Analysis of traversable candidate region for unmanned ground vehicle using 3D LIDAR reflectivity

The range data acquired by 2D/3D LIDAR, a core sensor for autonomous navigation of an unmanned ground vehicle, is effectively used for ground modeling and obstacle detection. Within the ambiguous boundary of a road environment, however, LIDAR does not provide enough information to analyze the traversable region. This paper presents a new method to analyze a candidate area using the characteristics of LIDAR reflectivity for better detection of a traversable region. We detected a candidate traversable area through the front zone of the vehicle using the learning process of LIDAR reflectivity, after calibration of the reflectivity of each channel. We validated the proposed method of a candidate traversable region detection by performing experiments in the real operating environment of the unmanned ground vehicle. © 2017 The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers.