360º real-time and power-efficient 3D DAMOT for autonomous driving applications

Autonomous Driving (AD) promises an efficient, comfortable and safe driving experience. Nevertheless, fatalities involving vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems (ADSs) are on the rise, especially those related to the perception module of the vehicle. This paper presents a real-time and po...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gómez Huélamo, Carlos, Egido Sierra, Javier del, Bergasa Pascual, Luis Miguel|||0000-0002-0087-3077, Barea Navarro, Rafael|||0000-0002-4179-6100, López Guillén, María Elena, Araluce Ruiz, Javier, Antunes García, Miguel|||0009-0008-5627-5325
Format: article
Publication Date:2022
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repository:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/63110
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/63110
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11624-2
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Real-time
CARLA
LiDAR
3D multi-object tracking
ROS
DAMOT
Autonomous navigation
Electrónica
Electronics
Description
Summary:Autonomous Driving (AD) promises an efficient, comfortable and safe driving experience. Nevertheless, fatalities involving vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems (ADSs) are on the rise, especially those related to the perception module of the vehicle. This paper presents a real-time and power-efficient 3D Multi-Object Detection and Tracking (DAMOT) method proposed for Intelligent Vehicles (IV) applications, allowing the vehicle to track 360º surrounding objects as a preliminary stage to perform trajectory forecasting to prevent collisions and anticipate the ego-vehicle to future traffic scenarios. First, we present our DAMOT pipeline based on Fast Encoders for object detection and a combination of a 3D Kalman Filter and Hungarian Algorithm, used for state estimation and data association respectively. We extend our previous work ellaborating a preliminary version of sensor fusion based DAMOT, merging the extracted features by a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using camera information for long-term re-identification and obstacles retrieved by the 3D object detector. Both pipelines exploit the concepts of lightweight Linux containers using the Docker approach to provide the system with isolation, flexibility and portability, and standard communication in robotics using the Robot Operating System (ROS). Second, both pipelines are validated using the recently proposed KITTI-3DMOT evaluation tool that demonstrates the full strength of 3D localization and tracking of a MOT system. Finally, the most efficient architecture is validated in some interesting traffic scenarios implemented in the CARLA (Car Learning to Act) open-source driving simulator and in our real-world autonomous electric car using the NVIDIA AGX Xavier, an AI embedded system for autonomous machines, studying its performance in a controlled but realistic urban environment with real-time execution (results).