A Curvature-based Scheme for Improving Road Vehicle Guidance by Computer Vision

An efficient method for guiding high speed land vehicles along roadways by computer vision has been developed and demonstrated with image sequence processing hardware in a real-time simulation loop 1. The approach is tailored to a well structured highway environment with good lanemarkings. Contour correlation and high order world models are the basic elements of the method, realised in a special multi-microprocessor (on board) computer system. Perspec-tive projection and dynamical models (Kalman filter) are used in an integrated approach for the design of the visual feedback control system. By determining road curvature explicity from the visual input, previously encountered steady state errors in curves are eliminated. The performance of the system will be demonstrated by a video film. The operation of the image sequence processing system has been tested on a typical Autobahn-scene at velocities up to 100 km/h.