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Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

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Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#71

Post by tlear »

cal5k wrote: post #41
vaughnegut wrote: post #20

As a Canadian, it's the snow that's made me skeptical of self-driving cars. Seeing how much they depend on road markings to navigate in traffic properly is completely impossible in winter. Until that's solved, there's a lot of places that just can't use them for a lot of the year.

It seems plausible to me that LIDAR + radar could eventually outperform humans in white-out conditions. Here's an interesting bit of research on filtering out snow noise from a LIDAR point cloud: http://wavelab.uwaterloo.ca/?weblizar_portfolio=real-time-fi...

In those conditions maybe, problem is where is the road.. or lane. There are no markings of any kind when you have snow on the road. No marking you need to estimate where lanes are from what is near road and what other cars are doing. Exponentially harder problem

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#72

Post by ben509 »

archagon wrote: post #55
mdhen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those conditions sound like you wouldn't be driving. So, solved. Pull over and stop

While probably true, "then don't do that" almost never works as an excuse to convince new adopters of your technology.

I'm not so sure that's true. Or, maybe, "that's user error" is what works because it seems like it's far too easy to convince users to blame themselves.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#73

Post by gugagore »

cal5k wrote: post #41
vaughnegut wrote: post #20

As a Canadian, it's the snow that's made me skeptical of self-driving cars. Seeing how much they depend on road markings to navigate in traffic properly is completely impossible in winter. Until that's solved, there's a lot of places that just can't use them for a lot of the year.

It seems plausible to me that LIDAR + radar could eventually outperform humans in white-out conditions. Here's an interesting bit of research on filtering out snow noise from a LIDAR point cloud: http://wavelab.uwaterloo.ca/?weblizar_portfolio=real-time-fi...

But if snow occludes lane markings, which is what the parent was discussing, then no amount of sensing helps you see them, right?

(You can have a map with lane markings and localize on that map, though)

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#74

Post by jakeogh »

njarboe wrote: post #30
scj wrote: post #24

Driving in dry / warm conditions is simple mechanics. Driving in snow and ice is an art. In snow and ice, variables that are typically constant or static become dynamic. Formally dynamic variables now become multi-variable equations. For example: travelling down a hill normally requires dynamically factoring for the extra speed due to the incline. Under blizzard conditions you have to factor ice/snow volume, as well…

Or most people. If it is actually blizzard conditions, one should have a very serious reason to be on the road. If not, stay at home instead of driving. Snow days are called for schools. Maybe work in general also?

Bad trend when limitations of pre-programmed cars become apparent; treat the humans as the bugs.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#75

Post by Itsdijital »

seibelj wrote: post #19

I’ve taken downvotes from HN optimists for years about self driving cars. The slightest bit of criticism would have comments calling me an idiot 20 different ways. Then a single dead pedestrian changes all the news articles and the opinions change. We are a very, very long way away from self driving taxi cabs. What a total PR scam that was - but it did help valuations.

>Then a single dead pedestrian changes all the news articles and the opinions change.

Frankly, it didn't change my opinion at all. As far as I can tell, Uber is a train wreck of a company. When I first read the story I was kind of surprised, until I found out it was an Uber car.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#76

Post by furgooswft13 »

loeg wrote: post #46
fake-name wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, rain and snow interfere with millimetre wave radar too.

And visible spectrum light (human eyes).

And humans have the unique ability to instantly and reliably differentiate between visual noise and objects on the road they wish to avoid.

Lidar's record much less information than than 2 optical lenses (eyes). You got distance in 1, 2, or 2+1 dimensions, and intensity. Eyes can detect distance, wavelength, reflections, refraction, contrast, brightness etc. All with the assistance of the brain of course. If today's computers and software had the pattern matching capabilities of even a human child's brain (reasoning aside), a few moderate resolution video cameras would be all that is necessary for self driving.

But we're not there yet so we employ sensors with limited detection that is simpler to interpret programmatically.

I think even humans would have trouble interpreting the mess of lidar distance graphs in a rain/snow storm, though they'd still do better than current computers.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#77

Post by Itsdijital »

hanoz wrote: post #49
giacaglia wrote: post #35

That's because of LIDAR, rain and snow interfere with LIDAR. A simple Google search shows that https://www.quora.com/Autonomous-driving-how-good-is-LiDAR-u...

As LIDAR's pièce de résistance to date has been its ability to "see through" forest canopies to the terrain below, I don't understand how rain or snow should present an unsurmountable obstacle to seeing the road ahead.

Trees don't refract and reflect light.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#78

Post by archagon »

ben509 wrote: post #72
archagon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While probably true, "then don't do that" almost never works as an excuse to convince new adopters of your technology.

I'm not so sure that's true. Or, maybe, "that's user error" is what works because it seems like it's far too easy to convince users to blame themselves.

Well, when all your friends can drive in the snow but your fancy-pants car can't, that's not a very compelling value proposition.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#79

Post by Itsdijital »

gmadsen wrote: post #50
jefft255 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really a good point. When New England/Canada drivers drive through a snowstorm, the vast majority of them get to where they were going just fine. In comparison, basically no self driving car could safely drive 100 ft during a snowstorm. Getting self driving cars to be as good as humans during harsh weather (which is not that good I'll give you that) will take 10 years in my opinion (I say this as a grad st…

I'd say betting any tech 10 years down the line is a fools game. in 2008, people were saying the same thing about object detection, or literally 100s of other things that deep learning has done that people said was impossible. Autonomous cars are already safer on ice. being able to individually apply abs to each wheel in micro second speeds of detection of change in terrain is far more accurate than any human. As far…

In 2015 there were AI experts claiming that a computer wouldn't beat a 9-dan pro at go for at least another decade. It happened a year later.

Re: Self-Driving Cars Can Handle Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Snow

#80

Post by rayiner »

mdhen wrote: post #54
athenot wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps San Francisco rain is solved, but I doubt the downpours we get in the South East are solved. Zero visibility is just one thing, how about hydroplaning when there is over 1" of standing water on the road because it's coming down faster than gravity can drain it away? Or spotting that your lane is fine but the opposite one is flooded so that car coming the opposite direction is going to have to borrow your lane…

Those conditions sound like you wouldn't be driving. So, solved. Pull over and stop

LOL. In Atlanta, highway traffic just slows down to 40 in torrential downpour conditions where you can’t see lane markings.
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