update shared on Google+ the company revealed that this week, in the spirit of Halloween, many children were running around Google in their costumes with their families so the company asked some of them to hang out near its parked cars.
“This gives our sensors and software extra practice at recognizing children in all their unique shapes and sizes, even when they’re in odd costumes,” the project team writes in the post.
The team further reveals that they teach their cars to drive more cautiously around children, when the sensors detect children regardless of whether or not they’re wearing a costume for Halloween the software is capable of understanding that they might behave differently than adults.
Anyone who has been around children knows that the movements of the little ones can be quite unpredictable, they may suddenly run down a sidewalk or dart across the road and might be easily picked up since they can remain hidden behind parked cars.
“So even if our cars can’t quite appreciate the effort the kids put in dressing as their favorite character from Frozen, they’re still paying full attention!” the team reassures parents who might be worried about how safe roads will be for children when self-driving cars have taken over our roads.
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