Image based locationing
OwnerErik Volkerink, Ajay Khocheinventors
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Abstract
This disclosure relates to systems and methods of obtaining accurate motion and orientation estimates for a vehicle traveling at high speed based on images of a road surface. A purpose of these systems and methods is to provide a supplementary or alternative means of locating a vehicle on a map, particularly in cases where other locationing approaches (e.g., GPS) are unreliable or unavailable.
Claims16
A method of processing a sequence of images to determine an image based trajectory of a vehicle along a road, comprising by a data processing system:
- rectifying each stereoscopic pair of images to a common epipolar plane;
- detecting features in each of the rectified stereoscopic pair of images in each successive frame;
- matching corresponding features in each rectified stereoscopic pair of images, wherein the matching comprises matching points in one image of the rectified stereoscopic pair with corresponding features in the other image of the stereoscopic image pair to produce a feature disparity map;
- calculating a depth at each location point to obtain a sparse three-dimensional depth map of the road;
- and
- determining motion and orientation of the vehicle between successive stereoscopic image frames based on execution of an optical flow process by the data processing system that determines estimates of motion and orientation between successive stereoscopic pairs of images.
A method of processing a sequence of successive stereographic image frames to determine estimates of motion and orientation of a vehicle, the method comprising:
- dividing an image region above a road surface into multiple tracks;
- for each track, by the data processing system, estimating motion and orientation between corresponding features in respective stereographic image pairs;
- removing, by the data processing system, inconsistent motion and orientation estimates as outliers;
- determining, by the data processing system, estimates of motion and orientation based on an aggregation of consistent motion and orientation estimates;
- and
- processing the multiple tracks to obtain multiple independent estimates of a trajectory of the vehicle.
A computer program product for execution by a computer system and comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer readable program code portions embodied therein to process a sequence of images to determine an image based trajectory of a vehicle along a road, the computer-readable program code portions comprising:
- an executable code portion to rectify each stereoscopic pair of images to a common epipolar plane;
- an executable code portion to detect features in each of the rectified stereoscopic pair of images in each successive frame;
- an executable code portion to match corresponding features in each rectified stereoscopic pair of images, wherein the matching comprises matching points in one image of the rectified stereoscopic pair with corresponding features in the other image of the stereoscopic image pair to produce a feature disparity map;
- an executable code portion to calculate a depth at each location point to obtain a sparse three-dimensional depth map of the road;
- and
- an executable code portion to determine motion and orientation of the vehicle between successive stereoscopic image frames based on execution of an optical flow process by the data processing system that determines estimates of motion and orientation between successive stereoscopic pairs of images.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.