System and method to help determine intent of third-party autonomous vehicle

A vehicle for determining an intent of a third-party autonomous vehicle, comprising:

• a sensor suite including external vehicle sensors to sense an environment and generate sensor data, wherein the environment includes the third-party autonomous vehicle;
• and
• a perception system to:
• determine a specific identity of the third-party autonomous vehicle;
• determine a behavior of the third-party autonomous vehicle;
• and
• predict an action by the third-party autonomous vehicle based on the specific identity of the third-party autonomous vehicle and the determined behavior of the third-party autonomous vehicle.

A method comprising:

• training a system to identify a specific third-party autonomous vehicle using data collected by a sensor suite on an autonomous vehicle;
• training the system to recognize one or more behaviors of the specific third-party autonomous vehicle that precede a specific action by the specific third-party autonomous vehicle;
• and
• create a behavior signature for the specific third-party autonomous vehicle, wherein the behavior signature includes features of the specific third-party autonomous vehicle that can be used to recognize the specific third-party autonomous vehicle, the recognized one or more behaviors, and the specific action.