A lidar perception scheme for intelligent vehicle navigation

In urban environments, detection of moving obstacles and free space determination are key issues for driving assistance systems or autonomous vehicles. This paper presents a lidar-based perception system for passenger-cars, able to do simultaneously mapping and moving obstacles detection. Nowadays, many lidars provide multi-layer and multi-echo measurements. A smart way to handle this multi-modality is to use grids projected on the road surface in both global and local frames. The global one generates the mapping and the local is used to deal with moving objects. An approach based on both positive and negative accumulation has been developed to address the remnant problem of quickly moving obstacles. This method is also well suited for multi-layer and multi-echo sensors. Experimental results carried out with an IBEO Alasca and an Applanix positioning system show the performance of such a perception strategy.