10 ms·

Lidar approach just has to be the winner in my opinion, simpler is better.

by xaduha 4y ago

Zigurd 4y ago
Lidar is lo-res, though it has other advantages. Sensor fusion is also not without complexity and problems. But camera-only systems seem like one of those bets that hangs out there for too long before it will have to be walked back, leaving a lot of customers with stranded technology and unmet expectations.
keewee7 4y ago
A future with high powered infrared lasers on top of every car will probably lead to a mysterious rise in people slowly losing their vision. Someone should do a study of the eyes and vision of people who work with LIDAR. Why not instead use multiple radars (we already put 1-2 radars in cars with adaptive cruise control) to augment Tesla's vision based approach?
- kibwen 4y ago
  According to this article, lidar using eye-safe lasers is standard: https://photonicsreport.com/blog/is-lidar-dangerous-for-our-eyes/ https://photonicsreport.com/blog/is-lidar-dangerous-for-our-... "If a lidar system ever uses a laser with a higher safety class, then it could pose a serious hazard for your eyes. However, as it stands, according to current information and practices, lidar manufacturers use class 1 eye-safe (near) infrared laser diodes."
  - b112 4y ago
    And what if you are hit in the eyes with the outout of 20 of them at once? Like on a busy highway. What if you are hit all day long, for hours, every single day? History is replete with studies which were used to presume different exposures would be fine.
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      You sound like the kind of internet commenter who whinges about how dangerous bicycles are on the road because someone in a car might swerve to avoid them and head-on collide with a tractor trailer.
    - Misdicorl 4y ago
      The math makes this quite implausible for a random scenario. Perhaps a toll collector could introduce the right systematics to make the scenario not ridiculous on it's face. Imagine pointing a laser at something more than five feet distant the size of an eyeball and then getting another laser to point at the same spot at the same time. And then another five. And those lasers are all attached to cars moving and the eyeball is moving too...
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
      Put an IR filter in the car window glass?
    - coolspot 4y ago
      You’re right that it needs further studying, to not end as asbestos. On a side note, you eyes are hit with more powerful and full-spectrum radiation (from IR to UV) from a burning star every day for hours (or at least they are designed to).
      - mceachen 4y ago
        Agreed, during the day. Eyes fully dilated during night driving don't constrict from flashes of coherent IR radiation, though. BTW: this is neat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanopsin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanopsin
      - b112 4y ago
        Phototoxic maculopathy induced by quartz infrared heat lamp https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5279082/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5279082/
ryukoposting 4y ago
FMCW radar is more tenable for automotive applications, in my opinion. No lasers necessary.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Way too basic. They don't even produce an image.
nemothekid 4y ago
LIDAR isn’t simpler.
- xaduha 4y ago
  Why not? Sure it's all complicated enough, but conceptually measuring distance with a laser is simple. Do that many, many times and you have a good enough picture of the surrounding area in a machine-readable 3d format, so you have a good starting point. How is that not simpler than what Tesla is doing?
md2020 4y ago
Simpler is better, so you want to add another sensor that humans don’t have, to do a task that only humans can currently do safely? This makes no sense to me.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bamboozled 4y ago
Trains and public transport was the winner 100 years ago.
simondotau 4y ago
Look at a recent video of FSD beta on YouTube and focus your attention on the visualisation. I can’t see how anyone can look at that and conclude that LiDAR is still necessary or even incrementally beneficial.
- xaduha 4y ago
  I watched it, you might have rose-tinted glasses on, it's not ready yet. Compare it to AutoX videos. And you can't expect others to follow this path, it's not like Tesla is going to make it available to others.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    I didn't say FSD beta was "ready". I merely assert that it is demonstrating remarkable competence in spatial sensing. If spatial sensing isn't a problem—and clearly it is not—it makes no sense to add LiDAR, which only does point cloud spatial sensing. The real "hard problem" of self-driving is in the path planner, not spatial sensing. I hadn't heard of AutoX. I watched a couple of their videos. Despite being videos cherry-picked by the developer they show a car being driven in cities at slow speed and on faster arterials seemingly unable to drive without ping-ponging. No evidence that these cars could ever drive on roads they haven't been directly trained on. By comparison, thousands of videos of FSD beta are being posted by hundreds of real world vehicle owners driving intentionally challenging routes in dozens of distinct geographic jurisdictions. It is showing remarkable progress, but of course there's still limitations; understandable when exposed to such a massive long tail of edge cases. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4TnvvuGqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4TnvvuGqM
    - upbeat_general 4y ago
      The current SOTA in monocular “spatial sensing” (3D object detection) is just much less reliable compared to LiDAR-only systems. You can’t conclude that spatial sensing isn’t a problem because it didn’t crash with a monocular camera. The test is whether it accurately detects all relevant actors/objects in the scene and does so reliably. From a couple FSD videos I’ve seen, the issues center around perception (failing to get the right lane lines, certain detections disappearing briefly, etc.)

Lidar approach just has to be the winner in my opinion, simpler is better.

by xaduha 4y ago

Lidar approach just has to be the winner in my opinion, simpler is better.

Lidar is lo-res, though it has other advantages. Sensor fusion is also not without complexity and problems. But camera-only systems seem like one of those bets that hangs out there for too long before it will have to be walked back, leaving a lot of customers with stranded technology and unmet expectations.

keewee7 4y ago

A future with high powered infrared lasers on top of every car will probably lead to a mysterious rise in people slowly losing their vision. Someone should do a study of the eyes and vision of people who work with LIDAR. Why not instead use multiple radars (we already put 1-2 radars in cars with adaptive cruise control) to augment Tesla's vision based approach?

kibwen 4y ago
According to this article, lidar using eye-safe lasers is standard: https://photonicsreport.com/blog/is-lidar-dangerous-for-our-eyes/ https://photonicsreport.com/blog/is-lidar-dangerous-for-our-... "If a lidar system ever uses a laser with a higher safety class, then it could pose a serious hazard for your eyes. However, as it stands, according to current information and practices, lidar manufacturers use class 1 eye-safe (near) infrared laser diodes."
- b112 4y ago
  And what if you are hit in the eyes with the outout of 20 of them at once? Like on a busy highway. What if you are hit all day long, for hours, every single day? History is replete with studies which were used to presume different exposures would be fine.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    You sound like the kind of internet commenter who whinges about how dangerous bicycles are on the road because someone in a car might swerve to avoid them and head-on collide with a tractor trailer.
  - Misdicorl 4y ago
    The math makes this quite implausible for a random scenario. Perhaps a toll collector could introduce the right systematics to make the scenario not ridiculous on it's face. Imagine pointing a laser at something more than five feet distant the size of an eyeball and then getting another laser to point at the same spot at the same time. And then another five. And those lasers are all attached to cars moving and the eyeball is moving too...
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    Put an IR filter in the car window glass?
  - coolspot 4y ago
    You’re right that it needs further studying, to not end as asbestos. On a side note, you eyes are hit with more powerful and full-spectrum radiation (from IR to UV) from a burning star every day for hours (or at least they are designed to).
    - mceachen 4y ago
      Agreed, during the day. Eyes fully dilated during night driving don't constrict from flashes of coherent IR radiation, though. BTW: this is neat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanopsin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanopsin
    - b112 4y ago
      Phototoxic maculopathy induced by quartz infrared heat lamp https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5279082/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5279082/

ryukoposting 4y ago

FMCW radar is more tenable for automotive applications, in my opinion. No lasers necessary.

IshKebab 4y ago
Way too basic. They don't even produce an image.

nemothekid 4y ago

LIDAR isn’t simpler.

xaduha 4y ago
Why not? Sure it's all complicated enough, but conceptually measuring distance with a laser is simple. Do that many, many times and you have a good enough picture of the surrounding area in a machine-readable 3d format, so you have a good starting point. How is that not simpler than what Tesla is doing?

md2020 4y ago

Simpler is better, so you want to add another sensor that humans don’t have, to do a task that only humans can currently do safely? This makes no sense to me.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bamboozled 4y ago

Trains and public transport was the winner 100 years ago.

simondotau 4y ago

Look at a recent video of FSD beta on YouTube and focus your attention on the visualisation. I can’t see how anyone can look at that and conclude that LiDAR is still necessary or even incrementally beneficial.

xaduha 4y ago
I watched it, you might have rose-tinted glasses on, it's not ready yet. Compare it to AutoX videos. And you can't expect others to follow this path, it's not like Tesla is going to make it available to others.
- simondotau 4y ago
  I didn't say FSD beta was "ready". I merely assert that it is demonstrating remarkable competence in spatial sensing. If spatial sensing isn't a problem—and clearly it is not—it makes no sense to add LiDAR, which only does point cloud spatial sensing. The real "hard problem" of self-driving is in the path planner, not spatial sensing. I hadn't heard of AutoX. I watched a couple of their videos. Despite being videos cherry-picked by the developer they show a car being driven in cities at slow speed and on faster arterials seemingly unable to drive without ping-ponging. No evidence that these cars could ever drive on roads they haven't been directly trained on. By comparison, thousands of videos of FSD beta are being posted by hundreds of real world vehicle owners driving intentionally challenging routes in dozens of distinct geographic jurisdictions. It is showing remarkable progress, but of course there's still limitations; understandable when exposed to such a massive long tail of edge cases. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4TnvvuGqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4TnvvuGqM
  - upbeat_general 4y ago
    The current SOTA in monocular “spatial sensing” (3D object detection) is just much less reliable compared to LiDAR-only systems. You can’t conclude that spatial sensing isn’t a problem because it didn’t crash with a monocular camera. The test is whether it accurately detects all relevant actors/objects in the scene and does so reliably. From a couple FSD videos I’ve seen, the issues center around perception (failing to get the right lane lines, certain detections disappearing briefly, etc.)