Question

Why is a single mono camera not appropriate for an autonomous vehicle? Give at least three reasons and at least two examples of tasks or situations which require other sensors.

Answer 1

A camera is a processing sensor which observes the ground surroundings and gives the data to the processor so that it can analyse what visual things are present on the road.

1.So if you place a single mono camera, it may not cover all directions and so it fails to observe the surroundings. Simply it means that the vehicle has a blind eye or blind spot.

Especially this blind spot is not recommended for the vehicle, since this may lead to cause of accidents.

2.In today world, rear and 360 cameras are being used. In which the images or video is 2D. They need more than two or 3 mono cameras to analyse the object in at different angles.

If you want to have 3D imaging, you have to use 4 to 6 mono cameras for processing the images on the road.

So to avoid blind spots, for better coverage of surroundings and importantly to have high resolution of imaging and to have the luxury of observing the surroundings in 3Dimensions.

Assume that the autonomous car is on high automation mode which is level 4. Now the car is crossing a lane on the road. If the car has only a single mono camera, it can only observe either front or back but not the side views.

Also assume that there is a toll gate at which you have to pay tax. So the vehicle has to identify in which lane it has to go.(like 2 wheelers, 4 wheelers or heavy vehicles lane) after identifying, it has to observe the front and move till it reaches the gate plus the same camera has to identify that whether there is a car behind or not. Since stopping at a moment could cause cars bumping into each other.

So it's not recommended for a autonomous vehicle to have a single mono camera. Using so will cause the vehicle to have less observability and huge processing time.

3.The processing time is the main cause that it is not appropriate to use single mono camera.

I'm answering this since it comes under the wireless sensors and networks in electronics engineering.

Hope this helps.

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