Automated heterogeneous platoons in unstructured environment: Real time tracking of a preceding vehicle using video stream

In autonomous driving, object tracking is necessary to gather actual information about the object of interest. The longitudinal and lateral controls of automated highway systems need a target object not only to maintain the safety distance between vehicles but also to keep the following vehicle in the same track as the preceding vehicle. So far automated highway systems were only developed for urban and highway environment depending on lane markings. In future, their application should be extended to unstructured environments (e.g. desert) and be adapted for heterogeneous vehicles. In this paper an approach towards this is presented, where the back view of preceding vehicle is the target object. This solution is independent from the environmental structure as well as additional equipment like infrared emitters. In this paper, the tracking process of the back view is discussed using video streams recorded by a stereo vision system. For an accurate and fast tracking in unstructured environment and with heterogeneous platoons the proposed method is a supplement to the detection process. Therefore, the tracking process has to be a) applicable under real time constraints and b) adaptable in dynamic environments. Compared to other methods related to object detection and tracking, the proposed method reduces the running time for the tracking of the back view from reported 12 - 30 to 16 - 66 frame/s.