Many people take it for granted that these two technologies, visual autonomous driving and radar autonomous driving, are a little bit taken for granted.
They think, "Oh, when it's raining and foggy, even airplanes have to rely on radar, so cars must also rely on radar!" This idea sounds quite reasonable, but when you think about it, it actually doesn't make sense.
The plane flies so fast, much faster than a car, if you just look at it, and when you see something in front of you, you will already fly far away, how can you avoid it?
So with radar for aircraft, that's a must. But the car is different, even if you drive to 100 kilometers per hour, you can see things clearly from 200 meters away, which is enough for us to react and ensure safe driving.
Besides, if it's raining and fogging, you won't be foolishly hoping that you can run all the way to 120 kilometers in the fog with your radar on? That's not realistic and unsafe! The correct way to do this is to automatically slow down the speed of the car and stay away from the car or obstacle in front of you according to how far you can see in front of you. This way, even if you have a bad line of sight, you can still have enough time to respond to unexpected situations.
The hero behind visual autonomous driving is actually artificial intelligence (AI). It's like a pair of super eyes, which can recognize road signs and lane markings from the photos taken by the camera, and can also spot pedestrians and vehicles on the road, and even predict their actions. If the AI is not big enough to recognize complex road conditions, then you can indeed consider adding radar assistance.
Autonomous driving doesn't have to be a copy of an airplane. The speed of the car is not so fast, and most of the time, a good camera and smart AI can fully ensure our safe driving.
When it rains or fogs, don't think about relying on the radar to go on a rampage, but let the car intelligently slow down and keep a safe distance. Radar can be a helper, but the key is to look at the strength of the AI, if it is strong, we can rest assured, if it is weak, then we may need radar to help.
Even Huawei's intelligent basic version has also used Musk's visual autonomous driving solution for the first time, indicating that Huawei's AI capabilities have made breakthroughs.