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

A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

viksnewsletter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 187 posts

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#41

Post by m0llusk »

aftbit wrote: post #19
xnx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They work OK, but cost too much. Costs have dropped dramatically in the past 20 years and continue to do so. > There needs to be a cheap, flush-mounted replacement for those things. Why? Corners are the optimal mounting position for maximum visibility. It allows the car to -in-effect- see around corners in ways no centrally mounted sensor can. > Waymo needs to solve that problem before they do New York. What? Becau…

Have you ever seen the corners of a car that has been parked in a big East-coast city? They will sustain damage during the course of normal operation and storage, and many people will not stop and leave their insurance information, especially if the damage is perceived as minor and happens while the car is parked and the owner not present. Currently, the corners of a car are relatively non-critical to its function an…

Waymos sometimes stop briefly in parking spots while waiting for assignments, but they don't really park as such except in special lots. The big problem I have seen is they tend not to always pull to the curb when releasing passengers and if a door is left even slightly ajar then they will sit there requesting the door be closed even if they are blocking a lane with many cars behind them beeping.

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#42

Post by AlotOfReading »

hammock wrote: post #38
itishappy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should not be. In theory they can be, but there are strict regulations to prevent that.

What are the regulations and who are the relevant regulatory bodies? I could not find with a google search

They fall under the same regulations as lasers.

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#43

Post by jdhwosnhw »

tgaj wrote: post #24
quonn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It‘s not just Musk. Most automobile manufacturers have maintained that they need to find a way to do it with cheap and pretty sensors.

Theoretically if a human can drive a car using a pair of eyes connected to brain, it should be possible to do that using two cameras connected to some kind of image processing unit.

Imagine that same reasoning applied to the car itself. Ugh, wheels?? Humans get around just fine bipedally, so cars should have legs too.

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#44

Post by Klaus23 »

quonn wrote: post #4
MaxPock wrote: post #3

Fantastic tech that Musk hates

It‘s not just Musk. Most automobile manufacturers have maintained that they need to find a way to do it with cheap and pretty sensors.

This is simply not true. Let's look at the best autonomous driving features available today, i.e. level 3:

Mercedes Drive Pilot: Uses a lidar (and a dummy unit) up front.

BMW Personal Pilot: Uses a lidar (and a dummy unit) up front

Honda SENSING Elite: Uses 5! lidars

They all use lidar, and some of the placement locations are downright hideous (Mercedes EQS). I think further development will require even more/better sensors, and manufacturers tend to agree on this point.

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#45

Post by beeburrt »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #40

Is there a lidar unit I can take home and scan my house at high resolution (than iphone)?

I was wondering this too, although for a different use-case. A couple years ago I was walking through a field/vacant lot not far from Centralia, WA and I came across what I think is a grave.

The (supposed) "grave" was roughly human-sized and human-shaped, the ground was concave, sunken in and deepest at the center, and it was encircled with stones that were slightly larger than grapefruit.

The reason I suspect it's a grave is because I stumbled upon a very similar-looking thing at a historical site in Tooele county Utah named Mercur cemetery.

With Lidar I could prove/disprove my grave theory, correct?

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#46

Post by deepnotderp »

Animats wrote: post #8

That's a reasonable basic overview. I'm surprised that rotating scanners are still used. It's been twenty years since Velodyne built their first one. They work OK, but cost too much. I was expecting flash LIDAR or MEMS mirrors to take over. Continental, the auto parts company, bought the leading flash LIDAR company over a decade ago, but the volume market a big parts company needs never appeared. Waymo is still using…

The SNR for flash Lidar is really low because you spread the beam out over such a large area.

Most automotive Lidar already operate in a “photon starved regime”, ~200-300 photons per return[0]. If you spread that over the entire scene, your snr drops quickly.

This forces you into 1550nm, and a large detector array and high power laser at 1550nm is extremely expensive.

As for MEMS, it’s been a while but I think FOV/steering angle range , steering speed and even maximum beam power were concerns

EDIT: my Lidar friend Jake reminded me that the appetizer size is also an issue with MEMS- smaller aperture = less light collected = lower SNR

[0] https://www.hamamatsu.com/content/dam/hamamatsu-photonics/si...

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#47

Post by sroussey »

stormfather wrote: post #16
threeseed wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't that it's wildly expensive for cars. But rather for Tesla. Because the company has promised that existing Tesla owners would be able to use FSD. Having to retrofit them to add LiDAR sensors would be cost-prohibitive.

Also he wants to reuse the foundational machine vision tech in Optimus bot, which probably won't have lidar.

Optimus should probably have LiDAR more than a car…

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#49

Post by asdasdsddd »

Klaus23 wrote: post #44
quonn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It‘s not just Musk. Most automobile manufacturers have maintained that they need to find a way to do it with cheap and pretty sensors.

This is simply not true. Let's look at the best autonomous driving features available today, i.e. level 3: Mercedes Drive Pilot: Uses a lidar (and a dummy unit) up front. BMW Personal Pilot: Uses a lidar (and a dummy unit) up front Honda SENSING Elite: Uses 5! lidars They all use lidar, and some of the placement locations are downright hideous (Mercedes EQS). I think further development will require even more/better…

What are the benchmarks that say Mercedes, BMW, and Honda have the best level 3 features.

Re: A Short Introduction to Automotive Lidar Technology

#50

Post by fragmede »

asdasdsddd wrote: post #49
Klaus23 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is simply not true. Let's look at the best autonomous driving features available today, i.e. level 3: Mercedes Drive Pilot: Uses a lidar (and a dummy unit) up front. BMW Personal Pilot: Uses a lidar (and a dummy unit) up front Honda SENSING Elite: Uses 5! lidars They all use lidar, and some of the placement locations are downright hideous (Mercedes EQS). I think further development will require even more/better…

What are the benchmarks that say Mercedes, BMW, and Honda have the best level 3 features.

Don't forget Blue Cruise from Ford.
Post reply on HN