Lead Scientist Behind NASA's Asteroid Mission Talks About The Biggest Problems They Solved
From Scott Manley YouTube Channel:
Scott Manley
Very interesting interview, IMHO.
Especially note how LiDAR failed, and NASA moved to a camera only solution. Musk opinion validated? I think so.
I think your title is a bit misleading and click bait. The scientist never said that lidar failed or that cameras are inherently better. He simply said that in this particular instance lidar did not provide the resolution they needed and that cameras were a more ideal solution to this particular problem. That does not mean that lidar never works. Also, if I am not mistaken, Elon uses lidar for SpaceX. He just does not use lidar for Tesla's FSD. But Elon believes in lidar for space maneuvers.
A satellite orbiting an asteroid in the emptiness of space is very different from a car that has to navigate a road system with other fast moving cars and/or pedestrians while following strict road rules. So I am not sure we can infer that lidar is doomed for FSD based on this one case.
But I am not sure why "camera fanboys" get so worked up about this. Companies that use lidar for FSD, also use cameras too. It's not either or. Everybody, even "lidar fanboys", agree that cameras are needed for FSD. It's just that most companies get some benefit from adding lidar to the mix.
It's funny listening to the LIDAR fanboys who insist that FSD is impossible with just cameras.
To be clear, I don't think anybody is arguing FSD with cameras only is impossible. Yes, you can do self-driving with just cameras. The issue is how safely and how reliably. I would argue that FSD with no driver supervision is difficult with just cameras so adding lidar as a back-up makes things easier by adding extra reliability and redundancy. For example, your camera vision might be very good and correctly determine that an object is 300 meters away but a lidar can double check that number and help confirm if the object really is 300 meters or not, in case your camera vision got it wrong. When doing FSD, no matter how good your camera vision might be, it can't hurt to get a second opinion. You can't afford a wrong distance measure. Lidar can also help avoid unnecessary phantom braking by confirming if the camera vision is correct or not about seeing some object on the road.
Mobileye has a 12 camera system that can do FSD but they still plan to add lidar as a back-up to increase the reliability high enough to meet their standard for safe enough to remove the driver.
It is worth noting that when Waymo started on FSD about 10 years ago, camera vision was not good enough. So Waymo needed to use lidar. Now, machine learning, neural networks and camera vision have greatly improved. If now, camera vision only is good enough to do safe L5 autonomous driving with no driver supervision, then great. I don't think anybody would be upset if that turns out to be the case. I think we all want the same thing: safe autonomous driving. People just have different opinions on the best way to get there.