Do you have lidar on your head? No, yet you’re able to drive with just two cameras on your face. So no lidar isn’t required. Not that driving in a very dynamic world isn’t very difficult for computers to do, it’s not a matter of if, it’s just a matter of time.
Would lidar allow “super human” driving abilities? Like seeing through fog and in every direction in the dark, sure. But it’s not required for the job at hand.
You have eyes that are way more amazing than any cameras that are used in self driving, with stereoscopic vision, on a movable platform, and most importantly, controlled via a biological brain with millions of years of evolution behind it.
I’m sorry, you can’t attach a couple cameras to a processor, add some neural nets, and think it’s anything close to your brain and eyes.
Senses to support your sight when driving? Hearing and Balance come to mind, in that order of importance as supporting senses.
Do you have lidar on your head?
Nope,
And that’s exactly why humans crash. Constantly.
Even when paying attention.
They don’t have resolution in depth perception, nor the FOV.
I remember watching a video talking about is there a camera that can see as well as a human eye. The resolution was there are cameras that see close but not as well and they are very big and expensive and the human brain filters much of it without you realizing. I think it could be done with a camera or two but I think we are not close to the technology for the near future.
A lot of LIDAR fans here for some reason, but you’re absolutely right.
There’s just not a good amount of evidence pointing that accurate depth perception only obtained through LIDAR is required for self driving, and it also won’t solve the complex navigation of a real world scenario. A set of visible spectrum cameras over time can reconstruct a 3D environment well enough for navigation and it’s quite literally what Tesla’s FSD does.
I don’t know why someone would still say it’s not possible when we already have an example running in production.
“But Tesla FSD has a high disengagement rate” - for now, yes. But these scenarios are more often possible to be solved by high definition maps than by LIDAR. For anyone that disagrees, go to youtube, choose a recent video of Tesla’s FSD and try to find a scenario where a disengagement would have been avoided by LIDAR only.
There are many parts missing for a complete autonomous driving experience. LIDAR is not one of them.
