System and method for providing laser camera fusion for identifying and tracking a traffic participant

A system for providing laser camera fusion for identifying and tracking a traffic participant, comprising:

• a memory storing instructions when executed by a processor cause the processor to:
• receive an image of a surrounding environment of the vehicle from a vehicle camera system and a set of object coordinates of at least one object determined within the surrounding environment of the vehicle from a vehicle laser projection system;
• determine a portion of the image as object space based the set of object coordinates and at least one corresponding set of image coordinates, wherein the at least one corresponding set of image coordinates are two-dimensional coordinates that represent at least one pixel of the image that corresponds to at least one location within the image that is associated to the set of object coordinates;
• filter the object space to identify a traffic related object;
• determine a three dimensional position of the traffic related object, wherein determining the three dimensional position of the traffic related object includes projecting the image and projecting a plurality of laser beam points from an image laser projection system to a plurality of pixels of the projected image of the surrounding environment of the vehicle, wherein determining a three dimensional position of the traffic related object includes determining a subset of clusters of a plurality of clusters found closest to a camera of the vehicle camera system based on an evaluation of a mean laser beam length value for each cluster against at least one predetermined laser length value;
• classify the traffic related object as at least one of:
• the traffic participant, or a non-traffic participant;
• track the traffic participant based on a three dimensional position of the traffic related object classified as the traffic participant, wherein a predicted position of the traffic participant relative to the vehicle is determined based on tracking the traffic participant;
• and
• control at least one component of the vehicle to provide at least one vehicle collision avoidance function.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a processor performs actions, comprising:

• receiving an image of a surrounding environment of a vehicle from a vehicle camera system and a set of object coordinates of at least one object determined within the surrounding environment of the vehicle from a vehicle laser projection system;
• determining a portion of the image as object space based on the set of object coordinates and at least one corresponding set of image coordinates, wherein the at least one corresponding set of image coordinates are two-dimensional coordinates that represent at least one pixel of the image that corresponds to at least one location within the image that is associated to the set of object coordinates;
• filtering the object space to identify a traffic related object;
• filtering the object space to identify a traffic related object;
• determining a three dimensional position of the traffic related object, wherein determining the three dimensional position of the traffic related object includes projecting the image and projecting a plurality of laser beam points from an image laser projection system to a plurality of pixels of the projected image of the surrounding environment of the vehicle, wherein determining a three dimensional position of the traffic related object includes determining a subset of clusters of a plurality of clusters found closest to a camera of the vehicle camera system based on an evaluation of a mean laser beam length value for each cluster against at least one predetermined laser length value;
• and
• classifying the traffic related object as at least one of:
• a traffic participant, or a non-traffic participant;
• tracking the traffic participant based on a three dimensional position of the traffic related object classified as the traffic participant, wherein a predicted position of the traffic participant relative to the vehicle is determined based on tracking the traffic participant;
• and
• controlling at least one component of the vehicle to provide at least one vehicle collision avoidance function.