Several updates to Tesla's Autopilot system were revealed Sunday in a company blog post that at times sounded somewhat otherworldly, as it referred to UFOs landing in zero visibility.
DETROIT - Several updates to Tesla's Autopilot system were revealed Sunday in a company blog post that at times sounded somewhat otherworldly, as it referred to UFOs landing in zero visibility.
In a post presumed to have been penned by Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk, who promised such an update a week and a half ago, the "Tesla Team" said the most significant update to its Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system is using radar as a primary control sensor, rather than a supplementary one.
The update comes amid heightened scrutiny following a fatal accident in May and subsequent federal probes in the U.S.
Tesla said that in the past the Autopilot's radar would simply aid the camera and sensor system, but it will now instead play a starring role alongside those pieces of hardware, as the semi-autonomous Autopilot system continues to learn a 3D map of the world around Tesla's vehicles.
At the heart of this decision by Tesla is that radar signals can travel through poor visibility. However, the world also looks extremely bizarre in radar, with metal objects appearing as mirrors, people looking partially translucent and anything concave - such as the bottom of a pop can - reflecting the object to seem much larger and more ominous.
So if the Autopilot system were to depend too much on raw radar feedback, the Tesla vehicle could slam on the brakes at the sight of a discarded Coke can in the road.
The Autopilot 8.0 software update pieces more information with each object the radar system comes across. Tesla said the Autopilot system assembles those radar snapshots, taken every tenth of a second, into 3D picture of the world surrounding the car.
It then couples the radar and camera feedback together, and uses a "fleet learning" process that will lead to a system in which "the car should almost always hit the brakes correctly even if a UFO were to land on the freeway in zero visibility conditions."
"Taking this one step further, a Tesla will also be able to bounce the radar signal under a vehicle in front - using the radar pulse signature and photon time of flight to distinguish the signal - and still brake even when trailing a car that is opaque to both vision and radar," the company said in its blog post. "The car in front might hit the UFO in dense fog, but the Tesla will not."
According to Reuters, Musk said Sunday that the new technology would have likely prevented a high-profile, fatal crash involving Autopilot last May.
Josh Brown, of Ohio, had the Autopilot system engaged in his Tesla Model S when a tractor-trailer made a left turn ahead of him at an intersection of a divided highway with no traffic light, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Brown's car collided with the truck and then veered off the highway. Brown died at the scene.
Telsa said in a statement that in bright sunlight, neither the autopilot sensor, nor the driver noticed the white side of the trailer, which was perpendicular to the Model S, and neither applied the brakes.
The May 7 crash prompted separate probes from the NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Meanwhile, in July, Consumer Reports called Tesla's Autopilot system "too much autonomy too soon."
The publication said Tesla's Autopilot function should be disabled until it can be reprogrammed to require drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel.
Both Tesla and Musk have defended the system as an advanced safety featue, and noted that its Autopilot system had been driven 130 million miles without a fatality.
Tesla rolled out its Autopilot software in October, saying that it "relieves drivers of the most tedious and potentially dangerous aspects of road travel." However, the company has also warned that the system is still in beta-testing, and that drivers should keep their hands on the wheel.
On Sunday, the company also said in additional, bullet-point notes that updates to Autopilot will be more strict with people who leave their hands off the wheel while the vehicle is in Autopilot mode.
For example, the Tesla car will not allow re-engagement of Autosteer until parked if users ignore repeated warnings to keep their hands on the wheel.
Reuters also reported, based on a call with Musk, that the update system will sound warnings for more than a minute at speeds of more than 45 miles per hour if there is no car ahead, and will sound for 3 minutes if there is another vehicle in front of the Tesla. All the while, a pulsing light will flash from the dashboard.
Autopilot 8.0 will be likely be available within a couple of weeks via a remote update.