Image-Based Lateral Position, Steering Behavior Estimation, and Road Curvature Prediction for Motorcycles

This letter presents an image-based approach to simultaneously estimate the lateral position of a powered-two-wheeled vehicle on the road, its steering behavior and predict the road curvature ahead of the motorcycle. This letter is based on the inverse perspective mapping technique combined with a road lanes detection algorithm capable of detecting straight and curved lanes. Then, a clothoid model is used to extract pertinent information from the detected road markers. Finally, the performance of the proposed approach is illustrated through simulations carried out with the well-known motorcycle simulator “BikeSim.” The results are very promising since the algorithm is capable of estimating, in real time, the road geometry and the vehicle location with a better accuracy than the one given by the commercial GPS.