Lidar Blocked whenever it rains - what does the Lidar do?

[segbrk]

Thank you for sharing. I just sent you a DM.

Oh, is that not expected? My logs from yesterday evening should show losing LIDAR a few times while it was raining. And a few days before that. I just thought this was normal and expected behavior. HA disengaged and ACC continued to work fine.

 

[Unmutual]

@mcr16: I got the Lidar blocked message several times yesterday while it was raining lightly.

 

[mcr16]

@segbrk and @Unmutual thank you both for sharing.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Yeah I get the Lidar blocked message often when it rains, but more frequently in light rain than heavy rain.

 

[Volund]

@segbrk and @Unmutual thank you both for sharing.

Every time it rains even lightly, I get LIDAR blocked, and this did not happen when I first got the car, so definitely related to some update in the last year.
And I got ppf and ceramic coat as soon as I got the car

 

[brisk]

I know this is an old thread...but I am getting this every time it drizzles.
Haven't driven it in rain yet so can't report on that.

 

[joec]

I know this is an old thread...but I am getting this every time it drizzles.
Haven't driven it in rain yet so can't report on that.

Yeah. It's more likely in drizzle than all-out rain, unfortunately.

 

[smorvay]

I got the LIDAR blocked notification today in the rain. Is this a "working as intended" issue, or should I be calling for service?

 

[brisk]

I got the LIDAR blocked notification today in the rain. Is this a "working as intended" issue, or should I be calling for service?

I reached out to service as well and they said, "it is common for the LiDAR to say it's blocked during rainy or drizzling conditions at night."

They recommend switching to the guest profile and back to yours. Haven't tried it yet.

 

[ken43]

Confirm I get the error, too. It seems the consensus is that this has manifested since the recent updates. Possible .52. But I’m in California and get rain infrequently. This current weather has the LiDAR message coming up nearly every rain it encounters. It did not happen previously. Probable software update fix in the future.

I get this Lidar warning occasionally when it rains (not every time), but this has happened since I got the car 2 years ago. I don't think it is related to a recent update.

 

[Rogue]

I know this is an old thread...but I am getting this every time it drizzles.
Haven't driven it in rain yet so can't report on that.

Somewhere in this thread, there is a description of what the Lidar "sees". In short, the misting and droplets on the Lidar causes a layer that refracts, reflects, and diffuses the electromagnetic waves being emitted.

This is in many ways the same effect as rain on a windshield without wipers or glasses. You can't see because the rain is distorting your field of vision. The Lidar is more powerful than your eyes and can overpower some of these limitations, but Lucid has operating power bands and frequency bands allowed by the FCC and balancing power usage.

Hope this helps as a non-technical summary of the issue for folks. The behavior is expected.

 

[momo3605]

I reached out to service as well and they said, "it is common for the LiDAR to say it's blocked during rainy or drizzling conditions at night."

They recommend switching to the guest profile and back to yours. Haven't tried it yet.

Tell lucid support to talk to @borski apparently the lidar doesn’t get blocked with rain like vision based systems.

 

[Genghis]

This is a known issue, and it happens to my car when it's very light, misty rain. Usually goes away when it starts raining harder or when the rain stops. It happens intermittently so it must be when certain conditions are exactly met.

 

[borski]

Tell lucid support to talk to @borski apparently the lidar doesn’t get blocked with rain like vision based systems.

That is not what I said. Radar doesn’t get blocked by rain. Neither does ultrasonic.

Please don’t put words in my mouth.

LiDAR can overcome some of the limitations of rain and low visibility because it is more powerful than our eyes or a camera, but it still uses laser, which requires line of sight. It would be absurd to suggest that wouldn’t be affected by rain.

The point of having multiple sensors is that when one of them fails to be useful due to whatever reason (rain, fog, driving by an airport that jams radar, whatever), you have redundancy and can still rely on the other sensors, even if in a diminished capacity, rather than simply failing altogether.

*That* is what I said.

And in case you’re curious about *exactly* what I said, here is the source: https://lucidowners.com/threads/lid...rains-what-does-the-lidar-do.4905/post-177013

 

[Adnillien]

That is not what I said. Radar doesn’t get blocked by rain. Neither does ultrasonic.

Please don’t put words in my mouth.

LiDAR can overcome some of the limitations of rain and low visibility because it is more powerful than our eyes or a camera, but it still uses laser, which requires line of sight. It would be absurd to suggest that wouldn’t be affected by rain.

The point of having multiple sensors is that when one of them fails to be useful due to whatever reason (rain, fog, driving by an airport that jams radar, whatever), you have redundancy and can still rely on the other sensors, even if in a diminished capacity, rather than simply failing altogether.

*That* is what I said.

And in case you’re curious about *exactly* what I said, here is the source: https://lucidowners.com/threads/lid...rains-what-does-the-lidar-do.4905/post-177013

Rain and snow attenuates LiDAR but it is better at seeing through weather than optical cameras but not as good as radar. To @borski's point that the advantage of multiple sensors is that they all have different strengths and weaknesses and the combination gives a better result in varying situations.

Here are some more details on Air's LiDAR. It has a range of 150 m, 120 degree field of view with a resolution of 0.05 degrees. It has a vertical field of view of 25 degrees. Like most current LiDAR it is based on time of flight meaning that it cannot detect relative speed in a single pass. Future LiDAR will migrate to Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave which will add target speed and reduce the potential for interference. The big advantage of LiDAR over other sensors is resolution. At 150m, it sees a target of 0.13m wide. In 2021 Lucid’s Robosense LiDAR unit costs around $1900, current cost is about $750 with the price likely getting below $500 sometime next year.

 

[momo3605]

The point of having multiple sensors is that when one of them fails to be useful due to whatever reason (rain, fog, driving by an airport that jams radar, whatever), you have redundancy and can still rely on the other sensors, even if in a diminished capacity, rather than simply failing altogether.

Gotcha, so with the redundancy of multiple sensors, can Lucid's HA (with vision, lidar, radar, USS) work if the single Lidar sensor is blocked by rain?

 

[Genghis]

Gotcha, so with the redundancy of multiple sensors, can Lucid's HA (with vision, lidar, radar, USS) work if the single Lidar sensor is blocked by rain?

In a previous post on this thread @Bunnylebowski said HA turns off abruptly if the LIDAR fails and you were in HA already. This may or not have been addressed with more recent updates since his post but I would assume it hasn't since I haven't seen it in any update notes.

 

[segbrk]

I have driven in both light and heavy rain with HA engaged, have seen the LiDAR warning, and it just kept working fine.

 

[borski]

Gotcha, so with the redundancy of multiple sensors, can Lucid's HA (with vision, lidar, radar, USS) work if the single Lidar sensor is blocked by rain?

Yes.