17.11.45 Automatic Emergency Braking

[chillaban]

There isn't one on my AP2 X. I was just shocked by the observation of @gearchruncher , so I thought I'd go look at Tesla.com. Saw the link to the manual on the Model X page and checked. Looks like the manual hasn't been updated from the original release. That's a disappointing laziness from Tesla. Not as disappointing as no rain-sensor, but still.

The manual in the car, at least for my AP2 MS, has been updated. It's just the PDF on the website.

 

[alcibiades]

The manual in the car, at least for my AP2 MS, has been updated. It's just the PDF on the website.

Does this make them more or less sloppy?

 

[chillaban]

Does this make them more or less sloppy?

I dunno, if I wanted to judge Elon I would start an investment blog.... just pointing out that it's worth looking at the on-screen manual if you haven't.

 

[Saghost]

My parents worked on this stuff when I was 8 or 9 years old, and from my preschool understanding there's both camera-based and IR based variants of rain sensors. But the camera based ones have a focal point of a few inches ahead, much like a macro lens, and are more looking for image changes such as raindrops appearing at the near focal point.

I have my skepticism of reusing Autopilot camera for this purpose, which are presumably not focusing at the windshield. Would love for Tesla to prove me wrong, but ultimately it seemed like a terrible case of jumping the gun on replacing a tried and true sensor. They should've at least built the first couple months' worth of AP2 Teslas with both sensors until they can validate the vision variant's performance, then stop adding the legacy sensors to the new build.

You're wondering on the camera based system is whether the windshield is in focus, right?

With the "standard" camera that more or less matches the AP1 camera, that's certainly a valid concern - I wouldn't expect it to be.

The wide angle front camera is a different story.

Depth of field is a photographic concept describing the range of distances from the camera that are in focus. A bunch of optical factors affect this, including the size of the sensor and the physical aperture (the focal length isn't directly involved, but it effectively is because we mostly measure relative apertures as a function of focal length since those are relevant for exposures.)

I don't want to get into all the optical details, but the point is that small sensors like cell phones and the AP cameras inherently have large depths of field, and wide angle lenses have large depths of field, so a wide angle small sensor like the front center camera probably has everything from a couple inches out to the horizon in focus at all times.

This isn't entirely a good thing, since it means things on the windshield will show up as solid objects and possibly confuse object recognition, but for the purposes of rain detection, it should help. I'm almost positive the bottom half of the windshield covering the camera group will be in focus for the wide angle camera, and wouldn't be surprised if it all was.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I'm almost positive the bottom half of the windshield covering the camera group will be in focus for the wide angle camera, and wouldn't be surprised if it all was.

This seems to match with the article I found about using the general purpose ADAS camera for rain sensing. They also talk about using the bottom edge of the camera for rain sensing.

 

[clostridium]

Those events are definitely NOT AEB. I brought them up because they are, however, fundamental mistakes in the way AP2 is predicting the trajectory of your car vs cars around you.

For lane changes, AP2 seems to take a while to realize a car in your previous lane is no longer in your path of travel, so if you do a sudden lane change combined with heavy acceleration, I find that I would get stale FCW for the car beside me.

These seem like issues that would have to get resolved before Tesla would want the car to make braking decisions.

(I've had legitimate and illegitimate triggers of AEB in my previous Audi. AEB is unmistakeable — the sudden jolt of Brembo brakes will knock the wind out of you and get your heart pumping and ears ringing… If that's not happening, it's just a sudden adaptive cruise control brake, not AEB)

I had an Infiniti Q50 with aeb and you are right, it's unmistakable. I haven't had a fcw or aeb go off in my tesla yet even with the fcw turned to max sensitivity. There was also an auto braking in my q50 that was distinct from aeb to avoid chain collisions by sensing the vehicle ahead of the one in front. I've seen my tesla highlight that vehicle in that scenario once with some moderate auto braking.

 

[Kant.Ing]

You're wondering on the camera based system is whether the windshield is in focus, right?

With the "standard" camera that more or less matches the AP1 camera, that's certainly a valid concern - I wouldn't expect it to be.

The wide angle front camera is a different story.

Depth of field is a photographic concept describing the range of distances from the camera that are in focus. A bunch of optical factors affect this, including the size of the sensor and the physical aperture (the focal length isn't directly involved, but it effectively is because we mostly measure relative apertures as a function of focal length since those are relevant for exposures.)

I don't want to get into all the optical details, but the point is that small sensors like cell phones and the AP cameras inherently have large depths of field, and wide angle lenses have large depths of field, so a wide angle small sensor like the front center camera probably has everything from a couple inches out to the horizon in focus at all times.

This isn't entirely a good thing, since it means things on the windshield will show up as solid objects and possibly confuse object recognition, but for the purposes of rain detection, it should help. I'm almost positive the bottom half of the windshield covering the camera group will be in focus for the wide angle camera, and wouldn't be surprised if it all was.

I think the challenge is not the DOF, which is a very subjective measure as computer vision may have a different sense of "sharpness" than human. The challenge is that the tiny area on the windshield that the camera(s) is projecting on is not representative at all.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I think the challenge is not the DOF, which is a very subjective measure as computer vision may have a different sense of "sharpness" than human. The challenge is that the tiny area on the windshield that the camera(s) is projecting on is not representative at all.

I'm pretty sure most rain sensors only use a tiny area of the windshield for rain sensing. Many times they are almost touching the windshield and detects only an area of only a couple square inches. The mobileye one was in the same housing as the ADAS camera and would see the same amount of area.

 

[Kant.Ing]

I'm pretty sure most rain sensors only use a tiny area of the windshield for rain sensing. Many times they are almost touching the windshield and detects only an area of only a couple square inches. The mobileye one was in the same housing as the ADAS camera and would see the same amount of area.

Then they should have it tomorrow!

 

[fallen888]

Stupid question, but will this be coming to AP1 anytime soon?

 

[brkaus]

Then they should have it tomorrow!

Yes, tomorrow. But what year?

 

[DDotJ]

Stupid question, but will this be coming to AP1 anytime soon?

Did you mean Automatic Emergency Braking for AP1 vehicles?

AP1 vehicles already have AEB in place and it has been on vehicles since 2015 (IIRC). AP2 just got it a few days ago.

If you were talking about automatic wipers, that is also currently available in AP1 vehicles as well since it uses a dedicated rain sensor.

 

[chillaban]

Stupid question, but will this be coming to AP1 anytime soon?

Sorry, couldn't resist marking this as funny

- AEB has been working on AP1 for over a year. Thanks a lot for pouring salt in our AP2 wounds!
- Automatic wipers barely worked for me on my AP1 car. So it's a good question, will working automatic wipers come to AP1 anytime soon?

 

[Saghost]

I think the challenge is not the DOF, which is a very subjective measure as computer vision may have a different sense of "sharpness" than human. The challenge is that the tiny area on the windshield that the camera(s) is projecting on is not representative at all.

Depth of Field for a given sensor size and resolution behind a given lens and aperture isn't at all subjective, it's purely physics. How sharp is sharp enough can be a discussion, but is still beside the fundamental point I was making.

The area I'm saying I'm pretty sure the camera can see clearly is about twenty times the area of the Pre-AP and AP1 rain sensor, which is a tiny disc less than one inch in diameter.

Sensing with the camera isn't quite as simple, though - the dedicated disc sensor I believe uses the different indexes of refraction at the glass/air vs glass/water interface to return infrared light, while AP2 will presumably have to see the edges of the raindrops through image analysis.

 

[schonelucht]

I found it interesting that what they are shipping is an old build - from week 11, early March. I'm not entirely sure how to understand that.

Maybe they finished the code several weeks ago, but needed all this time testing to be sure it's right - and nothing to improve came out of the testing.

It was finished weeks ago (including testing) but they were hoping to bundle it together with other changes. Those other changes aren't ready and the consumer report article forced their hand. So they released what they already had.

 

[fallen888]

Sorry, couldn't resist marking this as funny

- AEB has been working on AP1 for over a year. Thanks a lot for pouring salt in our AP2 wounds!
- Automatic wipers barely worked for me on my AP1 car. So it's a good question, will working automatic wipers come to AP1 anytime soon?

I figured I'd get crap for asking that. Yeah, I'm not sure AEB is on/ever worked for me on AP1. When there's imminent impact I get an audible alert and the car in front turns red, but no automatic braking takes place - I have to hit the brakes myself. What am I missing?

 

[Saghost]

I figured I'd get crap for asking that. Yeah, I'm not sure AEB is on/ever worked for me on AP1. When there's imminent impact I get an audible alert and the car in front turns red, but no automatic braking takes place - I have to hit the brakes myself. What am I missing?

You're not seeing AEB because you're reacting to the event when the forward collision warning goes off. To see AEB in action, you'd need to ignore the FCW alert.

The car will eventually brake itself, possibly not in time to completely prevent the collision.

 

[stages]

IMHO, Tesla should just say "oops, we screwed up. Bring in your $70,000+ car and we'll install a $25 rain sensor."

 

[daktari]

What does the white circular sensor close to the unwiped area do? Light sensor for ambient light or rain sensor? AP2, 2017 Model S.

 

[mistuhchia]

Has anyone else gotten the Auto Emergency braking update? I'm still on 17.11.3 and haven't gotten any update for over a month