Multilayer lidar-based pedestrian tracking in urban environments

This paper presents a method for pedestrian tracking in urban environments using in-vehicle multilayer laser lidar (MLLR). The MLLR that we developed irradiates the laser in six scanning planes by a polygon mirror mechanism, and thus objects with height are observed with the plural scanning planes. MLLR outputs are modified by GPS data and are mapped onto a grid map. Pedestrians are found based on the occupancy grid method, and they are tracked via Kalman filter in conjunction with global nearest neighboring (GNN) based data association. A track management method improves tracking accuracy in real worlds. Our tracking algorithm works well in a low-performance computer environment. The experimental results in different scenarios such as intersection and on the community road validate the proposed method.