Tesla Whistleblower Says ‘Autopilot’ System Is Not Safe Enough To Be Used On Public Roads::“It affects all of us because we are essentially experiments in public roads.”
Ah, but you see, his reasoning is that what if the camera and lidar disagree, then what? With only a camera based system, there is only one truth with no conflicts!
Like when the camera sees the broad side of a white truck as clear skies and slams right at it, there was never any conflict anywhere, everything went just as it was suppo… Wait, shit.
sees the broad side of a white truck as clear skies and slams right at it
The truck driver, Frank Baressi, 62, told the Associated Press that the Tesla driver Joshua Brown, 40, was “playing Harry Potter on the TV screen” during the collision and was driving so fast that “he went so fast through my trailer I didn’t see him”.
what if the camera and lidar disagree, then what?
This (sensor fusion) is a valid issue in mobile robotics. Adding more sensors doesn’t necessarily improve stability or reliability.
After a point, yes. However, that point comes when the sensor you are adding is more than the second type in the system. The correct answer is to work into your algorithm a weighting system so the car can decide which sensor it trusts to not kill the driver, i.e. if the LIDAR sees the broadside of a trailer and the camera doesn’t, the car should believe the LIDAR over the camera, as applying the brakes and speeding into the obstacle at 60mph is likely the safer option.
Yes the solution is fairly simple in theory, implementing this is significantly harder, which is why it is not a trivial issue to solve in robotics.
I’m not saying their decision was the right one, just that his argument with multiple sensors creating noise in the decision-making is a completely valid argument.
