Redundant multi-object detection for autonomous vehicles in structured environments

Abstract

This paper presents a redundant multi-object detection method for autonomous driving, exploiting a combination of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and stereocamera sensors to detect different obstacles. These sensors are used for distinct perception pipelines considering a custom hardware/software architecture deployed on a self-driving electric racing vehicle. Consequently, the creation of a local map with respect to the vehicle position enables development of further local trajectory planning algorithms. The LiDAR-based algorithm exploits segmentation of point clouds for the ground filtering and obstacle detection. The stereocamera-based perception pipeline is based on a Single Shot Detector using a deep learning neural network. The presented algorithm is experimentally validated on the instrumented vehicle during different driving maneuvers.