NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 35,712
? How does any car brand autopilot make and process eye contact with another driver or pedestrian. Not beating on Tesla, the issue is generic.
My qualification to ask : 45 years of driving and over 1 million miles with no at fault accidents .
Defensive driving often comes down to subtle human traits and behaviors.
In a presentation at an autoexpo perhaps 1 year ago, when Waymo announced the testing of their Pacifica fleet in Phoenix, AZ, the CEO revealed their inhouse lidar/radar/vision camera sensor suite for the 1st time. I just happened to see a video on youtube.
He showed that their lidar had superior resolution, far better than anything on the market. He demonstrated that the resolution was good enough to "see" the facial features of a pedestrian from how many feet away I cannot remember. And yes, anyone could definitely see the pedestrian nose and ears on the lidar scan.
He then added that being able to tell where the pedestrian was facing would help determine his intention, whether he was going to step off the sidewalk.
I was of course impressed with the sensor performance. Have not seen anything more about this subject, but then I have not been looking on the Web.
I don't know if anyone has claimed to be able to use vision cameras to do the same, but Waymo has good cameras too and they rely on the lidar heavily.
Well, if the pedestrian has a ski mask on, it is going to be tough for any sensor (or person).
PS. Note that lidar will not be able to "see" through the windshield to scan the face of a driver. Back to square one with the vision cameras.
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