
Man says CES lidar’s laser was so powerful it wrecked his camera - 882542F3884314B
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/man-says-ces-lidars-laser-was-so-powerful-it-wrecked-his-1998-camera/
======
rblatz
So vitreous fluid is opaque to 1550nm light and will block these new powerful
lasers from damaging the retina. What about people that have recently had
retinal detachment surgery, and had the vitreous fluid replaced with an oil,
is this replacement oil also opaque to 1550nm?

~~~
navs
So when a company says that it’s safe does this include testing for all of
these cases? While I haven’t had retinal detachment surgery, I’ve had lasik
done. I’m sure, being a common procedure, that it’s considered in whatever
battery of tests are performed. But what of these other procedures?

I’d hate to be walking down the street and suddenly be affected because my
eyes are just “different”
[https://youtu.be/zkD9SBP9AX4](https://youtu.be/zkD9SBP9AX4)

------
Reason077
If we are to have streets full of Lidar-equipped vehicles all constantly
blasting out laser light, I can imagine this will become a real problem.

Will digital cameras improve so that they are less sensitive to lasers? Or
will Lidar improve to use less-powerful lasers?

~~~
BuildTheRobots
If it can do that to a camera, what's it doing to eyes?

edit: > "Cameras are up to 1000x more sensitive to lasers than eyeballs,"
Dussan wrote. "Occasionally, this can cause thermal damage to a camera's focal
plane array." \- I'm still not entirely sold.

~~~
ddebernardy
The article actually has the answer:

> Other lidar makers use lasers with a wavelength of 1550nm. This tends to be
> more expensive because sensors have to be made out of exotic materials like
> indium-gallium arsenide rather than silicon. But it also has a big
> advantage: the fluid in the human eye is opaque to 1550nm light, so the
> light can't reach the retina at the back of the eye. This means lasers can
> operate at much higher power levels without posing an eye safety risk.

~~~
BuildTheRobots
> the fluid in the human eye is opaque to 1550nm light

sure, but does this hold true for most land-based animals and birds? How much
range does this give us? reflections can shift by half a wavelength - is that
still opaque too?

I'm not saying this isn't safe, but suddenly having a tonne of high power
laser sources pointing everywhere at all times might actually have some
consequences still...

~~~
jerf
If I am reading the chart labelled "The visible and UV spectra of liquid
water" at
[http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html](http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html)
(about 2/3rds down the page) correctly, water is fairly opaque at 1550nm. If
my hurried wikipedia education on the topic is correct, that chart is saying
it's quite opaque at that frequency, even at bat eyeball scales. Corrections
welcomed from people with more training in this field.

(I'm not sure I'm not getting some crossed units when I tried to resolve that
into numbers normals like me would understand; is that really 1/e^1000
transmitted per centimeter travelled? e^1000 is a big number. There's even
bigger ones on that chart. Then again, if a two-atom-thick layer of gold is
enough to make something look like gold and completely obscure what's
underneath, I guess that might make sense and my intuition is just off,
because when I convert that into this sort of scheme I get big numbers there,
too.)

~~~
ddebernardy
If memory serves me well, water absorbs that wavelength, so it would basically
function sort of like a microwave oven, but with such a much lower energy
level that you can basically ignore it.

~~~
neuralRiot
How will LIDAR work under the rain or snow then?

~~~
jychang
The same way regular vision works under snow. Snowflakes are opaque to visible
light too, so it'd work the same way human eyesight works for drivers
currently.

~~~
paradoxparalax
so maybe we don't need Lidar, because the cameras can see like the human eye
in the snow, too. Depth can be given by doing like insects and adding many
triangulation points.

------
kevitivity
Visible laser light kills cameras all the time. I think this is more likely
what happened here.

[https://photofocus.com/2013/09/14/beware-lasers-can-kill-
you...](https://photofocus.com/2013/09/14/beware-lasers-can-kill-your-cameras-
sensor/)

~~~
wlesieutre
That he took a photo of a visible light laser and it wasn't the car's IR
laser?

Or just that lasers in general are known to do this and the car's laser
probably did it?

------
yogrish
“Lidar sensors could also damage the cameras on other self-driving cars.“ so
eventaulally driverless Cars spoil each other camera sensors and can’t
recognize pedestrians, traffic signs. How can cameras be immune to high power
laser beams?

~~~
fest
By using low-pass optical filters on cameras, for example like this one
(probably much cheaper in volume):
[https://www.edmundoptics.com/document/download/396359](https://www.edmundoptics.com/document/download/396359)

I've used band-pass filters which reject everything except a narrow band, so
that camera sees just the IR LED (chosen to fall in the middle of passed band)
and they cost a few USD in small volumes.

------
ChuckMcM
Laser camera damage is a known thing. That Aeye would buy him a new camera was
pretty cool. Not sure how scalable that is as people take broken cameras that
can still get damaged, find an AEye car, and then set up a replacement.

If you went to a Diwali laser show you would get the ultimate camera death
mix, fine powder and lasers :-).

~~~
computerex
> That Aeye would buy him a new camera was pretty cool.

I wonder if they had warning signs telling people about the active lasers and
possible camera damage. If they didn't, I feel like replacing the camera is
just the right thing to do. It was CES, people are bound to have cameras.

------
milleramp
Silicon is transparent above 1.1um this laser is at 1.5um, so perhaps the
infrared cut filter that sits above the sensor was damaged. Perhaps Sony is
using a absorptive IR filter and it was damaged by heat, if it was reflective
filter i doubt it could be damaged.

~~~
dllu
Some shortpass filters only block 700 nm to 1100 nm and are not rated for
performance above 1100 nm, since the silicon sensor cannot "see" light above
1000 nm anyway (but may be damaged by sufficiently strong amounts of it). So,
perhaps Sony was using an IR block filter that blocks near IR from 700 nm to
1000 nm but doesn't block 1550 nm perfectly.

~~~
milleramp
Yes this that is probably the case, no need to block beyond 1.1um for images,
perhaps now they should extend it for safety. The laser must have passed
through and damaged the metal interconnects on the backside of the sensor.

------
sbr464
It sucks that UX issues (for lack of a better term) like this exist. It’s one
of the sole reasons we don’t have the Concorde flight program any longer,
since it couldn’t do any domestic flights because of the noise pollution from
breaking the sound barrier etc. Joking aside, it’s interesting how these
issues have to be considered when innovating at the bleeding edge.

~~~
sbr464
In comparison, if you consider CES as a modern day world’s fair, imagine the
dangers of experiencing a Tesla electricity exhibit or some of the earlier
X-ray tech with hour long exposure to high radiation.

[https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-
container/Health/Wellness/...](https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-
container/Health/Wellness/century-ray-machine-shows-radiation-risks-
yore/story?id=13140857)

------
stefan_
That sounds fantastic, can we put this into something I can wear?

~~~
cronix
We're thinking along the same lines. I was wondering how this could be adapted
to just make you invisible to cameras. It would be a fun project to deploy at
a protest or something where everybody is filming everyone else, or maybe I
just don't want to be caught on 500 building cameras as I walk down the
street.

------
Latteland
Just imagine in a few years there will be thousands of devices using lidar in
a city. Will that be enough to knock out endless surveillance cameras?

~~~
peterlk
Yep, by the same companies that will bring you _Surveillance Lidar_!

~~~
dllu
Surveillance lidar is a thing.

[1] Quanergy Perimeter Security System
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFCgEzdrbQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFCgEzdrbQM)

[2] Quanergy's LiDAR-based security solution
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpYDWb2yX_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpYDWb2yX_M)

------
Neil44
Back in the day I did this to an old CyberShot with a laser pointer, it
permenantly had two purplish marks on the images afterwards. I would think the
laser would need to be somewhat static or slow moving to cause the damage
though not scanning at high speed.

You can see the purplish marks just slightly down and left of centre here -
[https://i.ibb.co/THMS42D/dsc00006.jpg](https://i.ibb.co/THMS42D/dsc00006.jpg)

~~~
joshvm
This is actually how several LIDAR scanning stations are allowed to be called
class I (or maybe II) devices. The lasers inside would do bad things to your
eyes (easily class 3). Because they're pulsed and spinning, the odds of you
getting multiple hits to your eyeballs are quite low.

------
dylan604
If the wavelength of the laser is a known 1550nm, maybe the companies like
Lee, Tiffen, etc can come out with a filter to protect against this. Street
photographers will be susceptible to driverless cars without warning. It would
be a niche market for sure, but if I was doing street work where it was known
to have driverless cars, it would be worth ~$100 filter to protect my >$2500
camera body.

~~~
dgzl
For the short term, sure. But long term, the lidar system will have to be
adjusted to not cause harm to the public.

------
bhousel
Cool. This will be fine as long as 2 self driving cars never go near each
other.

~~~
qznc
Shouldn't this also be a problem with other non-passive sensors like radar. If
we have a traffic jam of cars each sending radio waves from multiple sensors
there has to be quite some interference, no?

~~~
dllu
Radars pointed at each other may have some interference resulting in temporary
erroneous readings but they won't be permanently damaged like the camera in
the article.

~~~
aidenn0
In a heterogenous environment this is not necessarily true; a radar with a
powerful transmitter could damage a radar with a very sensitive receiver,
particularly at close ranges.

There are military jamming devices that can quite handily permanently damage
radars not designed to distinguish it.

~~~
dllu
Oh I see, that makes sense. I wonder if any automotive radars are that
powerful.

~~~
aidenn0
Almost certainly not. The FCC approval process would likely catch that. Lasers
are also far more focused then microwaves (typical spot size of a cheapo laser
pointer is 12cm at 100m away; police LIDAR is good to target a single car out
to at least 1/4 mile).

------
arriu
Is there any research material to support these claims? I can't imagine the
energy and optics involved would have been sufficient to do this. Seems like
coincidence to me. The sun has far more energy than what we're talking about
here.

I'm happy to be proven wrong though as I wouldn't want something unsafe on the
streets as much as anyone else.

~~~
Retric
Taking a picture of the sun will destroy most cameras. So, I don’t think that
supports your argument.

~~~
umvi
Even with really quick exposures? I've taken pictures of the sun before
(before, during, and after last year's eclipse) with my cell phone camera and
it seemed fine.

~~~
packetized
Your cellphone camera lens likely doesn’t have the requisite light-gathering
capacity to burn out the CMOS image sensor in your phone. CCDs (commonly used
in DSLR/M43 cameras) are far more sensitive, as I understand it.

~~~
ipsum2
I don't believe DSLRs or M43 cameras have used CCDs since last decade.

~~~
dllu
The Pentax 645D, introduced in 2010, is a DSLR with a CCD sensor. But yes, it
is extremely rare.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_645D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_645D)

------
boxcardavin
I tweeted at him to ask him what size lens and sensor he has so I could
estimate how much energy/flux was hitting his sensor. Anyone have an idea of
how many lidar it would take to saturate an area and make distance
measurements useless? It's tougher with lidar because you can't easily
frequency shift like with radar.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
If it's a $2000 Sony camera, it's definitely going to be a 35mm sensor. His
lens on the other hand I wouldn't be able to guess.

~~~
dllu
It's a Sony ILCE-7RM2 with a 35mm lens at f/4:
[https://twitter.com/jitrc/status/1083190800710684673](https://twitter.com/jitrc/status/1083190800710684673)

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
I'm puzzled by the fact that it's only burned in two spots. This is a
mirrorless camera so the lidar would be going into the lens and hitting the
sensor constantly, not just during the exposure. I wonder what's happened
here.

~~~
quickben
Somebody mentioned it's a pulsing one.

------
walrus01
I strongly dispute the claim that 1550nm is eye safe. 1550nm is also the band
used for long distance, high powered DWDM transport systems for internet
backbone purposes. And is common in "long reach" SFP+ modules for use 80 to
120km on dark fiber without amplification. There are common eye safety
precautions, one of which is you NEVER aim the ferrule from a optic or patch
cable at your face with a live 1550nm signal on it. This is known by everyone
who lights long distance dark fiber.

This company claims they have a 1550 band laser operating in free space air,
spraying all over the place, with a 1000 meter range? Oh, great.

It's not in the visible spectrum so you can't tell if it's damaging your
eyeballs, either.

------
01100011
Is LIDAR just a stop-gap solution until we get better structure-from-motion
type algorithms? Humans don't need lasers to drive. Binocular vision seems to
suit the task just fine. Autonomous vehicles have the advantage that they can
leverage hyperspectral imaging. Why the obsession with LIDAR?

~~~
rjeli
Writing software for competent self driving is turning out to be really hard,
and no one is succeeding. On the other hand, building better and cheaper lidar
hardware is a well-defined problem that companies can pour money into. Their
software still sucks, but everyone’s occupied with wrangling the $100k lidar.

~~~
grenadier21
Could some rebel make things like fake road bumps that lidars can't pick up,
but humans can?

~~~
01100011
Protecting AI against spoofing attacks is a pretty active area of research
right now.

~~~
paradoxparalax
Protecting neural networks from adversarial attacks, i think you mean.
Protecting good A.I. from spoofing attacks is exactly the same as protecting
human drivers from spoofing attacks.

------
ajkjk
Interesting. I also remember hearing about a device which zap mosquitos out of
the air with lasers and a lot of careful accuracy. Is the future going to
include nefarious actors with devices which near-instantly destroy all cameras
(...or eyes?) in sight?

~~~
emeraldd
So some has already built an "Eye Seeking Laser"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8zC3-ZQFJI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8zC3-ZQFJI)

~~~
ngngngng
Well, time for me to put on a pair of reflective sunglasses to never take off.

~~~
rhizome
"Do not stare into laser with remaining eye."

------
ddebernardy
1550nm anti-paparazzi devices coming in 3... 2... 1...

(Or maybe not, owing to the potential liability.)

~~~
21
[https://www.boredpanda.com/anti-paparazzi-clothing-chris-
hol...](https://www.boredpanda.com/anti-paparazzi-clothing-chris-holmes/)

------
totallynotcool
With lidar becoming more and more popular, are there ways to protect cameras
in it's path; i.e. dashcams.

------
petermcneeley
I hate giving Elon credit, but there is some wisdom in the idea of only using
optical Receivers for self driving input.

~~~
dgzl
> I hate giving Elon credit

Why? Not only is he a genius (citation needed), but he's also highly invested
in big-risk companies working toward a healthy future. I wish more people were
like Elon.

------
paradoxparalax
I hope AI evolves fast enough to kill LIDAR even before it's birth. I really
hate lasers on my eyes. I have fought once with some street laser sellers
because of it, and some blood was splat. I don't like fighting and I'm not
violent at all, but I hate those things and a future of thousands lasers
coming from all cars on the street would be the Horror. Luckily it's all most
vaporware and carmakers are going to loose a few billion dollars on this
mistake, before pivoting to raw pixel based A.I.

~~~
paradoxparalax
If I had to bet my money, I would bet LIDAR will be like Betamax home
videoplayers. Or the Sony Discman. Will die rather young : D , thanks god.

