rain in the archive

The archive holds 2 reports filed under rain, spanning 2015–2016. The earliest is “MIT's Localizing Ground-Penetrating Radar Could Be the Solution to Mapping and Sensing Challenges Facing Autonomous Vehicle Technology”; the most recent is “How Ford's New Driverless Car Algorithm Can 'See' Raindrops and Snowflakes”. Original reporting came via Jennifer van der Kleut.

This period matters for a specific reason: it is when the industry's assumptions were set. Testing permits were first issued, the acquisitions that consolidated the perception layer closed, the regulatory frameworks still in force were drafted, and a great many confident deployment dates were published. Almost all of those dates passed without incident, which makes the contemporaneous record more useful now than it was at the time — it can be read against what actually happened.

Coverage under rain overlaps most often with inclement weather, sensors, Ford and Lidar, which is a reasonable map of where the topic sat in the industry's attention.

For what the listed companies in this field did over the same period, the D20 index roster tracks the corporate side. For what has since been deployed on public roads, the deployment tracker records operators, cities and dates, and the research library holds the papers this reporting drew on.