Visual recognition of obstacles on roads

As part of a driver support system for motor vehicles on freeways, an obstacle recognition system was developed within the EUREKA project PROMETHEUS over the last four years. The obstacle recognition system uses a single monochrome TV camera and a multi-processor robot vision system. The recognition system includes a road tracker and an obstacle detector that were described elsewhere, and an object classification and tracking module presented here. The module is based on generic 2D object models. It recognizes obstacles in real time and from distances of 200 to 300 m, sufficient for high-speed driving. The module was extensively tested in real-world scenes on the German Autobahn and on various other roads, including city streets with dense traffic