Stereo-Vision Based Road Slope Estimation and Free Space Detection on Road

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm capable of detecting free space for the autonomous vehicle navigation. The algorithm consists of two main steps: 1) estimation of longitudinal profile of road, 2) detection of free space. The estimation of longitudinal profile of road is detection of v-line in v-disparity image which is corresponded to road slope, using v-disparity image and hough transform, Dijkstra algorithm. To detect free space, we detect u-line in u-disparity image which is a boundary line between free space and obstacle's region, using u-disparity image and dynamic programming. Free space is decided by detected v-line and u-line. The proposed algorithm is proven to be successful through experiments under various traffic scenarios.