Vehicle tracking using ultrasonic sensors & joined particle weighting

In recent years, driver-assistance systems have emerged as one major possibility to increase comfort and safety in road traffic. Still, cost is one major hindrance to the widespread use of safety systems such as lane-change or blind spot warning. To facilitate the widespread adoption of such safety systems, thus increasing safety for all traffic participants, the use of cost-efficient components is of crucial importance. Within this work we investigate the use of cost-efficient, widely used ultrasonic sensors for the tracking of passing-by vehicles at high velocities. Therefore, a particle filter with some mixture tracking capabilities is implemented to fuse the signals from 6 us-sensors. The main focus of this work lies on the development of a more detailed sensor model that is used in this particle filter. Additionally, a strategy to take into account object-visibility w.r.t. the different sensors is outlined. The derived concept is evaluated experimentally in real road traffic. The applicability of the tracking result in context of lane-change-decision-aid and blind-spot-surveillance systems is analyzed.