5 ms·

Is lidar still necessary if computer vision advances far enough? We drive just fine without radar.

sohkamyung 10y ago
At the current stage, depending on computer vision may be dangerous. See this BBC article about how it can be fooled [1] [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170410-how-to-fool-artificial-intelligence http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170410-how-to-fool-artific...
threeseed 10y ago
Couple of issues with this point: 1) We don't just rely on our vision when driving but also on sound (nearby cars) and touch (feel of the road). I actually haven't seen any self driving car projects talk about this aspect which is interesting. 2) Self driving cars can't be just as good as humans they need to be effectively perfect. Quite a lot of people think they are amazing drivers i.e. infallible so mistakes from a self driving car aren't going to go down well.
- mikeash 10y ago
  There are deaf drivers, and I'd wager the vast majority of human drivers pay no attention to the feel of the road.
- fudged71 10y ago
  I haven't really seen many people talking about "Human sensor fusion" regarding sound/touch/etc, and I think it's a very important point. Are driverless cars even measuring sound, vibration, and G-Forces? I'd like to better understand how those play into the whole sensor fusion of these systems.
willvarfar 10y ago
You deserve some up-votes. Tesla famously doesn't use LIDAR, saying cameras (possibly with parking radar) are good enough. Here's a nice summary: https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-google-disagree-lidar-right/ https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-google-disagree-l...
- 50CNT 10y ago
  I'm not sure whether that isn't just a business decision. CMOS cameras are cheap, small, and they don't change very much. Ergo, once they manage to develop a solution using cameras, they won't have to retrofit the hardware in customers hands to support it, and they can still claim that oneday this car might drive itself. With LIDAR, well, there's a new type of LIDAR coming out. Then there may be different successor designs and form factors.
- sanguy 10y ago
  Tesla has also killed people with this decision. They've had one fatal crash (at least) due to image based getting confused by a semi truck with a white cargo container in bright sunlight. It thought nothing was in that space and changed lanes accordingly; which the car ended up under the semi truck and the occupants crushed. Active sensors are needed for human safety applications, passive doesn't make sense.
  - ec109685 10y ago
    Tesla has saved people as well by being able to roll out this tech widely. Our eyes are passive and they work. Teslas do have radar sensors.
aedron 10y ago
Human eyes have depth perception, a camera doesn't.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Does the human eye have anything special in that regard that couldn't be emulated by two side-by-side cameras? As far as i know, depth perception is mostly an awesome feature of our brain (software), not of our eyes (hardware).
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    The brain is also hardware, just extremely efficient. When compared to modern processors, the visual cortex does way more while using less energy.
  - alexbock 10y ago
    The human eye has some interesting optical defects like chromatic aberration that man-made optical systems usually fix in hardware but that the brain fixes in software. These aberrations, when available to the software as uncorrected input, can provide information useful for determining how to focus properly (and by extension, focus distance, which gives you distance-to-point information dependent on DOF). [1] Modern photographic lenses tend to contain a large number of lenses in series, a few of which often have an exotic property like being apochromatic, aspheric, or made of fluorite, but such well-corrected lenses may be counter-productive for machine vision. Phase detection in a DSLR relies on separate collection sites like stereo vision, but autofocus still hunts under bad conditions. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3189032/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3189032/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- stereo 10y ago
  Stereopsis and stereoblindness is actually a fascinating topic. Some humans don’t have it, and still manage to drive, ride bicycles, or fly planes. The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks has an interesting chapter on a woman who managed to develop stereovision in her late 40s through vision therapy.
dbcurtis 10y ago
Sebastian Thrun will tell anyone who will listen that he is sorry he got the self-driving car world hooked on LIDAR. He is 100% behind computer vision now. He would much rather use several $10 web cameras than multi-hundred dollar LIDARs. If you look at term 1 of the Udacity self-driving car syllabus, it is CV and ML, zero about how to process point clouds. NVIDIA is also betting on CV for self driving cars.

At the current stage, depending on computer vision may be dangerous. See this BBC article about how it can be fooled [1] [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170410-how-to-fool-artificial-intelligence http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170410-how-to-fool-artific...

threeseed 10y ago

Couple of issues with this point: 1) We don't just rely on our vision when driving but also on sound (nearby cars) and touch (feel of the road). I actually haven't seen any self driving car projects talk about this aspect which is interesting. 2) Self driving cars can't be just as good as humans they need to be effectively perfect. Quite a lot of people think they are amazing drivers i.e. infallible so mistakes from a self driving car aren't going to go down well.

mikeash 10y ago
There are deaf drivers, and I'd wager the vast majority of human drivers pay no attention to the feel of the road.
fudged71 10y ago
I haven't really seen many people talking about "Human sensor fusion" regarding sound/touch/etc, and I think it's a very important point. Are driverless cars even measuring sound, vibration, and G-Forces? I'd like to better understand how those play into the whole sensor fusion of these systems.

willvarfar 10y ago

You deserve some up-votes. Tesla famously doesn't use LIDAR, saying cameras (possibly with parking radar) are good enough. Here's a nice summary: https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-google-disagree-lidar-right/ https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-google-disagree-l...

50CNT 10y ago
I'm not sure whether that isn't just a business decision. CMOS cameras are cheap, small, and they don't change very much. Ergo, once they manage to develop a solution using cameras, they won't have to retrofit the hardware in customers hands to support it, and they can still claim that oneday this car might drive itself. With LIDAR, well, there's a new type of LIDAR coming out. Then there may be different successor designs and form factors.
sanguy 10y ago
Tesla has also killed people with this decision. They've had one fatal crash (at least) due to image based getting confused by a semi truck with a white cargo container in bright sunlight. It thought nothing was in that space and changed lanes accordingly; which the car ended up under the semi truck and the occupants crushed. Active sensors are needed for human safety applications, passive doesn't make sense.
- ec109685 10y ago
  Tesla has saved people as well by being able to roll out this tech widely. Our eyes are passive and they work. Teslas do have radar sensors.

aedron 10y ago

Human eyes have depth perception, a camera doesn't.

icebraining 10y ago
Does the human eye have anything special in that regard that couldn't be emulated by two side-by-side cameras? As far as i know, depth perception is mostly an awesome feature of our brain (software), not of our eyes (hardware).
- sangnoir 10y ago
  The brain is also hardware, just extremely efficient. When compared to modern processors, the visual cortex does way more while using less energy.
- alexbock 10y ago
  The human eye has some interesting optical defects like chromatic aberration that man-made optical systems usually fix in hardware but that the brain fixes in software. These aberrations, when available to the software as uncorrected input, can provide information useful for determining how to focus properly (and by extension, focus distance, which gives you distance-to-point information dependent on DOF). [1] Modern photographic lenses tend to contain a large number of lenses in series, a few of which often have an exotic property like being apochromatic, aspheric, or made of fluorite, but such well-corrected lenses may be counter-productive for machine vision. Phase detection in a DSLR relies on separate collection sites like stereo vision, but autofocus still hunts under bad conditions. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3189032/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3189032/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
stereo 10y ago
Stereopsis and stereoblindness is actually a fascinating topic. Some humans don’t have it, and still manage to drive, ride bicycles, or fly planes. The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks has an interesting chapter on a woman who managed to develop stereovision in her late 40s through vision therapy.

dbcurtis 10y ago

Sebastian Thrun will tell anyone who will listen that he is sorry he got the self-driving car world hooked on LIDAR. He is 100% behind computer vision now. He would much rather use several $10 web cameras than multi-hundred dollar LIDARs. If you look at term 1 of the Udacity self-driving car syllabus, it is CV and ML, zero about how to process point clouds. NVIDIA is also betting on CV for self driving cars.