VTT 's robot car now sees through fog

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland says it is one step closer to creating a safe automated vehicle through upgrades made to its Marilyn robot car. The vehicle can now see through foggy and snowy conditions, navigating without stopping. Additionally, VTT says, the car can see humans through fog and avoid accidents automatically. Marilyn now has light imaging, detection, and ranging (Lidar) mounted on its roof, which the company claims enables it to see wavelengths beyond the human senses.
May 15, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
814 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland says it is one step closer to creating a safe automated vehicle through upgrades made to its Marilyn robot car. The vehicle can now see through foggy and snowy conditions, navigating without stopping.


Additionally, VTT says, the car can see humans through fog and avoid accidents automatically.

Marilyn now has light imaging, detection, and ranging (Lidar) mounted on its roof, which the company claims enables it to see wavelengths beyond the human senses.

Matti Kutila, VTT’s project manager, says: "Although Marilyn's vision is limited to roughly 30m in thick fog, the new Lidar type allows the car to be driven slowly rather than having to fully stop.”

The car now features optical component wavelengths via the 1550 nanometre Lidar and has additional intelligence for its software design to improve sensor capabilities. Software modules have been built in for the filtering of point clouds and the assessment of scanner reliability.

However, Marilyn's automotive radars and Lidar's detection of non-metallic obstacles and resolution is limited, particularly when trying to recognise shapes.

For more information on companies in this article

VTT

Related Content

  • Gardasoft liquid lens provides faster focus and better images
    March 21, 2018
    Gardasoft is demonstrating how to capture high-quality images of fast-moving vehicles using an innovative liquid lens concept. This, the company says, provides significant performance benefits over traditional, fixed-focus lenses. Many ITS applications require vision systems which can cope with widely varying distances between object and camera. A challenge in the ITS space is the high speeds which can be encountered, particularly in free-flowing traffic. Gardasoft’s approach features a shape-changing
    Read More
  • Carrida standalone, network-compatible ALPR systems for parking applications
    October 24, 2017
    Vision Components’ modular Carrida automatic licence plate recognition (ALPR) software enables black list/white list access control, parking management, identification of vehicle types and colours and data logging. It can be networked with gates, barriers, ticket printers, under-vehicle scanners (UVSS) and other relevant equipment.
    Read More
  • When traffic data can get it totally wrong
    November 30, 2021
    How can a highway devoid of traffic provide data suggesting it is filled with vehicles crawling along? Michael Vardi of Valerann provides an insight into how data can easily be skewed - and what can be done to prevent it
    Read More
  • Autonomous car data released
    January 14, 2016
    California’s Autonomous Vehicle Testing Regulations require every manufacturer authorised to test autonomous vehicles (AV) on public roads to submit an annual report summarising the disengagements, or deactivation of the autonomous mode, of the technology during testing. Eleven manufacturers are currently testing autonomous vehicles on the state’s roads, seven of which (VW/Audi, Mercedes Benz, Google, Delphi Automotive, Tesla Motors, Bosch, and Nissan) were required to submit their first disengagement re
    Read More

Highlighted Content