Self-driving cars: Problems with blue lights from emergency vehicles

Study "Epileptic seizures" in robo-cars

2024-12-16 By Holger Holzer/sp-x | Translated by AI 1 min Reading Time

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The camera systems of self-driving cars are not yet mature. The blue lights from police or emergency service vehicles can severely confuse them.

The cameras of autonomous cars do not like flickering police lights.(Image: Fabian Kirchbauer/SP-X) — The cameras of autonomous cars do not like flickering police lights.
(Image: Fabian Kirchbauer/SP-X)

Video games and movies often include warnings in their opening credits about the risk of epileptic seizures caused by strobe effects on screens. Apparently, flashing light pulses are not only a problem for humans but also for self-driving cars. Researchers from Israel's Negev University have now discovered that the blue lights of emergency vehicles can completely disorient autonomous cars.

The researchers gave this phenomenon an aptly fitting name in their newly published study: Epilepticar—a combination of "epilepsy" and "car." They investigated how five camera-based environmental recognition systems for autonomous driving responded to 14 different light patterns from emergency vehicles. The result: all systems were more or less significantly disrupted by the flashing lights. According to the researchers, the flickering light, for example, distorts the colors and contours of vehicles to such an extent that the software can no longer correctly interpret the camera image.

Dangerous phenomenon

The phenomenon is considered dangerous by researchers, as it can cause accidents near emergency vehicles. Additionally, the effect could easily be used for criminal attacks. Improved AI image recognition software could provide a remedy. The researchers have developed a variant and also given it a name: "Caracetamol," akin to the well-known painkiller.

The study is particularly interesting because there have recently been more than a dozen accidents in the U.S. involving self-driving Tesla electric cars and emergency vehicles. These incidents resulted in a total of 15 injuries, one of them fatal. Tesla also relies primarily on cameras for environmental recognition—however, the manufacturer's system was not tested as part of the study.

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