Vidéo Une voiture autonome Waymo s'est coincée plusieurs fois, a bloqué la circulation par intermittence et est partie de manière inattendue lorsque l'assistance est arrivée. Le véhicule autonome capricieux a finalement été réquisitionné par un chauffeur d'assistance.
Joel Johnson a enregistré plusieurs dizaines de vidéos documentant ses trajets dans le robot Waymo qu'il publie sur son site Web et sa chaîne YouTube.
Vidéo 54 détaille comment un trajet la semaine dernière à Chandler, en Arizona, a mal tourné lorsque sa voiture Waymo a hésité à tourner à droite de West Linda Lane sur North Dobson Road, une route à quatre voies où la voie de droite des deux voies en direction sud avait été bloquée par la circulation cônes.
"Oh, so, how are we going to turn right when the right lane is closed off?" Johnson can be entendu se narrant 12 minutes et 25 secondes dans la vidéo de 35 minutes ci-dessous, alors que les conducteurs bloqués émettent un bip.
Moments later, Waymo rider support calls. "It looks like your car has paused," the Waymo customer service rep informs Johnson. "We are going to be sending our Waymo Road Assistance."
Sangle serrée
Johnson is advised to remain seated with his seat belt fastened in case the car starts moving again, which it does: about four minutes later, the car decides to turn into the unblocked lefthand southbound land, only to swerve back into the right hand lane between two traffic cones after passing the "Keep Left" sign that directs drivers not to be in that lane.
"Oh, I don't think it was supposed to do that," Johnson said to the Waymo operator, still on the line. "...Oh now, it's blocking the entire road."
Quelques minutes plus tard, la voiture recule dans la voie de gauche ouverte.
"Okay, so we 're backing out," said Johnson. "Very interesting."
"So it backed out…," the operator said.
"And then now it's blocking the whole lane instead of half of it," Johnson replied.
Environ dix minutes après le début du désordre, au milieu de la confusion quant à l'heure d'arrivée prévue réelle de l'assistance routière promise (la reprise du mouvement a annulé l'appel d'assistance routière initial), un camion de construction s'est approché lentement dans la voie de droite bloquée, se dirigeant vers le nord à contre-courant pour récupérer le cônes de signalisation.
After passing the stalled robotaxi, the construction vehicle halts and the driver gets out to help redirect traffic. When the driver approaches, Johnson informs him that he can't move the Waymo and that Roadside Assistance is coming.
Quelques instants plus tard, la voiture commence à revenir sur la voie de gauche ouverte, s'arrête soudainement lorsqu'elle est dépassée par une autre voiture et reprend sa route avant que l'assistance routière ne puisse intervenir.
'Hurry up, it's gonna escape!'
Après avoir conduit en direction sud pendant environ une minute, l'intrépide Waymo s'arrête sur la voie de gauche de North Dobson Road après avoir rencontré plus de cônes de circulation.
Addressing the support operator, Johnson said of the planned route displayed on-screen in the car, "I don't know if you can see the planner, but it wants to go halfway between lanes, like right over the cones."
Finalement, l'assistance routière s'arrête derrière le Waymo arrêté. La voiture alors décide de partir before Waymo's driver can take manual control, only to again get stuck amid the cones.
"You better hurry up, it's gonna escape," Johnson remarked.
"The car took off again?" the operator said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes," said Johnson as the car's steering wheel turns on its own. "Uh well, a little bit, and then it ... this is, um. Now it's ... I don't even know what's going on anymore."
Finally, the Roadside Assistance driver gets into the car and takes over to complete the ride. Here's the full video:
Dans une déclaration envoyée par e-mail à Le registre, Waymo a raconté l'aventure :
Easy Rider
Johnson, lors d'un entretien téléphonique avec Le registre, a pris l'incident avec enthousiasme, ayant documenté multiple rides where it's been necessary to disengage the Waymo driver software.
He said when he saw the traffic cones, "I figured it would get stuck." And he insisted he's mostly fine with it. He said he didn't feel unsafe and trusted Waymo's technology. However, he did acknowledge however that some rough spots remain.
"Waymo seems to have a bit of issues with the weather whenever it rains here in Chandler," he said.
Asked whether he believes Waymo's robotaxis should be operating on the road, he said, "I think it's ready for this area and that's why they launched here." The roads in Chandler, he said, are wide open, in a grid format, and allow for a lot of possible detours.
"In this situation, there was some internal miscommunication," he said, adding that he hopes the Alphabet-owned Google stablemate will improve its internal processes. "Overall, the Waymo Roadside Assistance and rider support is helpful."
Il reg a précédemment rapporté that Google's self-driving cars struggled with stop lights, sunsets, junctions, and the Arizona heat.
In a YouTube video commenting on Johnson's adventure, Mahmood Hikmet, head of research and development at self-driving bus biz Ohmio, remarqué, "If the passenger inside the vehicle is put into a situation where they have to wave and signal to the vehicle behind them in order to go around them, that's not exactly ideal from a robotaxi perspective."
"If Waymo just allowed Joel to drive this vehicle to safety, a lot of this could have been avoided," Hikmet ajoutée. ®
Source : https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/05/17/waymo_robotaxi_malfunction/
