This Tesla Robotaxi demo video is a mess.
Watch as the car makes a left turn from the wrong lane, ignoring a red light. The safety operator steps in, and the car comes to a stop… right in the middle of the intersection.
Eventually, it completes the illegal turn after blocking traffic for 45 seconds, which raises the question, what exactly is the safety operator there for?
They also really need additional sensors. Elon is keep saying that self driving cars only need cameras. But cameras can be blinded or also make mistakes. Hence good self driving cars should atleast have sonar.
As a RADAR guy I have to say they need RADAR, but I might be biased. I suppose LIDAR would be nice too. There’s something called sensor fusion where you combine the measurements of different sensors, ideally using different technologies to get better measurements.
WhyNotBoth.gif
And radar is dirt cheap. Toss a radar module (or two!) under the hood, watch as your cars stop plowing into stuff in the frontal plane of movement. It’s automation so simple that even Hyundai gets it right.
Even by the middle of WWII, radar had been made so cheap that they (the US at least) were putting radar devices into artillery shells. The idea that 80+ years later radar is cost-prohibitive for fucking cars is ludicrous.
My helmet has a radar in it. Like, why the fuck not, toss two in there
Fun fact: horseshoe crabs have like nine different types of eyes. Even that tail is one big photoreceptor. Sensor fusion is new technology - it’s only been around for 400 million years.
Respect for the capital letters
Sorry I meant of course LIDAR.