Abstract:
Robust road-boundary extraction/tracking is one of
the main problems in autonomous roadway navigation. Although
the road boundary can be defined by various means including
lane markings, curbs, and borders of vegetation, this paper focuses
on road-boundary tracking using curbs. A vehicle-mounted
(downward tilted) 2-D laser-measurement system is utilized to
detect the curbs. The tracking problem is difficult because both
the vehicle is moving and the target is disappearing, reappearing,
and maneuvering in clutter. The interacting-multiple-model
probabilistic-data-association filter (IMMPDAF) is proposed to
solve the problems after detailed analysis. Track initiation,
confirmation, and deletion are performed using the sequential probability-
ratio test. Extensive simulations followed by experiments
in a campus environment show that the road-boundary
tracking utilizing curbs is possible and robust through IMMPDAF.
