Dynamic objects detection through visual odometry and stereo-vision: a study of inaccuracy and improvement sources

摘要

Road safety, whatever the considered environment, relies heavily on the ability to detect and track moving objects from a moving point of view. In order to achieve such a detection, the vehicle's ego-motion must first be estimated and compensated. This issue is crucial to complete a fully autonomous vehicle; this is why several approaches have already been proposed. This study presents a method, based solely on visual information that implements such a process. Information from stereo-vision and motion is derived to extract the vehicle's ego-motion. Ego-motion extraction algorithm is thoroughly evaluated in terms of precision and uncertainty. Given those statistical attributes, a method for dynamic objects detection is presented. This method relies on 3D image registration and residual displacement field evaluation. This method is then evaluated on several real and synthetic data sequences. It will be shown that it allows a reliable and early detection, even in hard cases (e.g. occlusions,...). Given a few additional factors (detectable motion range), overall performances can be derived from visual odometry performances.