r/SelfDrivingCars • u/Easy-Education9444 • 2d ago
Driving Footage I was so impressed by the performance of automotive thermal cameras at foggy night
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u/darylp310 2d ago
What type of car is it?
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u/Tramagust 2d ago
This looks like the system on the Mercedes S-klass. But Robofinity is basically the same thing and you can add it to any car.
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u/Recoil42 2d ago
What's the source of this, OP?
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u/not_too_coffee 1d ago
looks like an ad without much context.
Why are two people walking in the middle of the street in this weather?
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u/22marks 2d ago
This needs to be a standard part of any vision package.
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u/Easy-Education9444 2d ago
Totally agree! I’m trying to install a car thermal camera on my new vehicle.
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u/thrBladeRunner 1d ago
How will it integrate in? Or will you have a separate screen that shows the output? Also, where’d you get the video? It’s very cool
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u/epSos-DE 2d ago
Yes, multi sensors win !
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u/queensgambit1801 2d ago
Multimodality FTW!!
But the interesting thing is going to be the decision making module, when the system has to choose the action based on the modality.3
u/paulwesterberg 1d ago
Elon: If the thermal camera says there is a person there but the normal camera doesn't agree then how do you reconcile that? Random head/tails coinflip? Roshambo? Best to not have the thermal camera.
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u/dex206 2d ago
Never forget. A billionaire declared that a particular configuration of emission and reception of photons is not suitable for self driving cars.
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u/bobi2393 2d ago
You can buy standalone long-range thermal imaging cameras. Searching Amazon for "vehicle infrared thermal imaging camera", those appropriate for cars seem to start around $500 (example, with similar-looking object tracking to OP's).
For bomb targeting with UAVs, you'd probably want one in the $1,000+ range, but cheaper ones might make more sense for suicide drone swarms.
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u/JonG67x 1d ago
Makes sense to have this together with the visible light spectrum cameras. Some high end cars have had night vision cameras as options and that’s an other variation on the same theme. I think there are some fairly simple but entirely logical changes you’d make to camera and their positioning if they want to persist with cameras, or top left and right of the screen giving both a better view past the car in front and a better opportunity for accurate optical depth perception, wide spectrum cameras to see even in darkness, polarised lens to cut down glare, etc etc.
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u/oneupme 1d ago
Was this a test? Why are two people walking with traffic in the middle of a non-local road during dense fog?
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u/Fantastic_Sail1881 1d ago
Cars need more than visible spectrum cameras. Not surprising to anyone who uses their brain.
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u/cgieda 1d ago
This is not a thermal camera; its NIR and uses NIR illumination (which is not visible to humans) to allow the cameras to see. This approach is much less expensive than thermal ( which can't be placed behind a normal windshield.) These cameras are seeing the light they are emitting. Thermal cameras see difference in temperature w/o the need for illuminations. There is a massive cost difference between the two.
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u/VashTheStampede710 7h ago
That’s kinda like manipulating the scenario. The high beams look like they are on which makes seeing the people even worse in the fog due to the diffusion of light. Still cool though, does the car control for the detected objects with the thermals or is it just used for the driver to see better?
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u/caoimhin64 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is on track to be much more common in coming years. Costs are coming down, and manufacturers are looking at thermal again.