Former NASA Engineer Mark Rober Attempts to Fool Self-Driving Tesla with Fake Wall

Former NASA engineer Mark Rober wanted to see how Tesla’s self-driving system stacks up against its LiDAR counterpart by using a Wile E. Coyote-style fake wall. On the road, Full Self-Driving (FSD) can recognize and responds to traffic lights as well as stop signs, but this obstacle is an entirely different story, as it has been clothed with fake scenery.

The Tesla Model Y with Autopilot activated was able to avoid hitting a mannequin in the road, but had a bit of trouble with inclement weather. Current (2021+) models come equipped with Tesla Vision, which consists of eight external cameras providing 360-degree visibility up to 250 meters, combined with ultrasonic sensors for close-range detection. As for LiDAR, it uses laser pulses to create high-resolution, 3D maps of the environment, but requires specialized hardware to process the data. We won’t spoil the results, but one of these technologies is definitely more reliable than the other.

So the computer vision has trouble detecting obstacles that the LiDAR handles no sweat, but LiDAR would have no way to identify lane markings for self-driving. The best solution is probably a combination of both technologies working together!,” said one commenter.