DIY self-driving dev: braking dips the camera 1-2°, corrupting lead-car distance and calibration
theshawwn · x · 2026-11-03
A DIY self-driving developer shares a counterintuitive finding: with cameras mounted high on the windshield, touching the brakes dips the nose by 1-2 degrees, making lead cars appear further away — and bumps/braking also corrupt camera calibration.
- Hidden factory sensor: most cars already broadcast gyro+accelerometer data at 50 Hz on the CAN bus for stability control, but only flat 2D motion — no pitch or roll. Still useful for dead-reckoning between 1 Hz GPS updates
- Adding a 9-axis IMU: on-chip fusion fails in motion — you can't trust the IMU's own roll/pitch because the chip doesn't know wheel speed
Photos show the full build: an HWT906 9-axis IMU on a 39.95mm carrier PCB, a 3D-printed ASA enclosure with M3 brass inserts, and the installed trunk compute pod.
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