Lyft details the planning model behind its self-driving cars

Like Google, Uber, and countless other startups and tech giants, Lyft is developing cars it hopes will someday ferry passengers sans driver -- a task that's easier said than done. In a Medium post published this morning, Lyft's Level 5 team -- the division devoted to autonomous vehicle (AV) research and development -- laid out a few of the challenges its engineers have encountered to date, while pulling back the curtains on solutions and general progress. Picture this: A car driving down a freeway encounters another car cutting across multiple lanes to make an exit. Preventing a collision would require the first car to slow down, but just how dramatic should that slowdown be? Lyft's self-driving prototypes tap what the company calls a "human-inspired" planning approach to determine this.