As a human, we can hear the siren of an emergency vehicle approaching and take action (pull over, do not proceed into intersection etc) well before the emergency vehicle gets to us. How do autonomous vehicles such as those from Waymo/Cruise do this? Do they only take action when they “see” the blinking lights? Could a tow truck or other maintenance vehicle with orange blinking lights fool a autonomous vehicle into thinking it was an emergency vehicle?
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I don’t think they can do that for now and while it seems like a simple thing when performed by a human, if you give it some thought it actually becomes quite complicated:
1. You hear a siren – Ok! Is the emergency vehicle coming from behind so I should move to the right? Is it on the other side of the road moving in the opposite direction in which case I do nothing? Is it aproaching the same intersection as me or is it on a different trajectory that won’t intersect with mine? Even if you couple it with specific light detection it still is pretty complicated.
2. Emergency vehicles use only lights in some cases (certain zones, at night, etc)
3. Detecting lights only would also be problematic. What would the vehicle do when it encounters an accident scene where the police has already arrived and left the blue lights on to warn other drivers about the incident/obstacle/etc.
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