"flat road" => assume you can't continue until you prove it's safe
"obstacle detection" => assume you can continue unless there is something blocking the current path
The bit of autonomous vehicle work that I did started from a set of potential trajectories that were then pruned by obstacle detection. So we always assumed you could continue moving forward unless every potential trajectory was pruned. We ignored the cliff problem as beyond our scope.
"flat road" => assume you can't continue until you prove it's safe
"obstacle detection" => assume you can continue unless there is something blocking the current path
The bit of autonomous vehicle work that I did started from a set of potential trajectories that were then pruned by obstacle detection. So we always assumed you could continue moving forward unless every potential trajectory was pruned. We ignored the cliff problem as beyond our scope.