A random finite set based detection and tracking using 3D LIDAR in dynamic environments

In this paper we describe a fully integrated system for detecting and tracking pedestrians in a dynamic urban environment. The system can reliably detect and track pedestrians to a range of 100 m in highly cluttered environments. The system uses a highly accurate 3D LIDAR from Velodyne to segment the scene into regions of interest or blobs, from which the pedestrians are determined. The pedestrians are then tracked using probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter which is based on random finite set theoretic framework. In contrast to classical approaches, this random finite set framework does not require any explicit data associations. The PHD filter is implemented using a Gaussian Mixture technique. Experimental results obtained in dynamic urban settings demonstrate the efficacy and tracking performance of the proposed approach.