I remain interested in why the lidar didn't work in this case and I hope more details emerge so we can learn what happened.
But it seems logical that Uber would disable the onboard built-in volvo crash detection feature, it would be adding another variable for a car that is intended to test one thing at a time. Its hard to see this solely as the "uber is being reckless" narrative instead of "maybe this is just how all self-driving cars are tested".
If the Volvo crash avoidance system actually took action then things have obviously already gone very very wrong and it's not like braking when that happens would ever be a bad thing. That's like saying we should remove safety nets from underneath tightropes lest it get in the gymnast's way.
Why do you think the LIDAR did not work? The LIDAR might have worked just fine but what the system taking the output of the sensor did with the data is the question.
If you want to know what we would expect the LIDAR to have seen in such a situation we did a simple simulation of such a scene here [1]
If the LIDAR was defective the system processing the sensor output should detect that there is no data coming in and the problem should change the cars behavior accordingly not just drive on as if nothing is wrong.
> Why do you think the LIDAR did not work? The LIDAR might have worked just fine but what the system taking the output of the sensor did with the data is the question.
But it seems logical that Uber would disable the onboard built-in volvo crash detection feature, it would be adding another variable for a car that is intended to test one thing at a time. Its hard to see this solely as the "uber is being reckless" narrative instead of "maybe this is just how all self-driving cars are tested".
I am happy to be proven wrong certainly