In a non-Tesla car I’ve driven, there was an autopilot cruise control mode that just used cameras. In practice it only works out well if you’re driving long distance on a highway with low traffic. It’s still nice to have (much better than having no autopilot cruise mode) but I don’t trust it around multiple lanes of other cars doing unpredictable shit. Also quits working in the rain when the cameras are obscured.
Comment on Has "Self-Driving" devolved?
Sanctus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The tech never “evolved” in the first place. It was a deformity from the start. LIDAR was developed for this reason. But Tesla uses cheap ass cameras that try to interpret what it is seeing through the visual data. I’m guessing with my layman’s knowledge this is why they veer at semi trucks. Because the technology itself is based on a shitty premise.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sanctus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sounds like normal cruise control functions with less unexpected errors.
BertramDitore@lemm.ee 2 months ago
In general I think you’re right about the tech just being shitty, but a slight correction: LiDAR was not developed for self-driving, it’s just a relevant application of the technology. LiDAR has been around for quite a while, and was initially best known as a remote sensing technology. It is effective at remote sensing because it can penetrate certain solid materials, most importantly foliage. So when an aerial LiDAR dataset is collected for a forested area, since the light can penetrate through most of the foliage, one can essentially ‘delete’ the vegetation from the resulting point cloud, leaving a bare earth model, which is a very close approximation of the landscape’s actual topography if there had been no trees. This can be especially valuable for archaeological research, as foliage is often a significant obstacle for accurately mapping large sites, or even finding them in the first place.
All of that to say, yeah, self-driving buzz made LiDAR well known as tech, but it wasn’t developed for that purpose.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Thanks, I did not know that and it is honestly a way cooler application. Foliage X Ray vision.