7 ms·

No rotating laser dome on the roof?

by chiph 13y ago

nabla9 13y ago
LIDAR does not work in rain, on wet roads or in the snow. Google car drives only in good weather in California for a reason. In Sweden they could drive maybe a week in a year. ... Sommaren är kort de mesta regnar bort ..
- Qworg 13y ago
  Google currently has a req out for a electromechanical engineer to work on a new sensor system. I'm betting they're building a new sensor for their vehicle - rotating, but perhaps not LIDAR. Cracking the heavy rain/snow problem would require more than just a new design though - you'd need a totally different sensor modality, a mix of sensors that can extract enough data, or a system that's far more robust to noise.
  - checker 13y ago
    I realize the costs would be high, but would there be a way to embed some information in/near the roadway that would assist the onboard systems? I think there might be some advantages in making the road smarter in addition to the car.
    - ensignavenger 13y ago
      I think this is ultimately the best way forward, but I am excited to see other tech alternatives develop, too. I really don't think it would be that expensive, at least along Interstates and major highways, to embed a trace wire to help guide self driving cars. (At least, during regular maintenance and new construction- tearing up roads to add it would obviously be expensive).
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      Even if you use a sensor fabric on the road way, as well as high precision/precise positioning GPS (sub-centimeter resolution) for lane keeping, you will still need a sensor that can build the environment around the car in a model software can process. Some sort of lidar/radar combination I believe.
    - orofino 13y ago
      There are advantages, but this poses a high bar for adoption. The current approach of keeping the entire suite of sensors on the car means that infrastructure won't need immediate upgrades to support autonomous vehicles. I have no doubt that smarter roads are in our future, but they pose too high of a price for wide spread adoption of autonomous vehicles at the outset.
- threeseed 13y ago
  Apparently LIDAR does work in rain albeit with degradation in it's effectiveness. Regardless I wasn't aware of this before. Why would Google chose this technology ? It's bizarre.
  - ghaff 13y ago
    For Google, sensor technology is pretty much an implementation detail at this point. I imagine their interest is much more in vetting out the basic concept and understanding where the gaps are than it is on pushing toward getting a near- to mid-term product on the roads. On the other hand, I imagine that auto manufacturers are much more interested in getting to viable product--whether it's improved assistive driving features (collision avoidance, speed matching, etc.) or, in the somewhat longer term, autonomy for some limited range of conditions. Hence, for example, Volvo's involvement of government as well.
  - glenra 13y ago
    A car that only reliably self-drives in good weather conditions is still (a) quite a hard problem, (b) almost certainly a commercially viable product on its own (c) a pretty good start on a car that reliably self-drives in any weather.
    - aianus 13y ago
      I'm not sure about (b) since you'd need to buy two cars unless your boss will accept "but it was raining" as an excuse not to show up for work.
      - ceejayoz 13y ago
        A self-driving car hardly has to be only self-driving.
        aianus 13y ago
        You're right of course, I feel silly now. It wouldn't be as cool, though. I was imagining something like a limo without the driver compartment.
- spyder 13y ago
  There is "Rain Room" art installation that uses depth sensing IR cameras (not LIDAR) to stop the raining around peoples in the room: http://youtu.be/EkvazIZx-F0?t=1m56s http://youtu.be/EkvazIZx-F0?t=1m56s Maybe it works only because they use multiple cameras and they don't need too high resolution.
  - trhway 13y ago
    the original DARPA Grand Challenge cars were using range of sensors, incl. ultrasound, stereo-cameras setup, and mm-wavelength radar by the team who had the money for it. LIDAR is just easiest to process (to get 3D scene representation of surroundings) and gets the highest bang/buck ratio in its range of applicability. You need to complement it with other sensors to get wider range of conditions covered.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
andrelaszlo 13y ago
I spotted one of them close to where I work: https://plus.google.com/105073266122249925354/posts/a7XDM2xgkWr https://plus.google.com/105073266122249925354/posts/a7XDM2xg... There's SOME kind of thingy on the roof. Not sure what it is though. Any ideas? Didn't want to go too close though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_83efj9Xdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_83efj9Xdg :)
- Qworg 13y ago
  Those look like dual GPS antennas.

No rotating laser dome on the roof?

by chiph 13y ago

No rotating laser dome on the roof?

LIDAR does not work in rain, on wet roads or in the snow. Google car drives only in good weather in California for a reason. In Sweden they could drive maybe a week in a year. ... Sommaren är kort de mesta regnar bort ..

Qworg 13y ago
Google currently has a req out for a electromechanical engineer to work on a new sensor system. I'm betting they're building a new sensor for their vehicle - rotating, but perhaps not LIDAR. Cracking the heavy rain/snow problem would require more than just a new design though - you'd need a totally different sensor modality, a mix of sensors that can extract enough data, or a system that's far more robust to noise.
- checker 13y ago
  I realize the costs would be high, but would there be a way to embed some information in/near the roadway that would assist the onboard systems? I think there might be some advantages in making the road smarter in addition to the car.
  - ensignavenger 13y ago
    I think this is ultimately the best way forward, but I am excited to see other tech alternatives develop, too. I really don't think it would be that expensive, at least along Interstates and major highways, to embed a trace wire to help guide self driving cars. (At least, during regular maintenance and new construction- tearing up roads to add it would obviously be expensive).
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Even if you use a sensor fabric on the road way, as well as high precision/precise positioning GPS (sub-centimeter resolution) for lane keeping, you will still need a sensor that can build the environment around the car in a model software can process. Some sort of lidar/radar combination I believe.
  - orofino 13y ago
    There are advantages, but this poses a high bar for adoption. The current approach of keeping the entire suite of sensors on the car means that infrastructure won't need immediate upgrades to support autonomous vehicles. I have no doubt that smarter roads are in our future, but they pose too high of a price for wide spread adoption of autonomous vehicles at the outset.
threeseed 13y ago
Apparently LIDAR does work in rain albeit with degradation in it's effectiveness. Regardless I wasn't aware of this before. Why would Google chose this technology ? It's bizarre.
- ghaff 13y ago
  For Google, sensor technology is pretty much an implementation detail at this point. I imagine their interest is much more in vetting out the basic concept and understanding where the gaps are than it is on pushing toward getting a near- to mid-term product on the roads. On the other hand, I imagine that auto manufacturers are much more interested in getting to viable product--whether it's improved assistive driving features (collision avoidance, speed matching, etc.) or, in the somewhat longer term, autonomy for some limited range of conditions. Hence, for example, Volvo's involvement of government as well.
- glenra 13y ago
  A car that only reliably self-drives in good weather conditions is still (a) quite a hard problem, (b) almost certainly a commercially viable product on its own (c) a pretty good start on a car that reliably self-drives in any weather.
  - aianus 13y ago
    I'm not sure about (b) since you'd need to buy two cars unless your boss will accept "but it was raining" as an excuse not to show up for work.
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      A self-driving car hardly has to be only self-driving.
      - aianus 13y ago
        You're right of course, I feel silly now. It wouldn't be as cool, though. I was imagining something like a limo without the driver compartment.
spyder 13y ago
There is "Rain Room" art installation that uses depth sensing IR cameras (not LIDAR) to stop the raining around peoples in the room: http://youtu.be/EkvazIZx-F0?t=1m56s http://youtu.be/EkvazIZx-F0?t=1m56s Maybe it works only because they use multiple cameras and they don't need too high resolution.
- trhway 13y ago
  the original DARPA Grand Challenge cars were using range of sensors, incl. ultrasound, stereo-cameras setup, and mm-wavelength radar by the team who had the money for it. LIDAR is just easiest to process (to get 3D scene representation of surroundings) and gets the highest bang/buck ratio in its range of applicability. You need to complement it with other sensors to get wider range of conditions covered.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

andrelaszlo 13y ago

I spotted one of them close to where I work: https://plus.google.com/105073266122249925354/posts/a7XDM2xgkWr https://plus.google.com/105073266122249925354/posts/a7XDM2xg... There's SOME kind of thingy on the roof. Not sure what it is though. Any ideas? Didn't want to go too close though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_83efj9Xdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_83efj9Xdg :)

Qworg 13y ago
Those look like dual GPS antennas.