High-resolution, 3D lidar is expensive, not to mention mechanically complicated and large, so it doesn't fit well into car designs...no consumer is going to want a spinning top on their car (Waymo's Velodyne lidar).
2D lidar is less expensive, but still isn't cheap enough for the number of sensors that would be needed (multiple sensors would be needed for proper coverage, if the the sensors were incorporated into the car body); also, they are still mechanically complex (most rely on spinning mirrors or sensors).
That leaves something like flash lidar, which isn't quite cheap enough (though it's dropped in price significantly in recent years), and I think it's resolution is still fairly low - but it does allow for 3D information about the scene, within it's field of view.
I have always understood why Tesla took the route of using cameras only. In theory, it should work fairly well, since humans have been using a similar system for 100+ years for driving automobiles. It really comes down to a software problem (vision and deep learning, etc), more than anything.
Camera sensors are inexpensive, and easy to incorporate into a vehicle. I tend to wonder if maybe augmentation with FLIR and other wavelength sensors might not improve things, but even standalone image sensors - in theory - should be completely workable.
2D lidar is less expensive, but still isn't cheap enough for the number of sensors that would be needed (multiple sensors would be needed for proper coverage, if the the sensors were incorporated into the car body); also, they are still mechanically complex (most rely on spinning mirrors or sensors).
That leaves something like flash lidar, which isn't quite cheap enough (though it's dropped in price significantly in recent years), and I think it's resolution is still fairly low - but it does allow for 3D information about the scene, within it's field of view.
I have always understood why Tesla took the route of using cameras only. In theory, it should work fairly well, since humans have been using a similar system for 100+ years for driving automobiles. It really comes down to a software problem (vision and deep learning, etc), more than anything.
Camera sensors are inexpensive, and easy to incorporate into a vehicle. I tend to wonder if maybe augmentation with FLIR and other wavelength sensors might not improve things, but even standalone image sensors - in theory - should be completely workable.