Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They should only detect driveable space. I'm interested to hear how you decide what's drivable without detecting things that decide if roads are undrivable.
Obviously, roads should have minefields and electrified fences to ensure drivability. Potholes will be outlawed. Weather will be punishable by death.
I'm sure what I said was poorly worded. What I meant was that reliable ranging with dense sampling should be the primary mechanism that self-driving vehicles use to determine what areas of the road are safe to drive on, and probably what is even a road at all. I think efforts to avoid this are based on cost, not safety or functionality.
Other signals are just too transient to be safe. Vision-based classification-first regimes are not guaranteed to detect hazards as reliably as a point ranging device, is that controversial?
Potholes exist, but are geometric negative space. Clues to their existence can be provided by imagery or other sensors (which are subject to all the weather effects also, by the way), but a positive detection of good road or pothole should have priority.