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Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 73 posts

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#31
post #27

With the news about Uber and Tesla accidents, it’s been making me wonder: why not equip these cars with one more sensor: an infrared camera. Combining thermal information with extant information will be a great boon in making intelligent decisions, no?

I 100% agree but I would bet the issue is unit cost for the hardware. Anything with reasonable resolution is going to be in the four digit dollar range per sensor.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#32

I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.

> they’re all failing in low light conditions Isn't this an issue with lights ?

No, because car lights only illuminate some of the surrounding area. You can't illuminate much more without causing issues for other road users (which is why there are laws around car head lamp & bulb design & usage).

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#33

I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.

>I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.”

How is easy: it doesn't cost anything, and makes them profit.

It's like how the had the gal to nam their system "Autopilot" when it's not, and full awareness is required from the driver in the small print...

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#34
post #18

> "in most cases avoided hitting the pedestrian" I am not sure if this result merits the use of the word "aced" in the title.

I think it's fair to say that whether you hit the pedestrian is more or less irrelevant to your score on a pedestrian detection test.

Well, it's not irrelevant to a "timely pedestrian detection" test, which is what actually matters in self-driving cars...

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#35
post #10

Basically none of them are good enough for a real world scenario in a busy city. But they may save life on some scenarios which is good. They can achieve a huge safety improvement by forcing speed limit. But somehow car manufacturers don’t want to implement it.

> Basically none of them are good enough for a real world scenario in a busy city

So what's "good enough"? Even if these systems don't prevent all collisions they'll often vastly reduce the speeds at which they happen.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#36

I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.

I own a 3 and my opinion is while people are raving over the new summon features they should instead realize that it also shows how far off autonomous driving truly is. Just go watch all the videos, all we truly have is a 60k RC car that moves slower than a RC car and still requires permission to move.

Now the current software does very well on limited access roads; highways and interstates; and has for over a year that I have owned the car. It does fine on two lane roads but the use cases there are far more limited and mostly to showing off for friends. Well that and doing stuff you normally would wait till your stopped to do.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#37

I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.

They recognize much more objects on the road but major problem is to do not cause a lot of false alarms. e.g. You don't really want to drive car which decided that plastic bag on the highway is reason for emergency braking, on the other hand is that really plastic bag or some drunk person who is sleeping on the road... I remember when Volvo introduced IntelliSafe technology few years ago that car was totally "paranoi…

If it's confused between a plastic bag and a human, it hasn't recognised it.

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#39
post #2

I have to turn the pedestrian detection off every time I drive past the local school. Why? The kids figured out that it's really easy to make new cars emergency brake by just pretending to walk onto the road. People suck.

Beginning of pranks to come with self drive cars.

Imagine when someone realised you can slam on the brakes in front of X brand of car and it prioritises avoiding the car in front over all else

Re: Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests

#40
post #31
post #27

With the news about Uber and Tesla accidents, it’s been making me wonder: why not equip these cars with one more sensor: an infrared camera. Combining thermal information with extant information will be a great boon in making intelligent decisions, no?

I 100% agree but I would bet the issue is unit cost for the hardware. Anything with reasonable resolution is going to be in the four digit dollar range per sensor.

This seems totally reasonable for an actual damn autopilot
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