Road Shape Reconstruction by Local Flatness Approximation

A new algorithm is presented for reconstructing the 3 D road shape from camera images for the purpose of navigating autonomous land vehicles (ALVs) . The apporoximation that the road surface is locally flat enables us to determine a one-to-one correspondence between the two road boundaries, which together with our knowledge about the road shape (the “model” of roads) determines the 3 D road shape. In order to cope with inaccuracy of image data, a least-squares curve fitting technique is proposed. An example based on real image data is also shown.