Will a bunch of self driving cars all using LIDAR interfere with each other?
Busy intersections could have strategically placed high resolution LIDAR "base stations" that wirelessly transmit the model to cars as they near the intersection.
You could avoid interference using techniques similar to ones used in direct sequence spread spectrum - rather than a continuous beam, send out pulses in a pseudorandom sequence, and look for that sequence in the reflected returns. With each transmitter keyed differently you can ignore reflections from other transmitters.
That sounds like a centralized approach to the problem. Which ive thought about, too. If the government provided more infrastructure to assist driverless cars it would probably accelerate adoption and the installation and maintenance costs of LIDAR turrets and other infrastructure would ideally be offset by the number of lives saved. Im also wondering if a something similar to air traffic control could be applied to self driving cars.
If you really want to decentralize, take down all the "DON'T WALK" signals, and let pedestrians use a smartphone app to tell them when to cross the road.
I think the more important goal than being completely autonomous is killing and maiming as few people as possible. Cars depend on a lot of immobile "base stations" like gas and charging stations, traffic lights, drive through fast food restaurants, and the roads themselves. Until cars can refine their own petroleum or generate their own electricity, replicate their own fast food, and pave their own roads [1], they're never going to be purely autonomous.
My question is how much do a bunch of cars an intersection all using LIDAR at the same time interfere with each other? Would it make sense for them to wirelessly share their models, and share an even better model made possible by high resolution LIDAR placed on poles like street lights? Then approaching cars could see around corners, and know about otherwise invisible oncoming traffic.
I'm not suggesting that every intersection and long stretch of road through the desert should be festooned with LIDAR base stations. But how about starting with every busy intersection on Market street, for example?
Wait you don't want your car to send all the inputs to Amazon or Googlefor processing in their data center, and just her responses back? "We see you are driving by a McDonald's. Your route has been updated to include a burger and fries!"
Busy intersections could have strategically placed high resolution LIDAR "base stations" that wirelessly transmit the model to cars as they near the intersection.