October 31, 2022Laser attack blinds autonomous vehicles, deleting pedestrians and confusing carsSelf-driving cars, like the human drivers that preceded them, need to see what's around them to avoid obstacles and drive safely.New research reveals that expertly timed lasers shined at an approaching lidar system can create a blind spot in front of the vehicle large enough to completely hide moving pedestrians and other obstacles.The deleted data causes the cars to think the road is safe to continue moving along, endangering whatever may be in the attack's blind spot.The scientists demonstrated the attack on moving vehicles and robots with the attacker placed about 15 feet away on the side of the road.They also demonstrated with real-world experiments that the attack could follow a slow-moving vehicle using basic camera tracking equipment."