Stopping Distance From Deceleration | Dataford Interview Questions

A Zoox autonomous vehicle must estimate how far it will travel while braking to a complete stop. Given its current velocity and a constant deceleration magnitude, calculate the stopping distance using one-dimensional kinematics.

Assume the vehicle begins braking immediately, deceleration remains constant, and there is no reaction delay. The supplied deceleration is a positive magnitude, not a signed acceleration.

Formal Specification

Implement stopping_distance(velocity, deceleration):

velocity is a nonnegative floating-point value in meters per second.
deceleration is a positive floating-point value in meters per second squared.
Return the distance in meters as a floating-point value.
Use the relationship v² = u² + 2as, where the final velocity is zero and acceleration is -deceleration.

Constraints

0.0 <= velocity <= 100.0
0.1 <= deceleration <= 20.0
Inputs are finite numbers
Return values within 1e-6 absolute or relative error are accepted

Function Signature

def stopping_distance(velocity, deceleration):

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