The new Audi A8 comes with one of the most advanced semi-autonomous driving systems on the market but it's still a ways off from true Level 5 automation.
Google's Waymo division has been working on this task for years and recently announced it has developed an improved way to detect emergency vehicles such as police cars and fire trucks.
While it's pretty easy for humans to spot flashing lights and hear blaring sirens, getting a car to do the same thing is a bit more complicated.
As part of a joint effort with the Chandler, Arizona police and fire departments, the company held its first emergency vehicle testing day with its Chrysler Pacifica minivans. Over the course of the day, the minivans observed various emergency vehicles - including police cars, police motorcycles, ambulances, and fire trucks - in different conditions.
The emergency vehicles trailed, passed, and drove in front of the minivans while their sensors collected an assortment of data. According to Waymo, the goal was to build a "library of sights and sounds to help teach our self-driving cars to respond safely to emergency vehicles on the road."
Thanks to this and several other improvements, the company's autonomous minivans are capable of hearing twice as far as they could with their previous-generation sensors. Things are expected to improve in the future as engineers are developing new software that will be able to determine which direction the sirens are coming from. This is important as drivers typically hear sirens before actually seeing the emergency vehicle itself.
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