Autonomous vehicle control with wheel depth water capacitive fender molding

A system comprising:

• an autonomous vehicle (AV) controller;
• and
• a memory and a processor in communication with the AV controller and a first capacitive sensor, the processor configured to:
• receive a first capacitive signal from a first capacitive sensor in a wheel well of an autonomous vehicle (AV);
• determine that the first capacitive signal exceeds a threshold value;
• receive a second capacitive signal from a second capacitive sensor corresponding to a water level;
• send, to the AV controller, first water depth information comprising a water depth level associated with the first capacitive signal;
• receive, from the AV controller, a vehicle control instruction for performing a mitigating action;
• and
• perform the mitigating action based on the vehicle control instruction.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium in a vehicle control module, the computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• receive a first capacitive signal from a first capacitive sensor in a wheel well of an autonomous vehicle (AV);
• determine that the first capacitive signal exceeds a threshold value;
• receive a second capacitive signal from a second capacitive sensor corresponding to a water level;
• send, to the AV controller, first water depth information comprising a water depth level associated with the first capacitive signal;
• receive, from the AV controller, a vehicle control instruction for performing a mitigating action;
• and
• perform the mitigating action based on the vehicle control instruction.