Waymo self-driving cars -- progress

[Smorgasbord1]

@Goofyhoofy

I’m trying to figure out how you would use LIDAR data in the training if your goal is to not use it for actual use. How do you construct a dataset that has anything to do with it if you know that any data it provides cannot be used in the dataset?

I must be missing something.

I’m not sure this is what Tesla is doing, but it makes sense:

1. You have a camera system that can figure out how far away things are. It does this by knowing how the Tesla is moving in space and seeing how things change in the camera. Karpathy, when he worked at Tesla, demonstrated this years ago, building a 3D map of the environment.

2. You want to check that the 3D map the Tesla is building is accurate. So you write some software to use LiDAR to determine object distance and you check that against the distances your camera software calculates.

If all is good with this check in multiple areas/scenarios, then your camera distance setup is good to go without the LiDAR in production vehicles.