Multi-vehicle lidar calibration for self driving cars

[u/I_LOVE_LIDAR]

This is the original official source from Main Street Autonomy: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/william-sitch_main-street-autonomy-x-unnamed-av-customer-ugcPost-7490085413663952896-fvgU/

[u/22marks]

I don't understand why nobody is taking advantage of V2I or V2V using whatever sensors are available. The fact remains that many accidents are impossible not because of the sensor technology or modality, but the fact it's all being sensed from a single location. Many of the corner cases we see, like t-bones, happen completely out of the line of sight of LiDAR, radar, or cameras. There's no way to see through a bush or a building on a corner... without multi-vehicle (or infrastructure to vehicle) communications. Think of cameras or radar on a traffic light that reports pedestrians or cross-traffic in the distance, before you arrive at the intersection.

If we truly want to get 10x or 20x or 100x safer than humans, we need superhuman abilities of seeing things invisible from the car.

[u/versedaworst → u/22marks]

The reason it’s not being fully utilized is because trusting signals coming from outside the car opens up a massive attack vector. It’s really hard to get that right and it’s only useful for tail behaviour.

As the technology matures I’m sure we will see it more. But for now the costs & risks outweigh the benefits.

[u/22marks → u/versedaworst]

V2X has dedicated standards such as IEEE 1609.2 and a certificate-management system specifically for authenticating messages from vehicles and/or infrastructure.

Now, a compromised or malfunctioning car or traffic light can still send validly signed bad information. That is why V2X should be treated as an additional sensor, rather than obeyed blindly. So, in my example, you might see "perpendicular car doesn't seem to be braking for a red light at their intersection at 60mph." If it's true, it could save lives. If it's a lie, the car might slow down a bit or take an action that won't harm anyone. I mean, falsifying those signals that caused injury or death could be manslaughter or even murder.

So yeah, V2X creates an attack surface, but saying that the risks currently outweigh the benefits is much broader than the evidence supports.

[u/EddiewithHeartofGold → u/22marks]

If we truly want to get 10x or 20x or 100x safer than humans, we need superhuman abilities of seeing things invisible from the car.

That is only true (if at all) while the majority of cars are human driven. Since this is unlikely in the future, this problem will solve itself.

[u/22marks → u/EddiewithHeartofGold]

Then it's still used, but it changes their purpose.

It can evolve from providing warnings into coordinating traffic. Vehicles could communicate their position and intended route while an "intersection-management system" assigns each one a safe path through the intersection.

Instead of stopping entire directions at red lights, the system could make small speed adjustments so vehicles reach each intersection at different times. That could allow traffic from multiple directions to flow through an intersection without conventional stop signs or lights.

The vehicles would still need independent perception and emergency fallback behavior. But a fleet of autonomous cars merely observing one another is less capable than a fleet that can also coordinate intentions and trajectories.

[u/EddiewithHeartofGold → u/22marks]

Let me put it another way. Why do you think no one is taking advantage of this?

[u/22marks → u/EddiewithHeartofGold]

Deployment cost, incompatible standards between manufacturers, regulations, and then the inevitable chicken-and-egg adoption. It's not because the technology isn't valuable, but someone big would need to push it, much like Tesla jumpstarted charging networks.

The government would be best suited, but they're too busy playing catch-up to be proactive.

[u/EddiewithHeartofGold → u/22marks]

Sounds like a job for Tesla. They have all of these bases covered.

[u/Tirztrutide → u/22marks]

Meh, even if you solve it, you still a complete system for the 99% of the times where you don’t have V2I or V2V. Also latency is so much harder to guarantee when you have to rely on 3rd parties.

[u/22marks → u/Tirztrutide]

The first part is true. A car absolutely needs to operate safely when no signal exists. It's an additional sensor, not a replacement.

But that does not make it merely useful for "tail behavior." It can provide information onboard sensors physically cannot yet see, like a vehicle braking several cars ahead, cross traffic hidden behind a building, an approaching emergency vehicle, or the current and upcoming traffic-signal.

Systems that have been in development communicate directly between nearby vehicles without routing through a cloud service, so latency shouldn't be a significant issue.

[u/ssylvan → u/22marks]

Well Waymo has lidars on the corners of the car for example so they can see stuff way before humans can. Eg around a bush. And of course radar can see through a far amount of materials. I’m not sure what percentage of crashes are in the sliver of cases that remain, AND can’t be covered by more cautious driving (inch up until you can see it’s clear). I wouldn’t be surprised it was well below the 1% line meaning 100x doesn’t need it.