A new video showing what Tesla Autopilot sees when navigating a construction zone gives an impressive look at Tesla’s evolving computer vision system.
Earlier this week, we reported on Tesla updating its driving visualization to detect and render traffic cones.
Tesla has been working on integrating construction zone navigation in Autopilot for a long time.
Back in 2017, code found in the Autopilot software showed that Tesla’s neural net is able to recognize construction zones and that the automaker is using its fleet to recognize and categorize obstacles and corner cases for Autopilot to navigate.
The latest update is mainly to render the traffic cones in the driving visualization and Navigate on Autopilot to manage the construction zones.
Now we get to see how Autopilot works in those construction zones.
Over the last few years, we started getting a much better understanding of what Tesla’s Autopilot can see thanks to the work of Tesla hackers ‘verygreen’ and ‘DamianXVI’.
With access to Tesla’s Autopilot ECU, they have been creating rare looks at what Tesla Autopilot can see and interpret since last year.
Now verygreen, also known as ‘green the only’, released a new look at a Tesla vehicle on Autopilot going through a construction zone:
and finally a bit of construction zone (this is the only one of the set where AP is actually on), nothing groundbreaking since it was widely reported already long ago, but still interesting to see it “from the inside”: pic.twitter.com/TmGkqhGPQz
— green (@greentheonly) November 7, 2019
What’s interesting is that the Autopilot computer vision system adjusts the drivable area (in green) based on the traffic cones and not the lines on the road, like it usually does.
As of now, Tesla’s Autopilot system has been primarily designed for highway driving, but CEO Elon Musk has recently said that it plans to include city driving by the end of the year.
The automaker has been using its large fleet to gather data on more corner cases and driving situations more difficult to navigate than regular highway driving.
As usual, we like to remind that while these improvements to Autopilot are impressive, Tesla still requires drivers to stay attentve and be ready to take control at all times.
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