Map based road boundary estimation

Knowledge about the road shape is a key element for driver assistance systems which support the driver in complex scenarios like construction sites. Systems only using information derived from lane markings reach a limit here. The paper presents an approach to estimate road boundaries based on static objects bounding the road. A map based environment description and an interpretation algorithm identifying the road boundaries in the map are used. Two approaches are presented for estimating the map, one based on a radar sensor, one on a mono video camera. Besides that two fusion approaches are described. The estimated boundaries are independent of road markings and as such can be used as orthogonal information with respect to detected markings. Results of practical tests using the estimated road boundaries for a lane keeping system are presented.