Response of autonomous cars to emergency services

Autonomous cars are largely trained for “normal” traffic circumstances. Yet, the problem of bringing them to reality lies with the occurrence of anomalous situations, in which they would still need to react appropriately. These anomalous situations are very diverse, ranging from difficult or extreme weather conditions, to very rare or unexpected objects being present on the road. One very important such exceptional situation, is the approach of priority services, like an ambulance, firetruck, or police car. These require driving behavior by the other traffic agents that would be highly undesirably under normal circumstances, yet is all the more important – possibly literally life-saving, in such cases. The proposed thesis will create a response that is adapted to such crucial edge cases. The work will include the detection of the emergency services and the implementation of a response that is adapted to the overall situation around the car. Orange blinking lights need to be activated, velocity to be reduced, a passable way for the approaching service car to be freed, etc. This requires coordination with the surrounding cars, hence their responsive behavior has to be studied carefully while reacting.