Tesla co-chief executive Elon Musk says that a future, planned update to the semi-autonomous Autopilot system would have prevented a fatal crash this year.
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Following that crash, Tesla said parts of the car’s automated driving system were not complete and the vehicle wasn’t meant to be driven hands-free.
The company is making the change after Joshua Brown was killed when the Autopilot in his Tesla Model S failed to recognize a truck in his path and initiate braking. On Monday, the analysts gave positive reviews on the upgrade of the Autopilot system.
Musk said on Sunday that is “very likely” the improved Autopilot would have prevented the death of Brown, whose auto sped into the trailer of a truck crossing a highway.
While Musk touted the “very likely” scenario that the updated Autopilot could have stopped Brown’s death, he also made it clear that safety isn’t guaranteed. “There won’t ever be zero fatalities”.
Tesla vehicles now have cameras to confirm visual image recognition.
The radar-based system will not only be better at recognizing hazards, but will also be able to send its beam through rain, snow and dust and able to bounce its beam under the vehicle in front of it, Musk said.
However, Tesla has resolved the issue with its upcoming software v8.0 up, which will be rolled out globally later this month. To address this, Tesla Motors will implement a more detailed point cloud, use that point cloud to determine if an object is moving and therefore a threat to collision, and utilize fleet learning to determine objects that are safe to drive through such as bridges and road signs. Prior to this the radar could not initiate breaking unless the camera had recognized an object first, something that was problematic due to the camera not recognizing certain objects, such as happened in the crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the incident.
One of the main challenges of using cameras and radars for a braking system is how to prevent so-called false positives, in which a auto might think an overhead highway sign, for example, is an obstacle to be avoided.
Tesla has announced a number of big improvements to its autopilot software.
The advanced signal processing will allow the existing radar access to six times as many radar objects, along with more information per object.
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Tesla is looking to enhance the capabilities of the existing radar in its vehicles to boost the safety of it’s Autopilot feature.
