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Tesla uses only cameras (some color and some black and white I believe) along with a radar system and perhaps sonar? But Tesla is controversial in their approac
by TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Tesla uses only cameras (some color and some black and white I believe) along with a radar system and perhaps sonar? But Tesla is controversial in their approach - essentially all other self driving systems use depth sensors. Tesla makes the argument that you can actually calculate depth from moving cameras, which is true. The technique is called structure from motion and it is well understood. However a lidar is a more direct and reliable way of measuring depth accurately, so others use them.
The difference being that all Teslas manufactured in the last two years or so have this camera sensor system installed on them, so they can all be upgraded to self driving with a software or computer upgrade. No one else is shipping cars that can be self driving. So Tesla has the advantage of collecting a huge data set of real world data now, and if they get the system working they can somewhat instantly “activate” a huge self driving fleet. Other companies have more expensive sensor systems such that the price is too high to sell the vehicles (only rent as taxis), and they will have to start manufacturing vehicles after they get everything finalized.
If Tesla and Waymo perfect their systems at the same time, Tesla will be way ahead.
- pier25 7y ago> So Tesla has the advantage of collecting a huge data set of real world data now Do Tesla owners know about this? Is this an opt-in feature?
- mam2 7y agoLol
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoTesla is very open about how this works. I don’t own a Tesla but I assume they mention this in some agreement when activating these features. By the way, they don’t collect all driving data. It’s too much data to transmit back home. They load test algorithms on to the car in “shadow mode” where they don’t control anything, then check for failures and send the car data from the failures back to Tesla. So very little data per car is actually shared.
- trca 7y agoCan confirm: There is an overlay that appears which asks whether you consent to collection of video (only from the 7 outside cameras -- there is one facing the interior but it doesn't include that), and telemetry / GPS data for autopilot training and sentry mode training. If you don't agree, I'm assuming your car will not be used for the fleet learning since they can't gather any telemetry. I do believe that critical logging w/o user-data(?) (aka drive system failure, MCU crashes, etc) is still enabled independently && regardlessly of the data collection for AI toggle.