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Despite the reassurances of designers and researchers that autonomous vehicles will be, in fact, very safe, many consumers are still leery. While the data suggests that automated drivers will make safer choices and be immune to distractions, that hasn’t exactly translated into more trust.
For example, last year an organization called Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE) conducted a survey to assess people’s comfort level with driverless tech and, despite its evolutions year over year, nearly half of Americans surveyed said they would never get into an autonomous vehicles, and 20% said they will never be safe.
That type of distrust makes each and every safety development all the more important, which is why a new advancement related to autonomous vehicle vision systems is getting some attention.
According to researchers at the University of Buffalo, autonomous vehicles using Lidar can have a problem reading typical road signs. According to a report in New Atlas, the technology that exists today can recognize colors and shapes but can run into problems when bad lighting, poor weather conditions or even stickers on the signs obscure its abilities.
In a new study, scientists tested a new type of film that applies a retroreflective material that bounces back into rainbow patterns. It’s called microscale concave interface — or, MCI — and New Atlas says, “The idea is that by covering traffic signs in MCI materials, the patterns produced could be cross-referenced between multiple sensors in a vehicle, to confirm what kind of sign it is.”
The scientists add that this has applications outside of fully autonomous vehicles, noting that even driver assistance systems need to be able to recognize traffic signs and that this film can create a smart sign that everyone can benefit from — whether you ever set foot in that full autonomous vehicle or not.
Image Credit: Jacob Rada