Comment by coldtea
9 years ago
Not really. Self driving cars should be able to drive in all of those conditions (and one condition might even quickly turn into another, e.g. sunny into rain).
If a technology only helps with some of the cases (e.g. fair weather) and does not work for the others, then there are two cases:
(a) A single replacement technology will be found that works in 100% of cases.
or:
(b) The technology will only be used on the cases it works well, and the other cases will be handled by some alternative technology equally only suited to them.
In the case of (a), Lidar is indeed useless (or at best, only used as a supplementary technology in favourable conditions).
And I fail to see how (b) can be the case -- that is, how there can be another technology that will solve the rain/snow/night driving problem, but which cannot also outperform/replace Lidar for fair weather driving.
> then there are two cases:
Isn't it interesting that we have five senses, when we could just have one that works in 100% of the cases? A third option is a system based on multi-sensory inputs. Several inputs that are just marginal on their own can provide good performance when combined.