May a Pair of ‘Eyes’ Be Optimal for Vehicles Too?

Abstract

Following a very brief look at the human vision system, an extended summary of our own elemental steps towards future vision systems for ground vehicles is given, leading to the proposal made in the main part. The question is raised of why the predominant solution in biological vision systems, namely pairs of eyes (very often multi-focal and gaze-controllable), has not been found in technical systems up to now, though it may be a useful or even optimal solution for vehicles too. Two potential candidates with perception capabilities closer to the human sense of vision are discussed in some detail: one with all cameras mounted in a fixed way onto the body of the vehicle, and one with a multi-focal gaze-controllable set of cameras. Such compact systems are considered advantageous for many types of vehicles if a human level of performance in dynamic real-time vision and detailed scene understanding is the goal. Increasingly general realizations of these types of vision systems may take all of the 21st century to be developed. The big challenge for such systems with the capability of learning while seeing will be more on the software side than on the hardware side required for sensing and computing.