A High Dynamic Range (HDR) scenario is one in which there is both an extremely bright and extremely dark part of a scene occurring simultaneously. We see HDR scenarios all the time when we drive, for example driving from a bright scene into a dark tunnel or driving towards the sun with a high degree of road glare. In these situations, traditional cameras fail because they are limited in the range of light intensities that they can process, a.k.a. the dynamic range. Vayu Sense, however, is able to manage these HDR scenarios as a result of a more robust camera sensor system, allowing for superior perception at the same low cost of a camera.
The following results show how Vayu Sense performs in various HDR scenarios when compared with state-of-the-art automotive camera technologies.
Road Glare
The left panel shows the output of a Mobileye system using a standard camera. When the glare in the scene is very high, the Mobileye system has zero confidence in its lane detection, which is indicated by the red lines. Once the road glare reduces, the lane lines turn yellow and then green indicating higher confidence. On the other hand, the Vayu Sense system, shown on the right, performs robustly with uninterrupted lane detection throughout the drive no matter the level of glare.
Dark objects in shadow
The other end of the dynamic range spectrum involves detecting objects in shadow juxtaposed with bright scenes. The scene below shows a pedestrian inside a dark tunnel. Both an iPhone Camera in HDR mode as well as a production grade automotive HDR camera (with 105 dB dynamic range) fail to detect the pedestrian, who is clearly visible with Vayu Sense. We are even only using a CMOS image sensor with 70dB dynamic range in the Vayu Sense system!
You can see a similar case in the context of a mobility scenario, where standard automotive HDR cameras have a difficult time detecting cars in shadow under an overpass. The Vayu Sense system does a stellar job finding the cars, creating a much more robust and safe perception system.
