Why Robots Need to See - Robotics Business Review

Most autonomous vehicle manufacturers incorporate high-end 3D LiDARs, along with additional sensors, into their vehicles so that they are provided with enough data to fully understand their surroundings and operate safely. Yet in April 2019, Elon Musk famously told attendees at Tesla's Autonomy Day that LiDAR is a "fool's errand"--and that anyone relying on it is "doomed," referring to Tesla's preference for vision-based perception. The LiDAR / vision debate continues to this day. But since that time there has been a steadily increasing emphasis on cameras and computer vision in the autonomous vehicle market. Vision-based Navigation for AMRs Recently, the same debate has emerged in the mobile robot market where traditional 2D LiDARs have been the prevailing navigation sensor for decades. Some AMR manufacturers, including Canvas Technology (acquired by Amazon), Gideon Brothers, and Seegrid, have already developed AMRs with varying degrees of vision-based navigation.