[Adasky] is only a few months old, but it's already built a thermal camera for a demo vehicle I had a chance to ride in. The device passively collects thermal data from the world, then converts it into a high-resolution video that the company drops into its computer-vision system. Then whatever it sees is classified as a car, person, animal, road and so on. That's pretty much how other sensors work, too, but during the demo, it became clear that the system could see and classify items that could be difficult to parse with the typical cameras on an autonomous car. The in-car monitor showed and classified people and animals based on their thermal signature. Even if a system like this can't immediately determine something it sees is a person, the heat signature would at least show that it's probably alive. For folks that drive in areas where black ice (ice on the road that's invisible to drivers) is a problem, the Adasky system would be able to see the slick surface so the car could adjust its path. Thermal cameras could be key to safer self-driving vehicles Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
I am more interested in the Magna, phase-array radar system: New car radar from the military - Roadshow . . . Car tech supplier Magna just introduced what it calls iCON Radar, which sees the world more like LIDAR or a camera does, with more resolution and greater ability to discern objects from one another as well as their changing relationship in space, a handy skill for a sensor on a car. Specifically, iCON Radar shoots its signal out a much longer 300 meters, with aiming precision of less than 1 degree vertical or horizontal. It receives the signals back on a silicon receptor disc that is divided by software into 192 virtual receivers. All of that adds up to a radar that can work more rapidly, increasing its ability to follow things in motion, sort of like a camera with a higher frame rate. . . . Having driven in foggy conditions with TSS-P detecting what could not be seen optically, I'm very much OK with phase-array radar mapping the space in front of the car. No optically based system will ever see through fog and snow. Best of all, no moving parts. Bob Wilson
Thermal imaging is capable of seeing through fog and weather. Not as well as radar, but the effectiveness of these safety systems relies on more than just being able to see.
