
Ask HN: How do they write test coverage for driverless cars? - tomcam
How they write test suites for driverless cars? For example, it seems that you&#x27;d need to run through the same tests multiple times in different weather conditions, with broken signage, with signage and traffic rules for different countries, and so forth.
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waterlesscloud
They use all the data they collect from the real world to run endless
simulations. There was something about this in the January 2016 status report
from Google.

"All together, we drive more than 3 million miles in simulation every day."

[https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/](https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/)

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tomcam
Lots of good stuff there, thanks. But not finding anything addressing formal,
repeatable test suites.

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Raed667
I don't think they can do formal checking in such cases. The best they can do
is to run a number of tests on a number of scenarios.

However, this is a scenario with large input sets and infinite test cases, I
don't think they can ever formally check every possibility.

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debacle
I would guess that there are three major components to the cars - the data
collection (sensors, cameras, GPS, etc), the driving mechanism (throttle,
brakes, wheel), and the logic unit ("should I accelerate into this minivan?")

I would assume they run the logic unit through simulations independently of
the other systems in many instances.

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tomcam
One _can_ assume those things, but should one? So many problems come to mind.
For example, you can overtrain neural nets. How do they avoid that problem? Do
they have tests that do so? Or driving on the other side of the road, as in
Britain vs. United States.

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BraveNewCurency
Hire someone with lots of experience writing drivers!

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ljk
probably some sort of simulation?

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tomcam
We all know simulations are by definition not the real thing. I think that
would be a great way to get 95% of your testing done. It's the other 5% that
haunts me.

