• AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Because that’s expensive and can be done with a camera.

      Expensive, as in probably less than $600? Compared to the $35000 cost of a tesla?

      (comparing the cost of the iPhone 12 (without lidar) and iPhone 12 pro (with lidar), we can guess that the sensor probably costs less than $200, so 3 of them (for left, right, and front) would cost probably less than $600)

      lidar can actually be very cheap and small. Unfortunately, Apple bought the only company that seems to make sensors like that (besides some other super high end models)

      There have been a lot of promising research papers on the technology lately though, so I expect more, higher resolution and cheaper lidar sensors to be available relatively soon (next couple years probably).

      • Grippler@feddit.dk
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        6 months ago

        Yeah that’s not even remotely the same type of sensor used in robotics and autonomous cars. Yes lidar is getting cheaper, but for high detail long range detection they’re much more expensive than the case of your iphone example. The iPhone “lidar” is less than useless in an automotive context.

        • BURN@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          To get the same resolution and quality of image in all lighting scenarios, cameras are actually going to be more expensive than LiDAR. Cameras suffer in low light, low contrast situations due to the physical limitations of bending light. More light = bigger lenses = higher cost, when LiDAR works better and is cheaper

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      My eyes are decent, but if I had a sixth sense that gave me full accurate 3D 360 spatial awareness regardless of visibility, I would probably not turn it off just to use my eyes. I’d use both.