A breakthrough in miniaturising lidars for autonomous driving

EXPERIMENTAL self-driving cars continue to make regular forays onto the roads. After a trial in Pittsburgh, Uber, a taxi-hailing-app company, launched several of its “autonomous” vehicles onto the streets of San Francisco on December 14th—and promptly ran into a row with officials for not obtaining an operating permit, which Uber insists is unnecessary as the vehicles have a backup driver to take over if something goes wrong. General Motors said it would begin testing self-driving cars in Michigan. For these and other trials one thing is essential: providing the vehicles with a reliable form of vision.

As no man-made system can yet match a pair of human eyes and the image-processing power of a brain, compromises have to be made. This is why engineers use a belt-and-braces approach in equipping vehicles with sensors that can scan the road ahead. That way, just as your trousers will stay up if one or other of belt and braces fails, if one system misses a potential hazard, such as an oncoming car or a pedestrian, the others might spot it and direct the car to take evasive action. 

Three of the sensory systems currently in use in…Continue reading
Source: Economist