LIDAR has severe range limitations, such that it's basically unusable for highway speed driving (or at least did, <mumble> years ago when I worked on autonomous

LIDAR has severe range limitations, such that it's basically unusable for highway speed driving (or at least did, <mumble> years ago when I worked on autonomous driving), which is why Tesla doesn't use LIDAR. Looking at Thrun et al.'s paper on Stanley (https://www-cs.stanford.edu/people/dstavens/jfr06/thrun_etal_jfr06.pdf https://www-cs.stanford.edu/people/dstavens/jfr06/thrun_etal...): "The effective maximum range at which obstacles can be detected with the laser mapper is approximately 22 m. This range is sufficient for Stanley to reliably avoid obstacles at speeds up to 25 mph. Based on the 2004 Race Course, the development team estimated that Stanley would need to reach speeds of 35 mph in order to successfully complete the challenge. To extend the sensor range enough to allow safe driving at 35 mph, Stanley uses a color camera to find drivable surfaces at ranges exceeding that of the laser analysis." They built a neural network to analyze terrain and find safe paths- and trained it driving at 25 mph across the environment with the LIDAR providing the control- and then let it work at higher speeds where the LIDAR would be able to panic stop but not much more.