Would be interesting to see what they come up with to read speed limit signs.
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What's the likelihood we will see Speed Limit Sign recognition?
- Thread starter PhilDavid
- Start date
Would be interesting to see what they come up with to read speed limit signs.
I understand patents and possible risks of infringement and I guess the situation is possibly different between countries, but my ICE Renault Kadjar (in UK) reads speed limits perfectly from signs (not GPS based like my other EV which also displays current speed limit) and pops the limit on screen exactly as you pass the sign. Where it can go wrong is if there is a road running parallel to you that has speed signs visible to the road you are driving on.
I have wondered that too. There is no obvious mention of Mobile Eye as the technology. I'm going to do some more Googling now. This is what you see in the car:
Edit: At first look, it seems several manufacturers have recognition systems in Europe.
Traffic-sign recognition - Wikipedia
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Does your windscreen have a camera at the very top? Can you post us a photo? I bet you have a MobileEye camera as they have been awarded this questionable software patent.
M3BlueGeorgia
Active Member
Eventually they have to. No FSD without it.
Until they resolve the patent issue, they'd be wise to keep quiet.
This is one big feature I'd love to see implemented soon.
When driving on city streets, this is essential. Even for manual driving, I wish I could look at the indicated speed limit and know with some confidence it is what the car last SAW and not some data in some GPS database.
At the least I hope Tesla builds up their FSD patent portfolio to such an extent that Intel will finds it wise to not bother Tesla.
Perhaps Tesla could get around this patent by letting the fleet to read the speed limit signs and store that data to map database. Obviously this wouldn't be a perfect solution but at least it would improve the current situation. E.g. here in Finland we have different speed limits on highways for summer and winter periods, so the Tesla speed limit data is always wrong for about half of the year.
There could be the basis of something there. If the car read and offered you the sign post speed to 'add to data-base' or 'reject', (up-vote / down-vote) valid temporary / new limit signs would quickly get added to the list, while bogus / incorrectly read signs would be ignored.
Tesla appears to be using fleet speed - the speed of other Tesla vehicles in each road segment, coupled with a speed limit database (which appears to have many errors).
Fleet speed can be useful to indicate areas where vehicles typically slow down - but can't be relied upon to determine actual speed limit - plus vehicle speed can be impacted by other transient factors (weather, traffic congestion, driver preference, ...).
Without the ability to read speed limit signs, there are several roads in our area with recent construction where TACC and NOAP are unusable because the software believes the speed limit is much lower than the actual speed limits, causing periodic rapid slow downs, which can be more dangerous in the middle of high speed highway traffic not expecting a vehicle to rapidly slow down.
An FSD vehicle must respond to the current road conditions - don't see how Tesla can avoid implementing speed limit sign recognition.
Fleet speed can be useful to indicate areas where vehicles typically slow down - but can't be relied upon to determine actual speed limit - plus vehicle speed can be impacted by other transient factors (weather, traffic congestion, driver preference, ...).
Without the ability to read speed limit signs, there are several roads in our area with recent construction where TACC and NOAP are unusable because the software believes the speed limit is much lower than the actual speed limits, causing periodic rapid slow downs, which can be more dangerous in the middle of high speed highway traffic not expecting a vehicle to rapidly slow down.
An FSD vehicle must respond to the current road conditions - don't see how Tesla can avoid implementing speed limit sign recognition.
BigNick
Infamous Fat Sweaty Guy
I wonder if time-restricted signs (such as school speed limits) could be correctly interpreted this way.
Here in PA. school speed limits are 15MPH (24 km/h). Either a set of flashing yellow lights or printed time ranges on the signs are used to indicate when the reduced limit applies.
The system would have to take both the correct/incorrect vote percentages, the times of the votes into its computation, as well as determining if a sign has the flashing light apparatus/additional information printed in the sign.
The lack of standardization of speed limit signs could pose a major challenge for automatic recognition.
On our freeways with adjacent HOV lanes, entry/exit ramps, and frontage roads, speed limit signs are placed between the lanes, and it's not always obvious which lanes are covered by that sign.
Adding time-based speed limits can only make it worse - which may or may not be indicated by flashing lights.
School zones are typically time-based, when school is in session - so those speed limits probably don't apply right now.
Will be interesting to see how Tesla resolves this challenge... Don't see how they can get FSD approval without recognizing current speed limits.
On our freeways with adjacent HOV lanes, entry/exit ramps, and frontage roads, speed limit signs are placed between the lanes, and it's not always obvious which lanes are covered by that sign.
Adding time-based speed limits can only make it worse - which may or may not be indicated by flashing lights.
School zones are typically time-based, when school is in session - so those speed limits probably don't apply right now.
Will be interesting to see how Tesla resolves this challenge... Don't see how they can get FSD approval without recognizing current speed limits.
AP 1 cars read speed limits just fine and that is with 2014/2015 technology.
Speed limit sign recognition should not be that difficult. The limits around where i live change all the time so I'd love to see feature implemented soon so I can use AP on surface streets, especially with stop sign and traffic light control now being released.
I can;t find any reference to speed limit sign recognition in any of the numerous technical videos I have seen.
Wish someone asked this question on Autonomy Day.
AP1 cars are using Mobileye technology, which includes patented speed limit sign detection.
When Tesla dissolved the partnership with Mobileye, Tesla deployed AP2 which relies on Tesla's sensors and software, and because Tesla hasn't licensed speed limit sign detection from Mobileye, the patent is preventing Tesla (at least so far) from implementing this feature.
It's very likely Tesla's software can already detect and interpret speed limit signs - but because of the licensing issue, Tesla can't release that software.
While it's reasonable to protect inventor rights and allow them an opportunity to generate income off their inventions, this patent is an example of patent protection that has gone too far. The patent should have been a protection for HOW Mobileye is able to detect speed limit signs, protecting them from some reverse engineering and stealing their implementation. The patent shouldn't prevent others from coming up with alternative implementations to read speed limit signs...
Unless Tesla is able to work around the patent, ultimately they'll have to pay Mobileye so they can add speed limit sign detection.
This is more of a legal barrier for Tesla - not a technical barrier (unless they can come up with a way to do this without infringing the patent).
When Tesla dissolved the partnership with Mobileye, Tesla deployed AP2 which relies on Tesla's sensors and software, and because Tesla hasn't licensed speed limit sign detection from Mobileye, the patent is preventing Tesla (at least so far) from implementing this feature.
It's very likely Tesla's software can already detect and interpret speed limit signs - but because of the licensing issue, Tesla can't release that software.
While it's reasonable to protect inventor rights and allow them an opportunity to generate income off their inventions, this patent is an example of patent protection that has gone too far. The patent should have been a protection for HOW Mobileye is able to detect speed limit signs, protecting them from some reverse engineering and stealing their implementation. The patent shouldn't prevent others from coming up with alternative implementations to read speed limit signs...
Unless Tesla is able to work around the patent, ultimately they'll have to pay Mobileye so they can add speed limit sign detection.
This is more of a legal barrier for Tesla - not a technical barrier (unless they can come up with a way to do this without infringing the patent).
Cheburashka
Active Member
This is an assumption and not fact.
Mobileye has many computer vision related patents. This does not mean that only they can use computer vision.
Given AP2 runs a lowered frame rate and cropped camera images due to processing limits, it seems reasonable that they would not reduce available processing capability further by including speed limit NN code.
HW3 has much more capability, but speed limit detection is not a gating feature for FSD.
HW3 has much more capability, but speed limit detection is not a gating feature for FSD.
This is the problem with software patents.
Imagine if someone had patented basic sort algorithms or if | then | else constructs.
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