Crustaceans are a bit like superheroes in the underwater world. With their sturdy exoskeletons and terrifying claws, they look like something straight out of a fantasy movie. Some, like lobsters, can easily live over 100 years. And while they’re usually coveted for their culinary qualities, this time they provided cutting-edge culinary inspiration. vision technology has great potential for driverless car. This small crustacean that lives in the reefs of Australia is called the mantis shrimp. (gonodactylus smithii), have some great skills. First, it can hit at bullet speed (350 meters per second), meaning it can literally punch beyond its weight. And, more related to the topic at hand, it utilizes a very complex visual system to enable high-contrast detection of prey in shallow water. And these high-contrast situations pose real problems. technical challenge for driverless vehicles.
In 2016, the United States recorded its first fatality in a self-driving car accident. reason? The on-board camera couldn’t distinguish between the clear sky and the white truck ahead. The incident prompted University of Illinois researcher Viktor Grouvum to wonder if there was anything possible. technical solution about the problem. So he began researching the mantis shrimp’s visual system, which allows him to see the subtle nuances of extreme light and dark at the same time. This is technically called high dynamic range, and some modern TVs, such as those with OLED panels, can provide high brightness and deep blacks at the same time. Mantis shrimp detect polarization, a property of light in which a light wave oscillating in multiple planes is constrained to oscillate along a single plane. This means that the visual system responds logarithmically to light rather than linearly.
Gruev reproduced this logarithmic response as follows: new camera technology It has 500,000 sensors that detect dark and light areas of a scene. So his camera offers 10,000 times more contrast than his current system, meaning it can identify objects regardless of color and works even in hazy conditions. Another advantage of this technology for him is that it is based on off-the-shelf components, so devices of this type should hit the market soon. Finally, these cameras may also have interesting applications in cancer cell detection and underwater exploration.
How do driverless cars “see”?
Driverless cars are currently using several vehicles. Technology that assesses the environment. In addition to conventional cameras, it is also equipped with a LIDAR system that uses pulsed lasers to measure the distance of surrounding objects.this InnovationHowever, being colorblind, other systems such as thermal imaging should be added to the mix. All this information is fed into an AI system that interprets the context and distinguishes between humans, animals, vehicles and obstacles among others. Driving under real-world conditions involving millions of variables is an undeniable challenge. cutting edge technology. And, as the mantis shrimp proves, nature offers us a helping hand.
sauce: engineering.com
