IP Library › Granted Patent US 12,249,163
Granted Patent B2
US 12,249,163 · App. 17/234,487 · Granted Mar 11, 2025

Lane mask generation for autonomous machine

Inventors: Josh Abbott (Draper, UT); Miguel Sainz Serra (Palo Alto, CA); Zhaoting Ye (Santa Clara, CA); David Nister (Bellevue, WA)
Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
G06V20/588G06T7/12G06T7/70G06T11/20G06T2207/20084G06T2207/20132G06T2207/30256G06T2210/12
View Patent ↗
Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,249,163
App. No.
17/234,487
Granted
Mar 11, 2025
Kind
B2
Abstract

In various examples, object fence corresponding to objects detected by an ego-vehicle may be used to determine overlap of the object fences with lanes on a driving surface. A lane mask may be generated corresponding to the lanes on the driving surface, and the object fences may be compared to the lanes of the lane mask to determine the overlap. Where an object fence is located in more than one lane, a boundary scoring approach may be used to determine a ratio of overlap of the boundary fence, and thus the object, with each of the lanes. The overlap with one or more lanes for each object may be used to determine lane assignments for the objects, and the lane assignments may be used by the ego-vehicle to determine a path or trajectory along the driving surface.

Claims (60)

1. A processor comprising:

processing circuitry to perform one or more operations of a machine in an environment using a mask, the mask generated for a lane, at least in part, by:

obtaining image data generated using an image sensor, the image data representative of an image depicting a field-of-view of the image sensor;

determining that first points of the image are associated with a first polyline corresponding to the lane and second points of the image are associated with a second polyline corresponding to the lane;

connecting the first points to generate the first polyline and the second points to generate the second polyline;

based at least on the connecting the first points and the second points, connecting, in a crisscross pattern, the first points of the first polyline to the second points of the second polyline to generate a plurality of triangles; and

generating a polygon corresponding to the lane.

2. The processor of claim 1 , wherein the mask is generated using a triangulation algorithm.

3. The processor of claim 2 , wherein the triangulation algorithm includes monotone polygon triangulation.

4. The processor of claim 1 , wherein the determining that the first points of the image are associated with the first polyline and the second points of the image are associated with the second polyline uses one or more deep neural networks (DNNs) processing the image data.

5. The processor of claim 1 , wherein the one or more operations include at least one of: assigning an object to a lane using the mask, determining a path or trajectory through at least a portion of the environment, performing obstacle avoidance, or updating a world model.

6. The processor of claim 1 , the performing the one or more operations is further executed using an object fence corresponding to an object detected in the environment.

7. The processor of claim 1 , wherein the one or more operations include assigning one or more objects to the lane represented by the mask.

8. A method comprising:

obtaining image data generated using an image sensor, the image data representative of an image;

determining, based at least on the image data, one or more first points of the image that are associated with a first polyline and one or more second points of the image that are associated with a second polyline;

connecting the one or more first points to the one or more second points to generate one or more triangles associated with the image;

determining one or more pixels of the image that are included in the one or more triangles;

generating a polygon that at least encloses the one or more pixels; and

performing one or more operations using a machine and based at least on the polygon.

9. A system comprising:

one or more processors to:

obtain image data generated using an image sensor, the image data representative of an image depicting a field-of-view of the image sensor;

determine at least a first location within the image of a first polyline corresponding to a lane and a second location within the image of a second polyline corresponding to the lane;

connect one or more first points of the first polyline to one or more second points of the second polyline to generate one or more triangles associated with the image;

determine one or more pixels of the image that are included in the one or more triangles;

generate a polygon that at least encloses the one or more pixels; and

perform one or more operations by a machine using the polygon.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors are further to generate at least a second portion of the polygon using a lane extension algorithm to extend the lane beyond a detected portion of the lane.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the lane extension algorithm includes at least one of a curve fitting algorithm or a lane extrapolation algorithm.

12. The system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors are further to generate a second polygon corresponding to a virtual lane.

13. The system of claim 9 , wherein the performance of the one or more operations comprises:

comparing an object representation corresponding to an object to the polygon; and

determining, based at least on the comparing, to assign the object to the lane.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the one or more processors are further to generate an object fence using a bounding shape corresponding to the object.

15. The system of claim 9 , wherein the determination of the first location within the image of the first polyline and the second location within the image of the second polyline uses one or more deep neural networks (DNNs) processing the image data.

16. The system of claim 9 , wherein the system is comprised in at least one of:

a control system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine;

a perception system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine;

a system for performing simulation operations;

a system for performing deep learning operations;

a system implemented using an edge device;

a system implemented using a robot;

a system incorporating one or more virtual machines (VMs);

a system implemented at least partially in a data center; or

a system implemented at least partially using cloud computing resources.

17. The system of claim 9 , wherein the connection of the one or more first points of the first polyline to the one or more second points of the second polyline comprises:

connecting each of the one or more first points of the first polyline to at least a point from the one or more second points to generate one or more first triangles of the one or more triangles; and

connecting each of the one or more second points of the second polyline to at least a point from the one or more first points of the second polyline to generate one or more second triangles of the one or more triangles.

18. The method of claim 8 , wherein the generating the polygon comprises:

determining the one or more pixels of the image that are included within the plurality of triangles; and

generating the polygon to enclose the one or more pixels.

19. The method of claim 8 , wherein:

the one or more first points include a first plurality of points;

the one or more second points include a second plurality of points;

the method further comprises connecting the first plurality of points to generate the first polyline and the second plurality of points to generate the second polyline; and

the connecting the plurality of first points and the plurality of second points to generate the one or more triangles occurs after the connecting the plurality of first points to generate the first polyline and the plurality of second points to generate the second polyline.

20. The method of claim 8 , wherein the connecting the one or more first points to the one or more second points comprises:

connecting each of the one or more first points to at least a point from the one or more second points; and

connecting each of the one or more second points to at least a point from the one or more first points.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Aug 3, 2021
From: ABBOTT, JOSH; SERRA, MIGUEL SAINZ; YE, ZHAOTING; NISTER, DAVID
To: NVIDIA CORPORATION
Reel/Frame 057064/0969 →
Continuity (2)
Continuation 16535440 · Aug 8, 2019
Related Publication 20210241005A1 · Aug 5, 2021
References Cited (52)
US 9098751B2 · Hilldore et al. · 2015 [cited by applicant]
US 9721471B2 · Chen et al. · 2017 [cited by applicant]
US 10262213B2 · Chen et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 10313638B1 · Yeturu et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 10586456B2 · Wang · 2020 [cited by applicant]
US 10761535B2 · Chen et al. · 2020 [cited by applicant]
US 10832439B1 · Ma et al. · 2020 [cited by applicant]
US 10885698B2 · Muthler et al. · 2021 [cited by applicant]
US 10997433B2 · Xu et al. · 2021 [cited by applicant]
US 12131566B2 · Abbott et al. · 2024 [cited by applicant]
US 20180075481A1 · Adoni et al. · 2018 [cited by applicant]
US 20180300964A1 · Lakshamanan et al. · 2018 [cited by applicant]
US 20190016331A1 · Carlson et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190147600A1 · Karasev et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190156128A1 · Zhang et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190286153A1 · Rankawat et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20200293064A1 · Wu et al. · 2020 [cited by applicant]
US 20230027622A1 · Haeusler · 2023 [cited by examiner]
US 20240362928A1 · Abbott et al. · 2024 [cited by applicant]
US 20240362929A1 · Abbott et al. · 2024 [cited by applicant]
CN 107563256A · 2018 [cited by applicant]
CN 110009705A · 2019 [cited by applicant]
CN 109429518A · 2022 [cited by applicant]
JP 11153406A · 1999 [cited by applicant]
JP 2018523877A · 2018 [cited by applicant]
JP 7424866B2 · 2024 [cited by applicant]
WO 2015096911A1 · 2015 [cited by applicant]
WO 2018216177A1 · 2018 [cited by applicant]
WO 2019094843A1 · 2019 [cited by applicant]
Abe, Sadayuki, et al. “Lane marking detection by extracting white regions with predefined width from bird's-eye road images.” Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XXVIII: Algorithms and Techniques. vol. 7878. SPIE, 20… [cited by examiner]
Chen, Ping-Rong, et al. “Efficient road lane marking detection with deep learning.” 2018 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (DSP). IEEE, 2018. (Year: 2018). [cited by examiner]
Roberts, Brook, et al. “A dataset for lane instance segmentation in urban environments.” Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV). 2018. (Year: 2018). [cited by examiner]
Mathibela, Bonolo, Paul Newman, and Ingmar Posner. “Reading the road: Road marking classification and interpretation.” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 16.4 (2015): 2072-2081. (Year: 2015). [cited by examiner]
Wang, Guiling, Jinlong Meng, and Yanbo Han. “Extraction of maritime road networks from large-scale AIS data.” IEEE Access 7 ( 2019): 123035-123048. (Year: 2019). [cited by examiner]
“Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Driving Automation Systems for On-Road Motor Vehicles”, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Standard No. J3016-201609, pp. 1-30 (Sep. 30, 2016). [cited by applicant]
“Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Driving Automation Systems for On-Road Motor Vehicles”, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Standard No. J3016-201806, pp. 1-35 (Jun. 15, 2018). [cited by applicant]
Kunze, L., et al., “Reading between the lanes: Road layout reconstruction from partially segmented scenes”, 21st International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC) , IEEE, pp. 401-408 (Nov. 2018). [cited by applicant]
Wu, J., et al., “Automatic background filtering and lane identification with roadside LiDAR data”, IEEE 20th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), pp. 1-6 (2017). [cited by applicant]
Abbott, Josh; Non-Final Office Action for U.S. Appl. No. 17/234,475, filed Apr. 19, 2021, mailed Dec. 7, 2023, 18 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Behrendt; “Boxy Vehicle Detection in Large Images,” Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF International conference on computer vision workshops, 2019, 7 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Roberts, et al.; “A Dataset for Lane Instance Segmentation in Urban Environments,” Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2018, 17 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Abbott, Josh; Final Office Action for U.S. Appl. No. 17/234,475, filed Apr. 19, 2021, mailed Apr. 22, 2024, 21 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Xie, et al.; “Semantic Instance Annotation of Street Scenes by 3D and 2D Label Transfer,” 216 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2016, 10 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Neven, D., et al., “Towards end-to-end lane detection: an instance segmentation approach”, In 2018 IEEE intelligent vehicles symposium (IV), pp. 7 (2018). [cited by applicant]
Nister, David; First Office Action for German Patent Application No. 10 2020 117 792.5, filed Jul. 6, 2020, mailed Apr. 4, 2024, 12 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Riera, et al.; “Driver Behavior Analysis Using Lane Departure Detection Under Challenging Conditions,” arXiv: 1906.00093; May 31, 2019, 6 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Bansal, Mayank; “Vision-based Perception for Autonomous Urban Navigation,” 11th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation System, Oct. 2008, 7 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Abbott, Josh; Notice of Allowance for U.S. Appl. No. 17/234,475, filed Apr. 19, 2021, mailed Jul. 1, 2024, 18 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Ross, “Catadioptric Mobile Robot Image Mosaicing for Vehicle Undercarriages,” Diss. La Trobe, 2012, 154 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Goberville, et al.; “Tire Track Identification: A Method for Drivable Region Detection in Conditions of Snow-Occluded Lane Lines,” SAE International Journal of Advances and Current Practices in Mobility (2022) 8 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Nister, David; First Office Action for Japanese Patent Application No. 2020-036424, filed Mar. 4, 2020, mailed Oct. 11, 2023, 5 pgs. [cited by applicant]
Abbott, Josh; First Office Action for Chinese Patent Application No. 202010350455.1, filed Apr. 28, 2020, mailed Aug. 20, 2024, 9 pgs. [cited by applicant]