Method, device, computer program, and machine-readable storage medium for the detection of an object

A device configured for detection of objects in an environment of a vehicle as a function of sensor signals of a sensor, the sensor signals representing the environment of the vehicle, the device configured to:

• process the sensor signals using a region proposal network that defines a plurality of anchors for a region of the environment, wherein the processing of the sensor signals includes, for each of at least one of the anchors:
• obtaining a plurality of object hypotheses for the respective anchor, each respective one of the plurality of object hypotheses specifying a bounding box of a respective object and a respective probability of presence of the respective object, whose bounding box is specified by the respective object hypothesis, is located at the respective anchor;
• selecting a best one of the plurality of object hypotheses based on relationships of the anchor and the respective bounding boxes of the object hypotheses;
• based on the selection of the best one of the plurality of object hypotheses, using a relationship of the selected best one of the plurality of object hypotheses to each of all others of the plurality of object hypotheses to identify a subset of the others of the plurality of object hypotheses that are relevant to the selected best one of the plurality of object hypotheses;
• and
• based on the identification, fusing the selected best one of the plurality of object hypotheses with the identified object hypotheses.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium on which is stored a computer program for detection of objects in an environment of a vehicle as a function of sensor signals of a sensor, the sensor signals representing the environment of the vehicle, the computer program, when executed by a computer, causing the computer to perform the following steps:

• processing the sensor signals using a region proposal network to that defines a plurality of anchors for a region of the environment, wherein the processing includes, for each of at least one of the anchors:
• obtaining a plurality of object hypotheses for the respective anchor, each respective one of the plurality of object hypotheses specifying a bounding box of a respective object and a respective probability of presence of the respective object, whose bounding box is specified by the respective object hypothesis, is located at the respective anchor;
• selecting a best one of the plurality of object hypotheses based on relationships of the anchor and the respective bounding boxes of the object hypotheses;
• based on the selection of the best one of the plurality of object hypotheses, using a relationship of the selected best one of the plurality of object hypotheses to each of all others of the plurality of object hypotheses to identify a subset of the others of the plurality of object hypotheses that are relevant to the selected best one of the plurality of object hypotheses;
• and
• based on the identification, fusing the selected best one of the plurality of object hypotheses with the identified object hypotheses.