A trip through the city through the eyes of autopilot

The company Waymo (Google) has published a panoramic 360 ° video and a story about how the filming of an unmanned vehicle ride through the city streets took place . According to the creators, thanks to the special effects and computer graphics, viewers can take a look at the world around them with the “eyes” of a robotic car.

In the panoramic video, you can rotate the virtual camera in any direction, inspect the street from the side and behind you. When viewed on a smartphone or in virtual reality Cardboard - turning in different directions, rotating around its axis and looking around. When viewed from a desktop computer and laptop, the field of view is dragged with the mouse.


All objects in the autopilot's field of view are recognized by size and type of objects. Their predicted trajectories, speed and current distance to the object are marked. Trajectory forecast for pedestrians, cyclists and cars counts firmware. For such visualization a tool called x-view has been developed.

The developers believe that the panoramic video with technical data about the surrounding objects allows us to estimate how much information the autopilot has to process in real time - and compare it with how the surrounding world is perceived by driver people.

The video is made up of material obtained during the trip of the unmanned car Chrysler Pacifica in Phoenix (Arizona).


Laser visualization

Laser visualization on video is simplified data from the lidar and sensors. The animation shows how sensors pick up the signal reflected from surrounding objects in order to assess their location and speed.

Traffic lights are an example of an object that is recognized after high-resolution video cameras are taken in the visible range.

The following illustrations show how the picture from the x-view program (on the left) is superimposed on the panoramic video (on the right).



In the video there is a fragment of shooting from the rear passenger seat, so that the viewer can imagine what it is like to be a passenger of an unmanned vehicle, for example, a passenger of an unmanned taxi. In the future, these will certainly appear in all major cities. You can safely go about your business in the back seat, glancing at the monitor mounted in the front seat backrest, watching the movement on the map and occasionally giving the computer the necessary commands from this screen.

Waymo has been developing technology for unmanned vehicles since 2009, when it was still part of Google. They were the first in the world to launch a group of unmanned vehicles onto public roads, and now they own the largest fleet of such vehicles. Over the past years, these cars have traveled without human participation for more than 7.5 million kilometers. And if the robokars took five years for the first million miles, they overcame the last million in just three months (and this is in addition to 4.3 billion "virtual" kilometers in the Carcraft simulator last year)

As one of the leaders in this field, Waymo feels the need to popularize technology in society. It is clear that people are afraid of new technologies, and cars without a driver behind the wheel at first will look unusual.

Changing public opinion is necessary. A public opinion poll in the United States ( a Gallup poll last week ) showed that 54% "are unlikely" to want to use unmanned vehicles, and 59% "will feel uncomfortable" in such a machine.

To dispel common fears, myths, and delusions, Waymo recently launched the world's first unmanned vehicle training program Let's Talk Self-Driving . In October 2017, the company released the first of its kind Security Report .

In the same Phoenix, any local resident can ride a car like a passenger to get rid of fears. The initiative was supported by some other public organizations, including the non-profit organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Security Council, and others. This is quite logical, since there will be no drunk drivers or recklessness on the roads with robocars.