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0 pointsdangrossman12y ago0 comments

I've also read that LIDAR doesn't work in rain, or even fog. I never see weather brought up in any detail in any writeups of autonomous vehicles. How close can we be if the sensors they're using only function on sunny California days? How will any car deal with the rest of the country where several months a year, a coating of snow can block any sensor from seeing lane markings, signs and signals, and even the outline of the roadway?

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nitrogen12y ago· 1 in thread

LIDAR can be augmented or replaced by other sensing technologies that penetrate precipitation better than human eyesight can; the algorithms will most likely still work. When the road is coated with snow, the cars could do what human drivers do: analyze the behavior of other cars, look for emergent traffic flows (in my experience a four-lane freeway becomes three well-spaced lanes in well-packed but not deep snow, and flows surprisingly well), and follow the pack.

ericd12y ago

Right, the beautiful thing about probabilistic machine learning/AI is that it can use the signals it gets, and even ignore some conflicting evidence, without having to be explicitly programmed with rules. I think a lot of people underestimate what's possible there, or take an overly simplistic view of what it'd be capable of, since we're so used to having to design behavior.

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