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I've worked with a researchers who use LIDAR heavily. Amazing technology, but aside from cost/weight/size/expense there's one big disadvantage. LIDAR doesn't

by sliken 6y ago

I've worked with a researchers who use LIDAR heavily. Amazing technology, but aside from cost/weight/size/expense there's one big disadvantage. LIDAR doesn't work like eyes. So in certain conditions LIDAR can see better than human eyes, like say complete darkness. This could lead to a car behaving differently than a human driver which might well cause an accident. In other conditions LIDAR can see much worse than a human. Depending on the fog, snow, rain, dust, tumbleweeds etc can look more solid to a lidar than a human eye. Which can also cause accidents. A human might recognize a whisp of fog, whose outline and volume look like a fallen tree, but a camera would have a better chance. So even with a magic LIDAR that costs $100, has good range, solid state, etc. it's not clear what LIDAR offers over a pair of cameras, or other cheap sensors like cameras, mm band (60 GHz) radar, and ultrasound. Additionally LIDAR systems need cameras anyways. Is that a ambulance or UPS truck? Schoolbus or city bus? Police car or Camry? Does the police car have it's lights on? Did someone flash their high beams at you? Delivery truck or post office truck? Color is hugely important in predicting what's going to happen. Sure you can add cameras to LIDAR, but then why? Doubly is you have two cameras for distance. So I'd love to be wrong, and indisputably LIDAR is getting better, but seems like pairs of cameras might well be the best fit for driving like a human. Doesn't seem like it could ever be LIDAR, but LIDAR + cameras could compete, but what does LIDAR give you over a pair of cameras?

random5634 6y ago
It seems like lidar has a good result in certain safety cases. Is that a parked white truck stopped in front of you? I tractor trailor crossing the road? Is that a highway divider I'll be steering you into? These are just some of the accidents I think of with vision that might have been avoided with lidar. In particular, for pedestrians, bicycles, other vehicles, maybe even children running in street, is the limited resolution enough to still substantially increase safety? Where I got with this - hitting a brick is bad. Hitting a person is much worse. A fair number of never hit type items seem to still be picked up with Lidar. But all good points.
- sliken 6y ago
  Well inherently cameras have much better angular resolution. So for current level of tech you get more pixels per object for any given distance. Lidar's big advantage was a distance for each "pixel", but that advantage seems to mostly disappear for pairs of cameras, at least for common objects like pedestrians, bicycles, most vehicles, etc. However that does depend on edge detection or enough visual detail to be able to match an object through two different perspectives. A featureless white wall that consumes the entire camera view would result in no distance for a stereo camera, but would still work with lidar. Not sure if that's enough of a limitation to break things with say a large white 18-wheeler crossing the road. I've heard new interest in mm wave (60 GHz or so) radar, but no idea where it falls compared to lidar and stereo cameras as far as distance and angular resolution and sample rate.

by sliken 6y ago

random5634 6y ago

It seems like lidar has a good result in certain safety cases. Is that a parked white truck stopped in front of you? I tractor trailor crossing the road? Is that a highway divider I'll be steering you into? These are just some of the accidents I think of with vision that might have been avoided with lidar. In particular, for pedestrians, bicycles, other vehicles, maybe even children running in street, is the limited resolution enough to still substantially increase safety? Where I got with this - hitting a brick is bad. Hitting a person is much worse. A fair number of never hit type items seem to still be picked up with Lidar. But all good points.

sliken 6y ago
Well inherently cameras have much better angular resolution. So for current level of tech you get more pixels per object for any given distance. Lidar's big advantage was a distance for each "pixel", but that advantage seems to mostly disappear for pairs of cameras, at least for common objects like pedestrians, bicycles, most vehicles, etc. However that does depend on edge detection or enough visual detail to be able to match an object through two different perspectives. A featureless white wall that consumes the entire camera view would result in no distance for a stereo camera, but would still work with lidar. Not sure if that's enough of a limitation to break things with say a large white 18-wheeler crossing the road. I've heard new interest in mm wave (60 GHz or so) radar, but no idea where it falls compared to lidar and stereo cameras as far as distance and angular resolution and sample rate.