A probabilistic method for detecting impending vehicle interactions

In mining operations it is advantageous to be able to predict the future movements of nearby vehicles. For autonomous mining, this can be used for localised, short term path planning and risk assessment. For semi-autonomous or non-autonomous mining, this can be used for collision avoidance, situational awareness and risk assessment of maneuvers between a human operated vehicle, and another vehicle (operated by a human or otherwise). This paper introduces a probabilistic approach to predicting vehicle movements, in particular, the time until two vehicle paths intersect. Results are shown using real data collected from the operation of two separate fleets of vehicles.