Autonomous Driving_Sensors

To realize autonomous driving, the system has to cover all the functions which we have as a perception system in our body, and in addition error-free function should be guaranteed. (Just one functional failure can cause lethal consequence in a road driving situation.) The most important hard working sensor in our body during driving is our eyes, the multi-dimensional functions to check short or long distance as well as directional coverage of our eyes cannot easily be replaced with another optical or electronic sensor. At the moment, a combination of several sensors can do the function of human eye but still not perfect.

Camera

An important and distinguished function of camera is an object decoding function. Only camera has this function by scanning the image on the back screen to decode whether the object in the screed of camera is an “animal”, “vehicle” of “human”.  To compensate the disadvantage of one lens-camera (distance measurement), two lens-cameras are being used recently. The disadvantage of a camera system is that the cameras cannot detect an object under non-light situation.

 

           One lens Camera                      Two Lens Camera

Radar

The basic principle of RADAR system is to send microwaves and check its reflection from an object to  detect and perceive that object by analyzing the reflected microwaves. This radar technology was invented to detect enemy’s movement (airplane, ship or others) to protect myself in a battle situation. Now this technology can be used for autonomous driving. The most powerful feature of RADAR system is that this radar can detect an object even in the non-light environment, therefore this radar sensors are used for medium and long distance detection which does not necessarily need object decoding functions.

 

      Long Range Radar

LIDAR

A special type of RADAR is called as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). This LIDAR uses laser instead of microwaves to detect an object. Laser shows the bigger Doppler effect in the long distance range, therefore, this LODAR system is able to calculate more accurate distance and direction of the detected object.

 

 

Ultra-Sonic Sensor

This sensor can have a similar functions as those of RADAR and LIDAR for short distance objection detection with cheaper price.

 

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