Patent attributes
Aspects of the disclosure relate to deploying safety mechanisms in an autonomous vehicle. As an example, the situational information identifying a potential impact target corresponding to an object with which the autonomous vehicle is predicted to have a collision within a predetermined period of time may be received. This situational information may also include an estimated time when the second computing device will receive an update for the potential impact target from the first computing device. The estimated time may be used to determine when to deploy a set of active safety mechanisms for the potential impact target. Each active safety mechanism may be configured to reduce a likelihood of damage to an object external to the autonomous vehicle caused by a collision. A signal is then sent to activate the set of active safety mechanisms prior to an impact with the object corresponding to the identified potential impact target.
