NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 35,712
Yesterday, I was driving to Kaanapali beach walk and tried to look for parking in a very congested area with some public parking spaces jammed in between hotels and shops. All were occupied, and I had to settle for an expensive paid slot in a multi-level parking garage ($3/half-hour).
I thought about a robot car, and wonder how it could even begin to navigate this mess. You will understand if you see the map that the LIDAR produces. It is not that detailed and precise. The LIDAR gives you distances to surrounding obstacles. It does not tell you what those obstacles are. And then, a human eye can see between parked cars, and his mind can map out the layout of the parking lots with other cues such as rows of trees, fences, lamp posts, etc... What one needs is sensor fusion software to combine the LIDAR with the vision cameras.
I have not seen anyone doing the above. It takes a lot of very smart software. In time perhaps, but they do not have it yet.
I have yet to see someone demonstrating a car navigating a parking lot that has not been mapped out in advance. I do not think the current robot cars know how to find the entrances or exits of a parking lot (I spotted the toll booth), let alone a parking garage. The software needs to be a lot smarter than its current state.
I thought about a robot car, and wonder how it could even begin to navigate this mess. You will understand if you see the map that the LIDAR produces. It is not that detailed and precise. The LIDAR gives you distances to surrounding obstacles. It does not tell you what those obstacles are. And then, a human eye can see between parked cars, and his mind can map out the layout of the parking lots with other cues such as rows of trees, fences, lamp posts, etc... What one needs is sensor fusion software to combine the LIDAR with the vision cameras.
I have not seen anyone doing the above. It takes a lot of very smart software. In time perhaps, but they do not have it yet.
I have yet to see someone demonstrating a car navigating a parking lot that has not been mapped out in advance. I do not think the current robot cars know how to find the entrances or exits of a parking lot (I spotted the toll booth), let alone a parking garage. The software needs to be a lot smarter than its current state.
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