LIDAR Sensing for Vehicle Lateral Guidance: Algorithm and Experimental Study

This paper describes a new vehicle detection system based on a laser imaging, detection, and ranging (LIDAR) sensor, and conducts an experimental study to investigate the sensor's role in the current California PATH vehicle lateral guidance systems. The LIDAR sensor is installed on a controlled vehicle and it can measure the relative distance of the vehicle from a preceding vehicle, by scanning the horizontal plane with laser beams. Environmental clutter becomes the main challenge in data processing, when LIDAR tries to track the desired target. A probabilistic data association-based algorithm has been developed to solve this problem, which has been verified in real-time experiments using two Buick LaSabre vehicles. The experimental study also reveals the relation between the LIDAR outputs and the magnetic reference system widely used by the current PATH lateral control systems, and the results provide the guidelines on how this new sensor system may be used for vehicle lateral guidance