LASER INTENSITY-BASED OBSTACLE DETECTION AND TRACKING

Abstract

One of the major challenges in designing intelligent vehicles capable of autonomous travel on highways is reliable obstacle detection. Highways present an unknown and dynamic environment with real-time constraints. In addition, the high speeds of travel force a system to detect objects at long ranges. Because of its necessity for mobile robot platforms and intelligent vehicles, there has been a great amount of research devoted to the obstacle detection problem. Although there are a number of methods that can successfully detect moving vehicles, the more difficult problem of detecting animals or small, static road debris such as tires, boxes, or crates remains unsolved. Laser range scanners, or ladars, have been used for many years for obstacle detection. Laser scanners operate by sweeping a laser across a scene and at each angle, measuring the range and returned intensity. Past researchers have ignored the intensity signal while focusing on the range returned from the laser,...