Methods and systems for moving traffic obstacle detection

A method for maneuvering a vehicle in a roadway having potential traffic obstacles, the method comprising:

• receiving sensor data for a road segment, the sensor data corresponding to observations of an obstacle at a location along the road segment over a period of time;
• determining a set of gray scale pixels potentially missing based on the observations, each pixel representing a time and location combination, and having an associated obstacle probability assigned based on the sensor data;
• applying a modified Probabilistic Hough Transform to the set of gray scale pixels to obtain a Hough Transform space, wherein each value in the Hough Transform space is a log likelihood supported or opposed by each observation;
• identifying a potential moving traffic obstacle path by identifying a linear arrangement of locally maximum peak values in the Hough Transform space;
• adding the potential moving traffic obstacle path to a potential moving traffic obstacle database;
• communicating an alert to a device in a vehicle, wherein the communication comprises the potential moving traffic obstacle path and is configured to cause the vehicle to maneuver based on the potential moving traffic obstacle path.

A method for instructing a vehicle to maneuver in a roadway, the method comprising:

• processing, by a server, sensor data received by the server from at least one device comprising a sensor, the sensor data corresponding to observations of an obstacle at a location along a road segment over a period of time, the processing comprising the steps:
• (a) determining a set of gray scale pixels potentially missing based on the observations, each pixel representing a time and location combination, and having an associated obstacle probability assigned based on the sensor data;
• (b) applying a modified Probabilistic Hough Transform to the set of gray scale pixels to obtain a Hough Transform space, wherein each value in the Hough Transform space is a log likelihood supported or opposed by each observation;
• and
• (c) identifying a potential moving traffic obstacle path by identifying a linear arrangement of locally maximum peak values in the Hough Transform space;
• establishing a communications link between the server and a device onboard a vehicle, the vehicle located on the road segment;
• transmitting to the device via the communications link a message comprising information about the potential moving traffic obstacle and instructions for avoiding the potential moving traffic obstacle, wherein the message is configured to alter a graphical user interface of the device or to automatically alter the course of the vehicle.