Seem to creating your own autopilot “Yandex” is in full swing. Recently, experts, creating self-driving technology for the Russian search giant, has tested taxi with the autopilot on a snowy road in a Blizzard on one of the routes of the Moscow region.
This testing phase is very important for unmanned vehicles that will travel on Russian roads. In the winter often is not visible marking, which is one of the main references for the autopilot. In addition, it was important to find out how the car behaves on a slippery road. Falling snow is also complicated task, as it significantly impairs visibility, causing problems with the recognition of road signs.
Two-car Toyota Prius body kit sensors connected to the system, modified the system of control car, but tests are still at a very early stage. Experts have yet to study the behavior of drones in the snow and ice, to identify features and problems, and then all again to finalize.
“Snow falls in winter, and the roads are covered with ice, which creates difficulties not only for drivers but also for unmanned vehicles. For example, cameras on the car the picture is white, making it difficult to determine the road and can be difficult or impossible to count the snow-covered road markings. Additional difficulties arise when reading road signs, for example, in snow conditions. In addition, ice-covered or snow-covered road, the car behaves differently, which also requires a separate set algorithms that specify its movement. To unmanned vehicle has become a mass product, with all these challenges you need to be able to handle it and we started working on this,” — says the press service of “Yandex”.
Journalists to self-directed cars are not yet allowed, and employees of the company who were lucky enough to test the technology, are silent, so the details about the hardware and the features of autopilot no one knows, even Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, which is the unmanned taxi showed earlier.
Self-driving car “Yandex” was first tested in the snow of Moscow region
Vyacheslav Larionov