Putting Mirrors on Traffic Cones Causes Self-Driving Cars to Melt Down, Confounding Lidar

Researchers have engineered the ultimate nemesis of self-driving cars: mirror-adorned traffic cones.

In a series of tests highlighted by The Register, a team from France and Germany showed that their optical sleight of hand could easily dupe lidar-equipped autonomous cars into not recognizing obstacles on the road.

Time after time, the experiments showed, the correct mirror placement left the cars oblivious and attempting to plow through sacrificial traffic cones. And if that was the disappearing act, they were also able to pull off a conjuring trick, deviously psyching out the car’s software into seeing obstacles that weren’t there.

“An adversary can inject phantom obstacles or erase real ones using only inexpensive mirrors,” the researchers warned in their new study, which is awaiting