AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) Have you seen a robotaxi stop, but the road ahead is clear of obstacles? Over the last week, so did affiliate KXAN employees.
Between May 31 and June 3, multiple self-driving cars stopped on W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd in front of the KXAN station. The vehicles paused before a low-hanging tree branch.
But after several seconds, the car would enter the oncoming lane and pass the empty space. Human-driven cars navigated the branch without delay after the driverless cars moved.
When a situation like this happens, the vehicle is likely functioning as it should.
The cars, operated by robotaxi company Waymo, use a combination of cameras, radar and lidar to detect objects in front of and around them. A Waymo spokesperson told KXAN that the branch may have been low enough to enter the top part of the cars’ sensor map.
The spokesperson explained that the company approaches these incidents with ample caution. The car notifies a Waymo employee, who will remotely examine and intervene to get the vehicle safely moving again.
And the tree? City of Austin workers stopped by and trimmed the branch Tuesday afternoon.
