Patent attributes
Techniques for detecting an object in an environment, determining a probability that the object is a region of particulate matter, and controlling a vehicle based on the probability. The region particulate matter may include steam (e.g., emitted from a man-hole cover, a dryer exhaust port, etc.), exhaust from a vehicle (e.g., car, truck, motorcycle, etc.), dust, environmental gases (e.g., resulting from sublimation, fog, evaporation, etc.), or the like. Based on the associated probability that the object is a region of particulate matter, a vehicle computing system may substantially maintain a vehicle trajectory, modify a trajectory of the vehicle to ensure the vehicle does not impact the object, stop the vehicle, or otherwise control the vehicle to ensure that the vehicle continues to progress in a safe manner. The vehicle controller may continually adjust the trajectory based on additionally acquired sensor data and associated region probabilities.