Multi-sensor self-localization based on Maximally Stable Extremal Regions

This contribution presents a precise localization method for advanced driver assistance systems. A Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) detector is used to extract bright areas, i.e. lane markings, from grayscale camera images. Furthermore, this algorithm is also used to extract features from a laser scanner grid map. These regions are automatically stored as landmarks in a geospatial data base during a map creation phase. A particle filter is then employed to perform the pose estimation. For the weight update of the filter the similarity between the set of online MSER detections and the set of mapped landmarks within the field of view is evaluated. Hereby, a two stage sensor fusion is carried out. First, in order to have a large field of view available, not only a forward facing camera but also a rearward facing camera is used and the detections from both sensors are fused. Secondly, the weight update also integrates the features detected from the laser grid map, which is created using measurements of three laser scanners. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on a 7 km long stretch of a rural road. The evaluation reveals that a relatively good position estimation and a very accurate orientation estimation (0.01 deg ± 0.22 deg) can be achieved using the presented localization method. In addition, an evaluation of the localization performance based only on each of the respective kinds of MSER features is provided in this contribution and compared to the combined approach.