Methods and systems for scan matching approaches for vehicle heading estimation

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to perform functions comprising:

• determining a first point cloud representative of a location of a target vehicle at a first time period;
• determining a second point cloud representative of the location of the target vehicle at a second time period;
• determining an initial comparison between the first point cloud and the second point cloud based on an estimate of a speed for the target vehicle and a time difference between the first time period and the second time period;
• revising the initial comparison based on a minimization of a distance between points of the first point cloud and corresponding points of the second point cloud;
• determining an estimate of a heading of the target vehicle based on the revised comparison;
• and
• controlling another vehicle based on the determined estimate of the heading of the target vehicle.

A controller comprising:

• at least one processor;
• a memory;
• and
• instructions stored in the memory and executable by the at least one processor to cause the controller to perform functions comprising:
• determining a first point cloud representative of a location of a target vehicle at a first time period;
• determining a second point cloud representative of the location of the target vehicle at a second time period;
• determining an initial comparison between the first point cloud and the second point cloud based on an estimate of a speed for the target vehicle and a time difference between the first time period and the second time period;
• revising the initial comparison based on a minimization of a distance between points of the first point cloud and corresponding points of the second point cloud;
• determining an estimate of a heading of the target vehicle based on the revised comparison;
• and
• controlling another vehicle based on the determined estimate of the heading of the target vehicle.