Tesla explained that “the net effect of this, combined with the fact that radar sees through most visual obscuration, is that the auto should nearly always hit the brakes correctly even if a UFO were to land on the freeway in zero visibility conditions”. Tesla auto owners for models delivered after October 2014 can download the updates within two weeks.
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Tesla has announced a number of big improvements to its autopilot software.
The effect of the update as Tesla CEO Elon Musk puts it, “the vehicle should nearly always hit the brakes correctly even if a UFO were to land on the freeway in zero visibility conditions”.
Tesla Motors unveiled updates to its Autopilot feature after the semi-autonomous technology was involved in a fatal crash earlier this year. The hardware required is already in place; the Model S and Model X with Autopilot with a manufacture date of October 2014 or later already have the requisite sensors, which, until now, played a supporting role in the Autopilot package. The vehicle crashed into the trailer, subsequently taking the life of the 40-year old driver, who was identified as Joshua Brown.
Fleet learning also will help improve the technology as more vehicles upload travel information to a database, Tesla said.
In addition to these critical changes, Tesla says there are over 200 other, smaller ones as part of the Version 8.0 update.
“The most significant upgrade to Autopilot will be the use of more advanced signal processing to create a picture of the world using the onboard radar”, explains Elon Musk in a blog post.
The new system which was developed over the past four months should now be able to detect anything that is metallic, large, and dense; the vehicle should be able to activate its brake. The object detection abilities will be “superhuman”, Musk said.
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“There won’t ever be zero fatalities, there won’t ever be zero injuries”, he said. Autopilot is meant to allow drivers to remove their hands from the wheel for up to three minutes, depending on the driving scenario. The company backed up its Autopilot system following Brown’s death.
