Waymo service in Atlanta still suspended after self-driving car stuck in Midtown floodwaters ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Waymo’s self-driving ride-hailing service in Atlanta remained suspended after one of the company’s autonomous vehicles became stuck in floodwaters on a Midtown street Wednesday night. A viewer who was walking along North Avenue recorded video showing a Waymo vehicle stranded in standing water. No one was inside the car at the time, according to Waymo. Georgia Tech researchers said the incident highlights a known challenge for autonomous vehicles: judging the depth of water on flooded streets. “Neither are particularly well-suited to handle, to estimate how deep a particular puddle is. That can be really a problem for flooding,” said Georgia Tech professor Glen Chou on LIDAR and radar. Chou designs algorithms that help robots function. Chou described the situation as a relatively small issue that can be addressed as autonomous vehicle systems continue to collect data. He said companies such as Waymo learn from unusual scenarios — sometimes called “corner cases” — using sensors such as lidar and radar. “Knowing more about the kind of corner cases that can occur in driving, being able either to program some kind of fallback when those corner cases arise or having data that tells you what you should do,” Chou said. Dr. Srinivas Peeta, who leads the Autonomous and Connected Transportation Lab at Georgia Tech, said incidents like this can be surprising for the public. “It is puzzling for humans to say, ‘Oh, these are autonomous vehicles. They are supposed to be more advanced. They should be much more intelligent than us.’ But that’s where the difference occurs,” Peeta said. Peeta said the vehicles are safe under normal conditions and that safety should improve over time as the technology advances. He pointed to what