16 ms·
My thoughts exactly. Issues with rain/snow are a common concern, but I had never heard of the "dark car problem" : Current lidar systems can’t see a black tire
by jobu 9y ago
My thoughts exactly. Issues with rain/snow are a common concern, but I had never heard of the "dark car problem" :
Current lidar systems can’t see a black tire, or a person like me wearing black—Velodyne’s [Puck] wouldn’t see a 5- to 10-percent reflective object [30 meters away]. It’s the dark car problem—no one else talks about it!”
- macintux 9y agoConsidering nearly every pedestrian walking along the streets near me at night is wearing dark clothes (and there are typically no sidewalks) that's a terrifying statement.
- hwillis 9y agoIt's not a problem at night. It's a problem during the day, when everything is washed out. The lidar can still see something there, but not how far away it is.
- macintux 9y agoOk. Still not remotely good.
- hwillis 9y agoNote that it's a matte black car problem. Shiny black cars are visible. It's also not a problem at short distances, or if there are significant parts of the car that are visible. It's a similar thing to not being able to see men carrying a glass windowpane. It's a somewhat niche problem.
- Neliquat 9y agoAs the owner of a flat black car, I feel strongly about this 'niche'.
- hwillis 9y agoGlass is probably a bigger issue- take glass storefronts and glass bus stops. Niches are still important, but there are a hundred other problems of this level that also need to be solved. This problem is not particularly more important than any other, but I don't mean it's unimportant.
- CamperBob2 9y agoLIDAR is not the only sensor input that self-driving cars will need to operate safely. Cars (on the road anyway) will be warm enough to show up on passive IR cameras. Their tires alone should emit enough heat to detect. Parked cars, on the other hand, may be a tougher challenge. If I were building a self-driving car, my nightmare scenario would probably be a tire lying in the middle of the road, or a piece of matte-textured furniture.
- tyingq 9y agoA big rolling tire, complete with wheel, once was hurdling towards me on the highway. I honked the horn at it. Thankfully, it missed me despite that brilliant decision.
- wyldfire 9y agoI'd speculate that the biggest hazard would be a stationary object (tire in the road). If so, pedestrians crossing traffic seem less likely to cause problems.
- hwillis 9y agoThat would show up as a kind of "hole" in the road. Clever software would be required to see it as a danger.
- sriram_sun 9y agoIsn't the asphalt (without lane markings) black as well? How does it recognize a black object in a black background? I don't see it showing up as a hole in that scenario.
- hwillis 9y agoaslphalt is a few times more reflective than rubber
- hyperbovine 9y agoAre you already terrified then? Because human drivers are also terrible perceiving people dressed like this at night.
- bsder 9y agoAt night that same pedestrian probably is a quite significant infrared emitter. Matte black cars, not so much.
- heipei 9y agoI'm not surprised, it's probably the same reason my Roomba keeps bumping into black objects at full speed yet manages to slow down before touching bright objects / walls.
- eric_h 9y agoI had to cover the cliff detectors on my Roomba because it interprets the black patterns on my carpet as holes in the ground. Fortunately I live in a 1 bedroom that doesn't have any actual cliffs.
- hyperbovine 9y agoIt seems increasingly like autonomous vehicles will rely on numerous types of sensing including lidar, radar, ir and the visual spectrum. So this doesn't seem like a huge obstacle. Also, the bar is not "perfection" but rather just doing a lot better than humans.
- clarky07 9y agoIs it? I personally agree, but I'm not sure the population at large will. People like being in control, and they always overestimate their own competence.
- hwillis 9y agothose people will be able to drive themselves. There will be plenty of desire to not drive regardless of those people.
- indolering 9y ago95% of cars in the US are automatics. The reason manuals are more popular in other countries is because they are cheaper, more fuel efficient, and (at least in Europe) learning how to drive a stick is (basically) a required. There is a major price difference right now, but the switch to electric and market forces will drive those costs down. Tack on insurance discounts and the price delta will be smaller than that of automatic vs manual.
- ben_jones 9y agoI wonder if this will put a new twist on the 'personal injury lawsuit' scam where people intentionally get hit by a car in order to sue.
- Animats 9y agoKnown problem. I first saw it in 2003, when working on a DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle. Some materials are very low reflectivity in IR. Charcoal grey furniture upholstery material, as often seen on office chairs, is one. A SICK LMS LIDAR can't range that material at point-blank range. The safe solution to this is not to look for "obstacles", but to profile the road ahead with a high-mounted laser. If you're not getting a return, either it's not very reflective, or there's a cliff ahead. In either case, you don't want to go there at speed. As you get closer to the trouble spot, you're more likely to get a bounce from even a low-reflectivity material, because the returned light increases. So you can deal with this by slowing down until the data improves. Off-road vehicles must do this. On-road vehicles can use other data sources for assurance there's a road there, and radars are capable of detecting anything as big and metallic as a car.
- indolering 9y agoSo even if this thing can handle very low reflectivity in IR, are there other problems that you would need radar to solve anyway?
- Animats 9y agoRadar gets you range rate. It's also a good backup to the primary system. A very simple computation from radar returns will answer "is a collision imminent"? This should apply the brakes even if the "AI system" doing the driving (or the human driver) do not.