Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 582 posts

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#221

Post by dsr_ »

RobotToaster wrote: post #183
nlitened wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand, lidars don't work well in rain/snow/fog. So in the real world, where you have limited resources (research and production investment, people talent, AI training time and dataset breadth, power consumption) that you could redistribute between two systems (vision and lidar), but one of the systems would contradict the other in dangerous driving conditions — it's smarter to just max out vision and ignore…

> lidars don't work well in rain/snow/fog. Neither do cameras, or eyeballs.

When it's not safe to drive, it's not safe to drive.

I've been in zero-road-speed whiteout conditions several times. The only move to make is to the side of the road without getting stuck, and turning on your flashers.

Low-light cameras would not have worked. Sonar would not have worked. Infrared would not have worked.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#222

Post by venusenvy47 »

klabb3 wrote: post #181
estearum wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the reasoning. The reasoning was simply that LIDAR was (and incorrectly predicted to always be) significantly more expensive than cameras, and hypothetically that should be fine because, well, humans drive with only two eyes. Musk miscalculated on 1) cost reduction in LIDAR and 2) how incredible the human brain is compared to computers. Having similar sensors certainly doesn't guarantee your acci…

> Musk miscalculated on 1) cost reduction in LIDAR and 2) how incredible the human brain is compared to computers. And, less excusable, ignorant of how incredible human eyes are compared to small sensor cameras. In particular high DR in low light, with fast motion. Every photographer knows this.

And also ignorant about how those two eyes have binocular vision, adjustable positions, and can look in multiple mirrors for full spatial awareness.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#223

Post by jayd16 »

eurekin wrote: post #126
IsTom wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human eye is opaque to Absorbing the laser isn't necessarily any good. Very hypothetically it could lead to cataracts.

Sun emits much stronger IR, near-IR, UV

That's why we don't look at it.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#224

Post by seanmcdirmid »

echelon wrote: post #13
oblio wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, I guess, even more advanced surveillance.

The minute internet became widespread it was game over. Pros and cons. :/ It'll never happen, but we need a bill of rights for privacy. The laypeople aren't well-versed or pained enough to ask for this, and big interest donors oppose it. Maybe the EU and states like California will pioneer something here, though? Edit: in general, I'm far more excited by cheap lidar tech than I am afraid of the downsides. We just nee…

Lidar doesn’t really give you much to “see”, just shape and distance…so I’m a bit confused how it can be used for invasive surveillance, do you mean when fused with vision input it somehow allows it to infer more privacy stuff?

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#227

Post by nlitened »

zozbot234 wrote: post #186
nlitened wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand, lidars don't work well in rain/snow/fog. So in the real world, where you have limited resources (research and production investment, people talent, AI training time and dataset breadth, power consumption) that you could redistribute between two systems (vision and lidar), but one of the systems would contradict the other in dangerous driving conditions — it's smarter to just max out vision and ignore…

Why does this matter? You have to slow down in rain/snow/fog anyway, so only having cameras available doesn't hurt you all that much. But then in clear weather lidar can only help.

If your vision is good enough to drive in rain/snow/fog, you don't need lidar in clear conditions. If you planned to spend $10B on vision and $10B on lidar — you would be better off spending $20B on better vision.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#228

Post by slicktux »

JackFr wrote: post #225

When every car has LIDAR will they all begin to blind each other? (Insert old man rant “Why are everyone’s headlights so gosh darn bright these days?!”)

That might very well be the case…I’m sure the IR beams are encoded uniquely per LIDAR but it might still blind them… good food for thought!

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#229

Post by nlitened »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #179
nlitened wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand, lidars don't work well in rain/snow/fog. So in the real world, where you have limited resources (research and production investment, people talent, AI training time and dataset breadth, power consumption) that you could redistribute between two systems (vision and lidar), but one of the systems would contradict the other in dangerous driving conditions — it's smarter to just max out vision and ignore…

Limited resources? Billions per year are being thrown at the base technology. We have the capital deployed to exhaust every path ten times over.

Even if so, it doesn't mean that capital deployment efficiency and expected payoff make equal sense in all directions.

Then again, it's good that we have self-driving companies with lidar and without — we will find out which approach wins.

Re: Sub-$200 Lidar could reshuffle auto sensor economics

#230

Post by nlitened »

idiotsecant wrote: post #192
nlitened wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand, lidars don't work well in rain/snow/fog. So in the real world, where you have limited resources (research and production investment, people talent, AI training time and dataset breadth, power consumption) that you could redistribute between two systems (vision and lidar), but one of the systems would contradict the other in dangerous driving conditions — it's smarter to just max out vision and ignore…

This is silly. Cameras are cheap. Have both. Sensors that sense differently in different conditions is not an exotic new problem. The kalman filter has existed for about a billion years and machine learning filters do an even better job.

Cameras are cheap, but, as I understand:

1) it's not cheap to produce lidars at a stable predictable quality in millions;

2) car driving training data sets for lidars are much scarcer (and will always be much scarcer due to cameras' higher prevalence) and at a much lower quality;

3) combined camera+lidar data sets are even scarcer.

Post reply on HN