I don’t know why people are so quick to defend the need of LIDAR when it’s clear the challenges in self driving are not with data acquisition.
Sure, there are a few corner cases that it would perform better than visual cameras, but a new array of sensors won’t solve self driving. Similarly, the lack of LIDAR does not forbid self driving, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to drive either.
challenges in self driving are not with data acquisition.
What?!?! Of course it is.
We can already run all this shit through a simulator and it works great, but that’s because the computer knows the exact position, orientation, velocity of every object in a scene.
In the real world, the underlying problem is the computer doesn’t know what’s around it, and what those things around doing or going to do.
It’s 100% a data acquisition problem.
Source? I do autonomous vehicle control for a living. In environments much more complicated than a paved road with accepted set rules.
You’re confusing data acquisition with interpretation. A LIDAR won’t label the data for your AD system and won’t add much to an existing array of visible spectrum cameras.
You say the underlying problem is that the computer doesn’t know what’s around it. But its surroundings are reliably captured by functional sensors. Therefore it’s not a matter of acquisition, but processing of the data.
won’t add much to an existing array of visible spectrum cameras.
You do realize LIDAR is just a camera, but has an accurate distance per pixel right?
It absolutely adds everything.
But its surroundings are reliably captured by functional sensors
No it’s not. That’s the point. LIDAR is the functional sensor required.
You can not rely on stereoscopic camera’s.
The resolution of distance is not there.
It’s not there for humans.
It’s not there for the simple reason of physics.
Unless you spread those camera’s out to a width that’s impractical, and even then it STILL wouldn’t be as accurate as LIDAR.
You are more then welcome to try it yourself.
You can be even as stupid as Elon and dump money and rep into thinking that it’s easier or cheaper without LIDAR.
It doesn’t work, and it’ll never work as good as a LIDAR system.
Stereoscopic Camera’s will always be more expensive than LIDAR from a computational standpoint.
AI will do a hell of a lot better recognizing things via a LIDAR Camera than a Stereoscopic Camera.
