Map Building Based on Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Vehicle

An autonomous vehicle requires the technology of generating maps by recognizing the surrounding environment. The recognition of the vehicle's environment can be achieved by using distance information from a 2D laser scanner and color information from a camera. Such sensor information is used to generate 2D or 3D maps. A 2D map is used mostly for generating routs, because it contains information only about a section. In contrast, a 3D map involves height values also, and therefore can be used not only for generating routs but also for finding out vehicle accessible space. Nevertheless, an autonomous vehicle using 3D maps has difficulty in recognizing environment in real time. Accordingly, this paper proposes the technology for generating 2D maps that guarantee real-time recognition. The proposed technology uses only the color information obtained by removing height values from 3D maps generated based on the fusion of 2D laser scanner and camera data.