Google's Self-Driving Cars: Test Drivers Take Over Following Disengagement

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During the California road tests, Google's self-driving cars had to be taken over by test drivers that were present in the vehicle due to "disengagement."

Disengagement is a term used in events where the test drivers that are inside the self-driving cars had to take control of it from the computer. In the report published by Google, 341 disengagements were reported from Californian road tests that happened between September 2014 and November 2015.

It is mandatory for Google to submit these figures to California's Department of Motor Vehicles. Each recorded disengagement earns a review from the software team. Test drivers will also be asked to give feedback every time they take over the vehicle to ensure they explore numerous safety issues and how they may improve it as well.

The company added that disengagements are "critical" during their testing phases.

"Our objective is not to minimize disengagements; rather, it is to gather, while operating safely, as much data as possible to enable us to improve our self-driving system," they wrote. "Therefore, we set disengagement thresholds conservatively, and each is carefully recorded. We have an evaluation process in which we identify disengagements that may signal any safety issues, and we resolve them by refining our software, firmware, or hardware and incorporating those changes across our entire fleet."

During the end of the 2015 testing phase, the self-driving cars have run more than 1.3 million miles. Majority of the mileage were of the cars autonomously driving around the suburbs as well as near and around Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. Only more than 400,000 miles were driven in public state roads.

The Verge points out that 272 of the total number of recorded disengagements were due to technological errors. The company noted that 69 incidents were "safe operation events," 13 of the incidents, however, would have resulted in crashes if the driver did not take over.

Google also offered explanations as to what anomalies triggered the disengagement. ARS Technica reports that it could be due to broken wires, GPS readings, accelerometer reading anomalies and maybe some issues in steering and breaking.

The report adds that 89 percent of the disengagements happened on complex road environments with other vehicles in the road, pedestrians, multi-lane intersections and more.

An analyst from Moor Insights & Strategy told Computer World that insights from the report may mean that Google's self-driving cars may not be in the market soon.

"The technology needs to be held to the standard of consumers who expect that technological incidents would arise at virtually no time," he explained. "I believe that we are three to five years from the technology to be where it needs to be."