Map Based Sensor Fusion for Lane Boundary Estimation on ADAS

Abstract: A vehicles ability to detect and estimate its surroundings is important for ensuring the safety of the vehicle and passengers regardless of the level of vehicle autonomy. With an improved road and lane estimation, advanced driver-assistance systems will be able to provide earlier and more accurate warnings and actions to prevent a possible accident. Current lane boundary estimations rely on camera and inertial sensor data to detect and estimate relevant lane boundaries in the vehicles surroundings. The current lane boundary estimation system struggles to provide correct estimations at distances exceeding 75 meters and has a performance which is affected by environmental effects. The methods in this thesis show how map data, together with sensor fusion with radar, camera, inertial measurement unit and global navigation satellite system data is able to provide an improvement to the lane boundary estimations. The map based estimation system is implemented and evaluated for high speed roads (highways and country roads) where lane boundary estimations for distances above 75 meters are needed. The results are conducted in a simulate environment and show how the map based system is able to correct unreliable sensor input to provide more precise boundary estimations. The map based system is also able to provide an up to 36% relative increase in correctly identified objects within ego vehicles lane between 12.5-150 meters in front of ego vehicle. The results indicate the ability to extend the horizon in which driver-assistance functions are able to operate, thus increasing the safety of future autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles. Future work within the subject is needed to apply map based estimations on urban areas. The precision of such an system also relies on precise positional data. Incorporation of more precise global navigation data would be able to show an increased performance.