A LOW-COST SOLUTION FOR AN INTEGRATED MULTISENSOR LANE DEPARTURE WARNING SYSTEM

A LOW-COST SOLUTION FOR AN INTEGRATED  

MULTISENSOR LANE DEPARTURE WARNING SYSTEM  

March 2009  

The responsibility of a vision-based lane departure warning  (LDW) system is  to  alert  a  driver  of  an  unintended  lane  departure.  Because  these  systems  solely  rely  on  the  vision  sensor's  ability  to  detect  the  lane  markings  on  the  roadway, these systems are extremely sensitive to the roadway conditions.  

When a vehicle's LDW system fails to detect lane markers on the roadway, it  loses its ability to alert the driver of an unintended lane departure. The goal of  this  research  is  to  use  GPS  combined  with  inertial  sensors  and  a  high- accuracy map to assist a vision-based LDW system. GPS navigation systems  are  available  in  many  automobiles,  along  with  automotive-grade  inertial  sensors.  

The low accuracy of a typical GPS receiver found in an automotive navigation system is largely attributed to a position error. This error is too large to allow the GPS receiver to locate a vehicle in a particular lane on a roadway.  

A method  to  measure  this  error  using  a  vision-based  LDW  system,  together  with  a  high-accuracy map,  is  presented  in  this  paper.  With  the  error  known,  the  accuracy  of  the  GPS  receiver  is  increased  to  a  high-enough  level  to  localize  the  vehicle  on  a  particular  lane.  Next,  a  method  fusing  GPS/inertial  navigation sensor/vision and a high-accuracy map for highway lane tracking is  presented.  

This  method provides  a  backup lateral offset measurement that can be used for LDW when the LDW vision system loses track of the lane markings.