Intelligent Hybrid Fusion Algorithm with Vision Patterns for Generation of Precise Digital Road Maps in Self-driving Vehicles

Abstract

Due to the significant increase in the use of autonomous car technology, it is essential to integrate this technology with high-precision digital map data containing more precise and accurate roadway information, as compared to existing conventional map resources, to ensure the safety of self-driving operations. While existing map technologies may assist vehicles in identifying their locations via Global Positioning System, it is however difficult to update the environmental changes of roadways in these maps. Roadway vision algorithms can be useful for building autonomous vehicles that can avoid accidents and detect real-time location changes. We incorporate a hybrid architectural design that combines unsupervised classification of vision data with supervised joint fusion classification to achieve a better noise-resistant algorithm. We identify, via a deep learning approach, an intelligent hybrid fusion algorithm for fusing multimodal vision feature data for roadway classifications and characterize its improvement in accuracy over unsupervised identifications using image processing and supervised vision classifiers. We analyzed over 93,000 vision frame data collected from a test vehicle in real roadways. The performance indicators of the proposed hybrid fusion algorithm are successfully evaluated for the generation of roadway digital maps for autonomous vehicles, with a recall of 0.94, precision of 0.96, and accuracy of 0.92.