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Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

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Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#361

Post by [deleted] »

ion_fury wrote: post #239
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> did not strike me as a dig It wasn't a dig. It was calling out a bullshit move that, in my opinion, Andrej deployed out of panic more than strategically. (My evidence for this being Andrej eventually gave a good answer.)

i just dont get it. lex says "lets re-frame the question: can a language model drive a car?" this doesnt have any insinuations about andrej's intentions or motives. if it were calling out bullshit it would be "lets re-frame the question: why is elon musk never wrong?" lex kisses elon musks ass, last time i checked hes on musks side in the lidar debate and also lex has a record of listening patiently no matter what an…

[deleted]

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#362

Post by bpanon »

diskzero wrote: post #23
eachro wrote: post #4

So the key question is how much of an improvement does radar/sensors/etc give you over just using computer vision?

As someone working in the field, I would never choose to eliminate the information provided by radar, lidar and any other sensor technology. Depending only on camera information would be too limiting.

You haven't solved the problem though.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#363

Post by somat »

YZF wrote: post #233
sumedh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't see how the camera is going to detect an object at pitch dark Lights?

A car typically doesn't have lights shining in all directions. My Tesla doesn't at an rate. At night, backing into my driveway, I can barely see anything on the back-up camera unless the brake lights come on. If it's raining heavily it's much worse. But the ultrasonic sensors are really good at detecting obstacles pretty much all around.

Just curious, do teslas have a reverse light?

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#364

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

Reason077 wrote: post #257
RC_ITR wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, yes, cars that are programmed to have AEB: perform well at AEB and not other tasks. We are in agreement here. (I even agree with you that those cars use Radar for AEB). Now, where we disagree is you implying that cars with AEB-level radar (literally $10 off-the-shelf parts with whatever sensor fusion some MobilEye intern dreams ups) are somehow the same as self-driving cars (the goal of Tesla Autopilot). Every se…

> ”There is no one sensor that will do it. Full stop.” Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts). In theory, a sufficiently capable AI should be able to drive a car at least as well as a human can using the same input: vision.

>Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts).

This is wrong and I was surprised to hear them say it was enough in the video.

We don't have car horns and sirens for your eyes. You will often hear something long before you see it. This is important for emergency vehicles. Once you hear it, a good driver will immediately slow down and pull to the side, or delay movement to give space for the vehicle.

Does this mean self driving vehicles can't detect emergency vehicles until they appear on camera? That's not encouraging.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#365

Post by gizmo »

oxfordmale wrote: post #337
jholman wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, that's not at all a good paraphrase. Q: "Does [removing some sensors] make the perception problem harder, or easier?" (note, this is literally what Lex asked, your restatement is misleading) A: [paraphrasing] "Well more sensor diversity makes it harder to focus on the thing that I believe really moves the needle, so by narrowing the space of consideration, I think we'll get better results" Karpathy might not be t…

It is definitely a clever marketing pitch, as there is plenty of evidence to back up that LIDAR makes self-driving cars significantly safer. However, despite the hype, Teslas aren't really self driving cars at the moment, so it seems an acceptable commercial decision wrapped up in a clever sales pitch.

That's also true for high resolution maps. The question is whether you're solving for self-driving on highways or a handful of mapped city centers or whether you want to solve for the real thing. Tesla is all-in on FULL self driving, and most other companies are betting on driver assistance or gps-locked self-driving. If Tesla can get FSD to work in the next couple of years then they're vindicated. If FSD requires a weak form of generalized intelligence (plausible) then FSD isn't happening anytime soon and investing in more sensors and GPS maps is correct.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#366

Post by codeflo »

Reason077 wrote: post #257
RC_ITR wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, yes, cars that are programmed to have AEB: perform well at AEB and not other tasks. We are in agreement here. (I even agree with you that those cars use Radar for AEB). Now, where we disagree is you implying that cars with AEB-level radar (literally $10 off-the-shelf parts with whatever sensor fusion some MobilEye intern dreams ups) are somehow the same as self-driving cars (the goal of Tesla Autopilot). Every se…

> ”There is no one sensor that will do it. Full stop.” Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts). In theory, a sufficiently capable AI should be able to drive a car at least as well as a human can using the same input: vision.

> In theory, a sufficiently capable AI should be able to drive a car at least as well as a human can using the same input: vision.

In theory, cars should be use mechanical legs instead of wheels for transportation, that's how animals do it. In theory, plane wings should flap around, that's the way birds do it. My point being: the way biology solved something may not always be the best way to do it with technology.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#367

Post by tibbydudeza »

Reason077 wrote: post #257
RC_ITR wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, yes, cars that are programmed to have AEB: perform well at AEB and not other tasks. We are in agreement here. (I even agree with you that those cars use Radar for AEB). Now, where we disagree is you implying that cars with AEB-level radar (literally $10 off-the-shelf parts with whatever sensor fusion some MobilEye intern dreams ups) are somehow the same as self-driving cars (the goal of Tesla Autopilot). Every se…

> ”There is no one sensor that will do it. Full stop.” Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts). In theory, a sufficiently capable AI should be able to drive a car at least as well as a human can using the same input: vision.

Running neural networks tweaked by million years of evolution.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#368

Post by LightG »

eightysixfour wrote: post #219
RC_ITR wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first famous autopilot crash was because a white semi-truck was washed out by the sun and confused for an overhead sign. That's literally trivial for a car with radar to detect. Amazing how people talk about stuff they have no idea about when it comes to Tesla.

Not a fan of Tesla removing the sensors but a vehicle on a highway that isn’t moving the same direction as the car is not “trivial” with radar. No AEBs that use radar look for completely stopped objects after a certain speed because the number of false positives is so high.

Which is another reason that "full" FSD is at least a decade away and likely from another supplier, if at all. Cannot believe people are funding this.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#369

Post by tibbydudeza »

cbsmith wrote: post #298
Reason077 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”There is no one sensor that will do it. Full stop.” Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts). In theory, a sufficiently capable AI should be able to drive a car at least as well as a human can using the same input: vision.

> Yet somehow, humans can drive cars with just a pair of optical sensors (mounted on a swivelling gimbal, of sorts). In fairness, humans have a lot more than just optical sensors at their disposal, and are pretty terrible drivers. We've added all kinds of safety features to cars and roads to try to compensate for their weaknesses, and it certainly helps, but they still make mistakes with alarming regularity, and they…

My kid took 12 driving lessons of an hour long before she could drive stick shift on a road albeit very slowly.

Re: Why Tesla removed radar and ultrasonic sensors [video]

#370

Post by snovv_crash »

touisteur wrote: post #310
Reason077 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”The first famous autopilot crash was because a white semi-truck was washed out by the sun and confused for an overhead sign. That's literally trivial for a car with radar to detect.” That crash occurred on a car which was using radar. Automotive radar generally doesn’t help to detect stationary objects. Further, that crash occurred on a vehicle with the original autopilot version (AP1), which was based on Mobileye…

I find very strange the claim that a moving doppler (pulsed doppler?) radar 'generally doesn't help to detect stationary objects'. I mean if the car is moving, it generates a doppler shift on all objects moving at a different speed, right? Maybe it's difficult for reasons of false alarm detection (too many stationary objects that are not of interest) but you can get very good results with tracking (curious about thes…

Source: have worked with some of the (admittedly last-gen) automotive RADAR chips, NXP in particular.

The issue is the number of false positives, stationary objects need to be filtered out. Something like a drainage grill on the street generates extremely strong returns. RADAR isn't high enough resolution to differentiate the size of something, you only have ~10 degree resolution, and after that you need to go by strength of the returned signal. So there's no way to differentiate a bridge girder or a railing or a handful of loose change on the road from a stationary vehicle. On the other hand, if you have a moving object, RADAR is really good at identifying it and doing adaptive cruise control etc.

Edit: it looks like some of the latest Bosch systems have much better performance in terms of resolution and separability: https://www.bosch-mobility-solutions.com/media/global/produc...

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