Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view • Hacker News Board

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#81

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #49

kensai wrote: post #45

Am surprised no one yet cited Elon saying "this is fool's errand" because of price, complexity, etc. I think LIDAR will improve significantly the safety of vehicles (autonomous or not) because it can definitely see better and deeper, even in damning weather conditions (rain, fog, haze). Alas, the price of these devices has to come down at least one order of magnitude. Maybe even two. Still, I am really thankful that…

As far as I’m aware LIDAR cannot see though fog, as the light is dispersed, and even light rain might reduce range significantly. Tesla cars have radar which can see through any weather condition and detect transparent surfaces, invisible to LIDAR.

> LIDAR cannot see though fog

Simply depends on what wavelength of light you use.

Water-absorbing frequencies are nice because the atmosphere then shields most light, giving you nice SNR from your laser illumination. But better sensors could work around this, using other frequencies that can 'see' through fog.

It's certainly a technological limitation of current systems, but it's not an inherent limitation.

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#82

Post by Reelin » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #34

baybal2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mm wave radar + sar postprocessing? Given you have a 100% static scene, it should work great

Are you aware of any low-cost, consumer-oriented products for that? Perhaps my Google-Fu is weak today, but I'm only finding research / military projects.

Is something like this (http://www.ti.com/product/IWR6843) relevant? There are also older products such as this (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/a/acconeer-ab/a...).

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#83

Post by nullc » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

Reelin wrote: post #79

nullc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

865nm too, presumably it only passes as class 1 eye-safe due to an time x power x aperture exposure calculation... I wonder how much we have to blame ITAR restrictions on >1555nm lasers for things like this not being more eye-safe on a by-wavelength basis.

> I wonder how much we have to blame ITAR restrictions on >1555nm lasers ... I tried looking up information about this (restriction details, otherwise feasible uses beyond that wavelength, etc) but it's hard for an outsider to quickly make sense of. Any chance you could elaborate?

https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/regulations-docs...

The main section on lasers starts on page 47. The rules are very complicated. See 6A995 d and f.

Lasers are also covered in other sections like 6A205. (I'm amused by Raman shifters being covered-- they're literally just pressurized tubes with hydrogen and mirrors at the end-- I can't imagine anyone qualified to use one couldn't have one fabricated pretty much anywhere).

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#84

Post by Darkphibre » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

blensor wrote: post #28

derek_frome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is a ~80% discount on other 128 beam sensors, it's unfortunately still out of reach for the hacker community. We absolutely plan to get prices down to an affordable level for individuals in well under 5 years! Also, Ouster runs a sponsorship program that gives deeply discounted or free sensors to cool projects. If you have a cool idea, shoot me an email: derek.frome at ouster dot io

Might be interesting to add the Ouster sensor to our sensor simulation [1] to give people the ability to play around with the data even if it's outside the price range? [1] blensor.org

Oh, this is interesting! I've been putting together a 6-Kinect rig to take a 3D scan of my body as I go on hormone treatment and an exercise routine, monitoring subtle changes over time.

Does it support Kinect v1 and changing the orientation using the built-in motors?

I also have a few projects using photogrammetry reconstruction of convention booths using 2D images. I've been interested in adding in lidar/pointcloud cameras...

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#85

Post by sevencolors » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:44 PM UTC

entangledqubit wrote: post #37

Does anyone know whether eye safety is de facto maintained when your eye is being continuously bombarded by the 100+ scanning lasers being emitted from each of the 100 cars in the vicinity of an intersection? I'm on board with the case with a handful of lasers scanning by quickly but the energy may really start to add up in certain plausible future scenarios.

I've been asking this as well, I've never gotten a satisfactory answer. Other than "you can't see infrared".

I'm concerned once these become more prevalent on all cars or whatever else we stick these on. Curious if there's any studies on if it affects our eyes in anyway.

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#86

Post by max_res » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #32

Only temperature rated to -4F degrees. I hope they can get that lower. Up to ~25 days a year are <0F in Chicago for instance.

TL;DR: the operating temperature range of these sensors is small, nowhere near automotive spec, and a real problem at high temperatures. Also, watch the fine print on Ouster's thermal specs.

The bigger issue is hot weather; electronics and lasers work well (often more efficiently) at cold temps, and the electrical power running through them self-heats the components. The problem arises when the environment is already hot, and the components still self-heat. This is a particularly large problem for LiDAR, where lasers are very sensitive to temperature and typically use some sort of thermoelectric controller to keep the laser itself at a precise constant temperature. But these thermoelectric devices are inefficient at cooling and lose control (go into thermal runaway) when things get too hot. Automotive component thermal specs (AEC-Q100) require operation (and start-up) at -40C up to anywhere from 70-150C depending on grade. Ouster's -10/-20C to 50C range actually relies on an external base heatsink being used, which they never picture and makes the sensor significantly heavier and larger. These sensors are a far cry from being ready for automotive use.

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#87

Post by jefft255 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #14

scotty79 wrote: post #4

I wonder how well this works if 20 such devices shine on the same object.

The duty cycles of lidars are generally low enough that interference is rare. The big problem in my experience is objects glinting in sunlight which isn't a problem if you're in in a warehouse but is for rooms with big windows or outside. In any event you always need to be filtering your inputs rather than taking every reading as a sure thing.

Honestly the sunlight issue has been variable for me. Velodyne processing seems to deal with that better than robosense.

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#88

Post by uuilly » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 12:09 AM UTC

kensai wrote: post #45

Am surprised no one yet cited Elon saying "this is fool's errand" because of price, complexity, etc. I think LIDAR will improve significantly the safety of vehicles (autonomous or not) because it can definitely see better and deeper, even in damning weather conditions (rain, fog, haze). Alas, the price of these devices has to come down at least one order of magnitude. Maybe even two. Still, I am really thankful that…

Lidar is solidly worse than the human eye in dust, rain etc. Waymo has struggled w/ dust devils in AZ. Cruise has struggled w/ steam vents in SF. I work at a John Deere subsidiary and we are quite interested in dust performance for field work. From our tests Lidar is low on the list for seeing through small particles.

Lots of things could fix this, less beam divergence, custom signals processing on multiple returns. But out of the box, it’s this statement does not hold true.

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#89

Post by apacala » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 12:11 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #65

kensai wrote: post #45

Am surprised no one yet cited Elon saying "this is fool's errand" because of price, complexity, etc. I think LIDAR will improve significantly the safety of vehicles (autonomous or not) because it can definitely see better and deeper, even in damning weather conditions (rain, fog, haze). Alas, the price of these devices has to come down at least one order of magnitude. Maybe even two. Still, I am really thankful that…

And this seems to prove him right with $6k - 16k price range. Far too expensive to be practical. Still the potential is there for it to be a useful component for self driving vehicles, only if the price comes down an order of magnitude.

Ouster CEO here.

This is single unit pricing. Volume discounts apply. Still work to do to get this in every honda civic, but it is possible with our technology.

Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view

#90

Post by apacala » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 12:15 AM UTC

gpm wrote: post #33

randyrand wrote: post #32

Only temperature rated to -4F degrees. I hope they can get that lower. Up to ~25 days a year are <0F in Chicago for instance.

That's just the device temperature right? If it's operating device temperature and not device storage temperature I think it's fine. -4f (-20c) is cold, the cabin of the car is heated to well above that. Just heat the lidar as well.

That's operating temp without external heater. Storage temp is lower.

Even automotive cameras have built in heaters to allow them to operate lower than -20C. Nothing preventing adding the same functionality to our sensors.