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If the goal is to be safer than a human driver then it will require better than human sensors, such as lidar. Camera only approaches will not stand the test of

If the goal is to be safer than a human driver then it will require better than human sensors, such as lidar. Camera only approaches will not stand the test of time.

thebruce87m 2y ago
> If the goal is to be safer than a human driver then it will require better than human sensors, such as lidar. Having the same sensors as a human but being more attentive would be a step up. That said, I think camera-only is not good enough for now.
- hn_acc1 2y ago
  So, actual androids?
- bigfatkitten 2y ago
  The sensors they have now aren't even as good as a human. The cameras have nowhere near the dynamic range of the average human eyeball, which isn't even particularly spectacular as far as eyes go.
  - thebruce87m 2y ago
    I agree. My point was from “all other thing being equal” that extra attentiveness on its own is a plus. I work in computer vision AI and am aware of current limitations.
toss1 2y ago
Yup. The concept that biological systems have made 3D vision, navigation, and object avoidance work without LIDAR is certainly attractive. But there is a LOT more to it than just a photosensor and a bunch of calculations. The sensors themselves have many properties unmatched by cameras, including wider dynamic range, processing in the retina and optic nerve itself, and more, and the intelligence attached to every biological eye also is built upon a body that moves in 3D space, so has a LOT of alternate sensory input to fuse into an internal 3D model and processing space. We are nowhere near being able to replicate that. The more appropriate analogy would be the wheel or powered fixed wing aircraft. Yes, we're finally starting to be able to build walking robots and wing-flapping aircraft, and those may ultimately be the best solution for many things. But, in the meantime, the 'artificial' solution of wheels and fixed airfoils gets us much further. Ultimately, camera-only vision systems will likely be the best solution, but until then, integrating LIDAR will get us much further.
- cmiller1 2y ago
  > Ultimately, camera-only vision systems will likely be the best solution, but until then, integrating LIDAR will get us much further. Why though? How could it possibly be better than camera plus other sensors?
  - toss1 2y ago
    Because LIDAR specifically gives you the range or distance to each object. While in theory this should be possible with multiple cameras and stereoscopic vision/analysis, it obviously is not as simple in practice as it seems in theory. The additional depth info is also critical in identifying objects. For example, several drivers of Tesla vehicles have been beheaded when a semi-truck turned/crossed in front of them and the car on autopilot evidently identified the white side of the trailer as sky and drove right under it, removing the roof and the occupant's heads. LIDAR would have identified a large flat object at range decreasing at the approximate speed of the vehicle, and presumably the self-driving system would have taken different action.
    - hn_acc1 2y ago
      I think you misunderstood the question you responded to. The question was in response to (edit: your own conclusion) "ultimately, camera-only will be the best system" - and was wondering why the same camera system PLUS more sensors wouldn't be better? edit: I think perhaps you didn't quite mean it that way, but it sounded like you were saying "eventually, camera-only will be superior to any other possible system, including camera + other sensors", which just seems nonsensical.
      - toss1 2y ago
        Ah, got it now, and it's an excellent point. Mostly thinking the idea of cameras(+intelligence)-only may be best in the end just from perspective of smallest effective resources and assuming biomimicry is best. To your point, there are MANY situations where that will never be true, where the extra 3D info will absolutely make a difference. Going back to the wheel/leg and fixed/flapping wing analogues; legs and flapping wings will likely always be superior for rough terrain and tight spaces. However, legged vehicles will never be as fast as wheels can go on smoother roads, and similarly, flapping wings will never be superior to fixed-wings+power for long haul or heavy air transport. So, you're right — it's Horses For Courses — different solutions will work best in different situations.
ajross 2y ago
I don't see how that follows. To first approximation zero human-at-fault accidents are due to "sensor failure". I mean, sure, somewhere out there a pedestrian was killed while walking in a white-out blizzard. But far, far more were hit by drivers looking at their phones with perfectly good eyes.
- cozzyd 2y ago
  Accidents due to sun in eyes or someone illegally driving with poor vision surely happen.
  - ajross 2y ago
    Again though, with vanishing frequency in comparison to dumb mistakes and irresponsible decision-making. "Sensor failure" just isn't a major limit on traffic safety.
    - cozzyd 2y ago
      Indeed, seems like 9,000 accidents a year can be attributed to sun glare in the US, which is indeed a tiny proportion of crashes.
      - bigfatkitten 2y ago
        And that is usually based on what the driver said (often as an excuse for some other form of negligence), rather than being a provable cause.
standeven 2y ago
I think vision-only approaches can work, but our eyes and brain are amazing and it would take some serious hardware. Our eyes have a 200-degree FOV, providing a 576 megapixel landscape, with 13ms of latency. Plus there are 6 billion neurons in the visual cortex alone to process the images, which are then fed to another 80 billion neurons that can interpret and react to the data. Peppering a few webcam-quality cameras around a car and plugging it into an Intel Atom processor probably won't be better than our eyes and brain, even if the cameras don't blink or get tired. It's only going to get better though.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Our eyes have a 200-degree FOV, providing a 576 megapixel landscape, with 13ms of latency. ...only if you count the field of view you get from moving your eyeballs. You wouldn't say a PTZ camera has "360 FOV" just because it can rotate around. The "576 megapixel" figure is also questionable. Peak resolution only exists in the fovea. Everywhere else is blurry and much lower resolution. You don't notice this because your eyes does it automatically, but the actual information you can receive at any given time is far less than "576 megapixel".
  - standeven 2y ago
    The quoted latency and neuron counts can also be questioned, but my point stands: it's hard to compete with the human eye and brain with current (affordable) camera and processing hardware.
- nomel 2y ago
  There are corner cases of vision that cannot work because it's not mathematically possible, like a featureless wall (or ground, in case of recent mars crash). And, vision can't work in/penetrate heavy snow or fog, which is transparent to radar. Vision is an indirect measurement. Lidar/radar is a direct measurement. I'm curious if there are any other safety critical systems that uses such massively indirect measurements?
  - standeven 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

If the goal is to be safer than a human driver then it will require better than human sensors, such as lidar. Camera only approaches will not stand the test of time.

thebruce87m 2y ago

> If the goal is to be safer than a human driver then it will require better than human sensors, such as lidar. Having the same sensors as a human but being more attentive would be a step up. That said, I think camera-only is not good enough for now.

hn_acc1 2y ago
So, actual androids?
bigfatkitten 2y ago
The sensors they have now aren't even as good as a human. The cameras have nowhere near the dynamic range of the average human eyeball, which isn't even particularly spectacular as far as eyes go.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  I agree. My point was from “all other thing being equal” that extra attentiveness on its own is a plus. I work in computer vision AI and am aware of current limitations.

toss1 2y ago

Yup. The concept that biological systems have made 3D vision, navigation, and object avoidance work without LIDAR is certainly attractive. But there is a LOT more to it than just a photosensor and a bunch of calculations. The sensors themselves have many properties unmatched by cameras, including wider dynamic range, processing in the retina and optic nerve itself, and more, and the intelligence attached to every biological eye also is built upon a body that moves in 3D space, so has a LOT of alternate sensory input to fuse into an internal 3D model and processing space. We are nowhere near being able to replicate that. The more appropriate analogy would be the wheel or powered fixed wing aircraft. Yes, we're finally starting to be able to build walking robots and wing-flapping aircraft, and those may ultimately be the best solution for many things. But, in the meantime, the 'artificial' solution of wheels and fixed airfoils gets us much further. Ultimately, camera-only vision systems will likely be the best solution, but until then, integrating LIDAR will get us much further.

cmiller1 2y ago
> Ultimately, camera-only vision systems will likely be the best solution, but until then, integrating LIDAR will get us much further. Why though? How could it possibly be better than camera plus other sensors?
- toss1 2y ago
  Because LIDAR specifically gives you the range or distance to each object. While in theory this should be possible with multiple cameras and stereoscopic vision/analysis, it obviously is not as simple in practice as it seems in theory. The additional depth info is also critical in identifying objects. For example, several drivers of Tesla vehicles have been beheaded when a semi-truck turned/crossed in front of them and the car on autopilot evidently identified the white side of the trailer as sky and drove right under it, removing the roof and the occupant's heads. LIDAR would have identified a large flat object at range decreasing at the approximate speed of the vehicle, and presumably the self-driving system would have taken different action.
  - hn_acc1 2y ago
    I think you misunderstood the question you responded to. The question was in response to (edit: your own conclusion) "ultimately, camera-only will be the best system" - and was wondering why the same camera system PLUS more sensors wouldn't be better? edit: I think perhaps you didn't quite mean it that way, but it sounded like you were saying "eventually, camera-only will be superior to any other possible system, including camera + other sensors", which just seems nonsensical.
    - toss1 2y ago
      Ah, got it now, and it's an excellent point. Mostly thinking the idea of cameras(+intelligence)-only may be best in the end just from perspective of smallest effective resources and assuming biomimicry is best. To your point, there are MANY situations where that will never be true, where the extra 3D info will absolutely make a difference. Going back to the wheel/leg and fixed/flapping wing analogues; legs and flapping wings will likely always be superior for rough terrain and tight spaces. However, legged vehicles will never be as fast as wheels can go on smoother roads, and similarly, flapping wings will never be superior to fixed-wings+power for long haul or heavy air transport. So, you're right — it's Horses For Courses — different solutions will work best in different situations.

ajross 2y ago

I don't see how that follows. To first approximation zero human-at-fault accidents are due to "sensor failure". I mean, sure, somewhere out there a pedestrian was killed while walking in a white-out blizzard. But far, far more were hit by drivers looking at their phones with perfectly good eyes.

cozzyd 2y ago
Accidents due to sun in eyes or someone illegally driving with poor vision surely happen.
- ajross 2y ago
  Again though, with vanishing frequency in comparison to dumb mistakes and irresponsible decision-making. "Sensor failure" just isn't a major limit on traffic safety.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    Indeed, seems like 9,000 accidents a year can be attributed to sun glare in the US, which is indeed a tiny proportion of crashes.
    - bigfatkitten 2y ago
      And that is usually based on what the driver said (often as an excuse for some other form of negligence), rather than being a provable cause.

standeven 2y ago

I think vision-only approaches can work, but our eyes and brain are amazing and it would take some serious hardware. Our eyes have a 200-degree FOV, providing a 576 megapixel landscape, with 13ms of latency. Plus there are 6 billion neurons in the visual cortex alone to process the images, which are then fed to another 80 billion neurons that can interpret and react to the data. Peppering a few webcam-quality cameras around a car and plugging it into an Intel Atom processor probably won't be better than our eyes and brain, even if the cameras don't blink or get tired. It's only going to get better though.

gruez 2y ago
>Our eyes have a 200-degree FOV, providing a 576 megapixel landscape, with 13ms of latency. ...only if you count the field of view you get from moving your eyeballs. You wouldn't say a PTZ camera has "360 FOV" just because it can rotate around. The "576 megapixel" figure is also questionable. Peak resolution only exists in the fovea. Everywhere else is blurry and much lower resolution. You don't notice this because your eyes does it automatically, but the actual information you can receive at any given time is far less than "576 megapixel".
- standeven 2y ago
  The quoted latency and neuron counts can also be questioned, but my point stands: it's hard to compete with the human eye and brain with current (affordable) camera and processing hardware.
nomel 2y ago
There are corner cases of vision that cannot work because it's not mathematically possible, like a featureless wall (or ground, in case of recent mars crash). And, vision can't work in/penetrate heavy snow or fog, which is transparent to radar. Vision is an indirect measurement. Lidar/radar is a direct measurement. I'm curious if there are any other safety critical systems that uses such massively indirect measurements?
- standeven 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]