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No one really disputes that some level of autonomous driving is possible with only cameras, it's a matter of how safe and sure you wanna be.

by KaiserPro15 hours ago|

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> comma.ai proves that lidar is red herring

I mean it doesn't. If you actually look at it comma.ai proves that level two doesn't require lidar. Thats not the same as full speed safe autonomy.

whilst it is possible to drive vision only (assuming the right array of cameras (ie not the way tesla have done it) lidar gives you a low latency source of depth that can correct vision mistakes. Its also much less energy intensive to work out if an object is dangerous, and on a collision course.

To do that in vision, you need to work out what the object is (ie is it a shadow) then you have to triangulate it. That requires continuous camera calibration, and is all that easy. If you have a depth "prior" ie, yes its real, yes its large and yes its going to collide, its much much more simple to use vision to work out what to do.

by fragmede14 hours ago|

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It's fair to point out that comma.ai is SAE level two system, however it's not geofenced at all, which is an SAE level 5 requirement. But really that brings up the fact that SAE's levels aren't the right ones, merely the ones they chose to define since they're the standards body. A better set of levels are the seven I go into more detail about on my blog.

As far as distinguishing shadows on the road, that's what radar is for. Shadows on the road as seen by the vision system don't show up on radar as something the vehicle will run into.

by imtringued13 hours ago|

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Your autonomy scale is pretty arbitrary and encodes assumptions about the underlying technology and environments the vehicle is supposed to implement and operate in.

The SAE autonomy scale is about dividing responsibility between the driver and the assistance system. The lowest revel represents full responsibility on the driver and the highest level represents full responsibility on the system.

If there is a geofenced transportation system like the Vegas loop and the cars can drive without a human driver, then that is a level 5 system. By the way, geofencing is not an "SAE level 5" requirement. Geofencing is a tool to make it easier to reach requirements by reducing the scope of what full autonomy represents.