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I've always been skeptical of skipping LIDAR, but a recent study at Cornell found that with binocular vision they could be almost as accurate as LIDAR, but with
by DennisP 8y ago
I've always been skeptical of skipping LIDAR, but a recent study at Cornell found that with binocular vision they could be almost as accurate as LIDAR, but with much cheaper hardware.
https://www.therobotreport.com/researchers-back-teslas-non-lidar-approach-to-self-driving-cars/ https://www.therobotreport.com/researchers-back-teslas-non-l...
- Judgmentality 8y agoThat study has been highly disputed by people in the field; the methodology is questionable at best for the claims they're making.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoAnthony Levandowski of Waymo LIDAR fame has said he now agrees with Elon Musk ("a wiser person than me") that LIDAR is a crutch. https://youtu.be/fNgEG5rCav4?t=105 https://youtu.be/fNgEG5rCav4?t=105
- xmprt 8y agoI wonder why the person who was taken to court over (allegedly) stealing Waymo's IP related to LIDAR would be wary of using LIDAR in his new projects...
- Judgmentality 8y agoAnthony Levandowski is so sleazy he makes Vinod Khosla look like a good guy. He is (well, was) one of the most untrustworthy people in the Valley, so much so he had to leave for China to start his next company because even local VCs - who care about money and nothing but money - found him too sketchy to work with.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoYou can be sleazy and untrustworthy and still be smart and right. I wouldn't use VC funding as signaling, considering how many VC folks blindly funded Theranos (which wasn't just outright fraud, but abusive pursuit of whistleblowers). It's fairly clear machine vision is going to surpass LIDAR in the near future (taking capability and cost into account), doesn't take a robotics expert to see that.
- close04 8y agoProbably has nothing to do with the fact that a lot of LIDAR related tech and research now belong to Waymo and Uber. Add to this the cost of LIDAR and it starts making sense that anyone (re)starting in this field would avoid LIDAR and go for the cheaper and more accessible option.
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- jmpman 8y agoDARPA should have continued their self driving car competitions after their Urban challenge, but limiting the input to just commodity cameras. The field would be much further along.
- Reedx 8y agoPerhaps, but you can't dispute that humans don't have LIDAR. It's just a matter of time before AI can drive better than humans even if using similar vision. Especially in aggregate (e.g., factoring in distracted drivers).
- close04 8y agoSure, but they have a vastly superior processing unit to make sense of those images. The question isn't necessarily if binocular vision is better than LIDAR or not but rather which one works best with the current crop of artificial brains and algorithms. I am not considering here situations where either system is impaired since that will lead to varied degrees of failure with both.
- DennisP 8y agoTrue, but lots of animals with much smaller visual cortexes also manage to avoid running into things.
- close04 8y agoAnd sure enough their brains are more advanced and capable than our current computers, especially the ones that easily fit in a car. Even human vision (for the purpose of driving) is more advanced than cameras you might see in a car. And you're oversimplifying a little, it goes far beyond just avoiding obstacles. You need to be able to anticipate, learn and adapt to completely new situations, understand consequences and things that aren't strictly related to what happens on the road. That's something even most mammals fail to do. Our computers are not there and they won't be for some time.
- Judgmentality 8y agoThis is a good point, but it ignores the often forgotten other half of the equation - human (or in this case animal) eyes. The human eye has orders of magnitude more dynamic range than the best DSLR cameras. This means in edge cases the camera will not see something important, such as a person, when a human will. And when I say the camera will not see it, I mean even a person looking at the camera will not see it, because the image is obscured or washed out or something similar. Garbage in garbage out. Don't skimp on your sensors.
- gamblor956 8y agoThe researchers found that analyzing the captured images from a bird’s-eye view, rather than the more traditional frontal view, more than tripled their accuracy, making stereo camera a viable and low-cost alternative to LiDAR. I look forward to the day when cars have giraffe-necks protruding from their roofs, mounted with stereo cameras... But until then, the researchers actually just confirmed that front-mount cameras are only about a third as accurate as LIDAR.
- jjeaff 8y agoI'm imagining a Mario Kart style drone that floats above the vehicles with a camera. And as a bonus, if the car flies off the road into the river, it can use a fishing pole style winch to pull your vehicle out of the water and place it back on the road.
- WhatIsDukkha 8y agoI'm REALLY unclear how you decided to post this giraffe comment... The picture and the words in the article show cameras next to the rear view mirror. """ Using two inexpensive cameras on either side of a vehicle’s windshield, Cornell researchers have discovered they can detect objects with nearly LiDAR’s accuracy and at a fraction of the cost."""
- gamblor956 8y agoThat's not what the article originally said, so it appears that it's been updated since then. Good think I quoted the relevant section of the article in my comment... That being said, existing self-driving cars already have some cameras at that level without displaying the sort of accuracy the researchers found, which relates to the methodology issues other commenters have noted.
- DennisP 8y agoThe researchers described a new way of processing the data, claiming a dramatic improvement over previous methods.
- SilasX 8y ago"Is theoretically possible" != "we can have an implementation next year" != "we'll have it past regulatory approval next year"
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe best reason I can see to skip LIDAR isn't its expense but the reliability given opaque to LIDAR but transparent to vision obstructions like mist.