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Pioneer Looks To Laserdisc Tech For Low-Cost LIDAR
itwbennett writes: Pioneer is developing a 3D LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensor for use in autonomous vehicles that could be a fraction of the cost of current systems (the company envisions a price point under $83). Key to this is technology related to optical pickups once used in laserdisc players, which Pioneer made for 30 years. From the ITWorld story: "The system would detect objects dozens of meters ahead, measure their distance and width and identify them based on their shape. Pioneer, which makes GPS navigation systems, is working on getting the LIDAR to automatically produce high-precision digital maps while using a minimum of data compared to the amount used for standard maps for car navigation."
Most accidents occur at less than 40 mph; if "dozens of meters" equates to about 100 ft, that represents about 1.7 seconds at 40 mph. Assuming a coefficient of friction of 0.8, it is theoretically possible for a car traveling at 40 mph to stop in 67 ft; call it roughly 70 ft. If the system can apply the brakes within 500 ms, that's enough to be useful, although clearly it can't stop you from plowing into a car stopped in the fast lane of the highway.
Speaking of highways, the only reason people can manage to drive on highways is that the things you're most likely to hit are traveling in the same direction; if they were slaloming between stationary obstacles at 60 mph most drivers would be dead, fast. What makes highway driving safe is that the closing speed between vehicles is usually modest; usually on less than ten fifteen miles per hour. So actually the system might have more effect on the highway so long as speed discrepancies are in the normal range.
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Point clouds are enormous data sets. It is not uncommon in LIDAR mapping to have the results be several gigs in file size. To send that data back to a central mapping location over cellular is not likely. Also the computation required to make a useful mesh off of a point cloud is equally significant. Then the CPU/GPU/RAM requirements to render and handle that 3D map and have it appear on a low res in screen dashboard is not insignificant. I agree with what you are saying about the data collection, but currently there is no simple way to send and receive the huge amounts of data and have them processed. More likely in the near future autonomous vehicles which return to a spot for physical uploading of TB's of data are more cost effective. Then a hugely decimated mesh is generated and it will slowly begin in appearing in vehicles. Google once again is far ahead in this effort. The alternative: photogrammetry is less data intensive but is better suited to UAV's.