Consistent environmental modeling by use of occupancy grid maps, digital road maps, and multi-object tracking

Occupancy grid mapping, street topology estimation, and object tracking are basic modules of vehicular environmental perception systems. For the sake of expandability and adaptability, this contribution proposes a hierarchical modular environmental perception architecture (HMEP). It limits the interactivity between individual basic modules. In a combination module, the consistency between occupancy grid cells and object tracks is evaluated. This allows to distinguish between static and dynamic parts of the environment in a postprocessing step. Efficient algorithms for implementation of the combination module are provided and an evaluation based on simulation and real data is presented.