Expert Analysis Car Accident Video: Defective Uber Autopilot System

According to foreign media reports, the court forensics analysts analyzed the video of the Uber accident and said that the human operators in the car should have reacted more quickly to the situation at the time, thus avoiding Elaine Herzberg. Death. Experts also said that although light was dim at 10 pm local time, when Hertzberg pushed a bicycle across the open road, the Uber’s self-driving car’s sensors should have been able to detect the pedestrian, but this was not the case.

The recently announced video of Uber crashes has raised questions about autopilot technology. Herzberg's death was the first major test for the emerging self-driving car industry. The industry claims that autopilot technology is safer than humans who are often distracted while driving. Morgan Stanley analysts said that in the United States, about 86 million miles away, about one person was killed in a traffic accident. However, the mileage of self-driving cars in the United States has not exceeded 15 to 20 million miles so far.

Zachary Moore, a senior forensic analyst at Wexco International, analyzed the car accident video and concluded that ordinary drivers driving on dry asphalt roads should have sensed the road conditions in front of them at the time. Reacted, braked in time, and finally stopped about 2.4 meters from Herzberg. Moore has more than a decade of experience in reproducing vehicle accidents and other accidents.

Other experts questioned the technology. Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said Uber’s “laser radar device should have detected her and classified her as non-stationary.”

Smith said that the video could not fully explain the accident, but "obviously shows that Uber's autopilot system is flawed, and Uber's operators (and the deceased) are not cautious."

Part of the video shows that when Hertzberg was visible from the lights of the car headlights, she was walking through the crosswalk at a normal walking speed and did not look up at the car that had come. The car also took about 4 seconds before the car stopped and its front and right bumpers hit the Hertzberg. The police have pointed out that the vehicle had not slowed down or turned to avoid hitting pedestrians. Herzberg later died in the hospital.

"Uber must explain what happened," said Mike Ramsey, Gartner's autopilot analyst. "There are only two possibilities: the sensor fails to detect her, or the decision software thinks that although it detects the front Subject (Hezesberg) but no parking required."

Uber's autopilot system includes radar, camera and laser radar devices designed to provide a 360-degree virtual view of the car's surroundings. Ramsay stated that the LiDAR system used in this vehicle has a detection range of at least 100 meters and is better than daylight in detection performance at night, so it was "confusing" that it did not react before the accident.