I have had similar experiences working in robotics and I would imagine anyone else who has worked with designing navigation, mapping, or obstacle avoidance for

I have had similar experiences working in robotics and I would imagine anyone else who has worked with designing navigation, mapping, or obstacle avoidance for robots would also be well aware of the shortcomings of each type of sensor. Even in the confines of indoor environments with simple problems like transparent surfaces, specific problematic fabrics, and acoustic panels it is necessary to fuse several types of sensor data to provide reasonably reliable detection of the environment. I would hope that as sensors and output analysis techniques continue to be developed and costs decrease, creators of autonomous systems would incorporate a wider variety of sensors into their products.