It has been mentioned before on this blog how adverse weather conditions can affect the sensors associated with autonomous vehicles. The AI algorithm which processes sensory data cannot function well (or if at all) to deliver an autonomous vehicle experience if that data has been corrupted.
Now we have a bug in the machine! Older readers may remember some of the earliest thermionic valve computers. Valves required not only a heater current to facilitate the electron flow from their cathodes but high voltages too so that electrons could launch themselves towards the anode, dodging between control grids on their way there. It is believed that the term ‘bug’ as used in computing circles was coined in those halcyon days by an insect shorting out one of the high voltage sources and scuppering the program.
The modern day bug associated with autonomous vehicles is of the insect variety too! The type that splat themselves on your windscreen. Imagine a forward looking camera covered with insect splatter, it won’t deliver the images the program is looking for.
Ford has come up with a fix, they call it Tiara. A ‘crown’ of sensors are mounted on top of the vehicle and clever slipstreams help divert potential bugs around the vital parts.
Call me a doom-monger if you like but where does snow fall from? Yes, and it settles on the roof, bonnet (hood) and boot (trunk). So, just where the bug free sensors sit.
OK, maybe the roof could be heated to melt the snow but together with the chilling slipstream, would cause the melt water to freeze, plus of course there’s all that snow blowing off the bonnet (hood) back on to the roof. So, a Tiara bejewelled by icicles, it might look nice but would it deliver the goods?
For those autonomous vehicles driving in desert regions some thought may have to be given to the abrasive effect of sand. It is already known in desert regions that ANPR cameras have no option but to capture rear facing licence plates because of the degradation front facing plates suffer from sandy particle collision. How long would a sandblasted Tiara last?
Without doubt, where the virtual world meets the real world, there will be problems ahead.