Vehicle dynamics estimation for camera-based visibility distance estimation

The presence of an area with low visibility conditions is a relevant information for autonomous vehicle as far as environment sensing is important regarding safety. In this aim, we develop a generic sensor of visibility using an onboard camera in a vehicle. Our approach consists in estimating the range to the most distant object belonging to the plane of the road having at least 5% of contrast. The originality of this approach lies in the fact that the depth map of the vehicle environment is obtained by aligning the road plane in successive images. This algorithm exploits the dynamics of the vehicle which is given or observed from proprioceptive sensors classically available on public vehicles. In this paper, we present the principle of our approach in terms of image processing and explain how the vehicle dynamics takes part in it with a sensitivity study.