Does exhaust smoke consistently reflect lasers ? In my experience, a dense lidar will see a subset of the lasers go through such occlusions and get a 2nd retur

Does exhaust smoke consistently reflect lasers ? In my experience, a dense lidar will see a subset of the lasers go through such occlusions and get a 2nd return from the truly opaque object behind the smoke. LIDAR can usually distinguish translucent smoke from solid objects like bikes/pedestrians even before the ML algorithm kicks in. Paper bags are tricky, because a bag on the ground could just as likely be a solid object that the car should be stopping for. Stopping or slowing down for bags may be a good idea.