METHOD FOR FORMING A TRAVELLING PATH FOR A VEHICLE
The present disclosure relates to a computer implemented method for operating a control system to form a travelling path for a vehicle, where the path determination is based on data generated by a pair of sensors producing three-dimensional (3D) point clouds, where the 3D point clouds respectively provide a representation of a left and a right hand side of the vehicle. The present disclosure also relates to the corresponding control system and to a computer program product.
1 . A computer implemented method for operating a control system to form a travelling path for a vehicle, comprising:
receiving, at an electronic control unit (ECU) of a control system, a first sequence of data from a first side facing sensor of the control system arranged at the vehicle and a corresponding second sequence of data from a second sensor of the control system arranged at the vehicle, the first and second side facing sensor having a non-overlapping field of view, wherein the first and the second sequence of data from the sensors is arranged as three-dimensional point clouds respectively providing a representation of a left and a right hand side of the vehicle,
correlating, by the ECU, the first and the second sequence of data to form a third sequence of data, the third sequence of data providing a 3D representation of an area between the first and second sensors,
selecting, by the ECU, a portion of the third sequence of data representing a traversable area for the vehicle, and
forming, by the ECU, the travelling path for the vehicle based on the selected portion of the third sequence of data.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second sensors are LiDAR sensors.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein a scan center for the first and second sensors is perpendicular to a normal operational direction for the vehicle.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein correlating the first and the second sequence of data comprises performing a pair wise correlation between data points in the respective sequence of data.
5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
filtering, by the ECU, the third sequence of data to remove edge data points.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and the second sequence of data represent at least walls of a mine where the vehicle is travelling.
7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein forming the travelling path comprises applying an octree processing scheme.
8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
transforming an output from the octree processing scheme to form a graph, the graph being a representation of the third sequence of data.
9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
applying, by the ECU, weights to the graph, where data points of the graph arranged close to an edge of the traversable area are given a higher weight as compared to data points in a center of the traversable area.
10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the traversable area is a surface area.
11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the surface area coincides with a ground level.
12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein correlating the first and the second sequence of data comprises comparing a distance between the corresponding data points in the first and the second sequence of data.
13 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
operating the vehicle based on the formed travelling path.
14 . (canceled)
15 . A control system adapted to form a travelling path for a vehicle, the control system comprising an electronic control unit (ECU) and a first and a second side facing sensor arranged at the vehicle, the first and second sensors having a non-overlapping field of view, the ECU arranged in communication with the first and second sensors, wherein the ECU is adapted to:
receive a first sequence of data from the first sensor and a corresponding second sequence of data from the second sensor, wherein the first and the second sequence of data from the sensors is arranged as three-dimensional (3D) point clouds respectively providing a representation of a left and a right-hand side of the vehicle,
correlate the first and the second sequence of data to form a third sequence of data, the third sequence of data providing a 3D representation of an area between the first and second sensors,
select a portion of the third sequence of data representing a traversable area for the vehicle, and
form the travelling path for the vehicle based on the selected portion of the third sequence of data.
16 . The control system of claim 15 , wherein the first and second sensors are LiDAR sensors.
17 . The control system of claim 15 , wherein a scan center for the first and second sensors is perpendicular to a normal operational direction for the vehicle.
18 . The control system of claim 15 , wherein correlating the first and the second sequence of data comprises adapting the ECU to perform a pair wise correlation between data points in the respective sequence of data.
19 . The control system of claim 15 , wherein the ECU is further adapted to:
filter the third sequence of data to remove edge data points.
20 . (canceled)
21 . The control system of claim 15 , wherein forming the travelling path comprises adapting the ECU to apply an octree processing scheme.
22 - 27 . (canceled)
28 . The control system of claim 15 , wherein the ECU comprises a first and a second processing portion, the first processing portion arranged on-board the vehicle and the second processing portion comprised with a remote server arranged off-board the vehicle, wherein correlate, select and form are at least partly performed by the second processing portion.
29 - 32 . (canceled)