Active Perception for Autonomous Vehicles

Precise perception of a vehicle's surrounding is crucial for safe autonomous driving. It requires a high sensor resolution and a large field of view. Active perception, i.e. the redirection of a sensor's focus of attention, is an approach to provide both. With active perception, however, the selection of an appropriate sensor orientation becomes necessary. This paper presents a method for determining the sensor orientation in urban traffic scenarios based on three criteria: the importance of traffic participants w.r.t. the current situation, the available information about traffic participants while considering alternative sensor orientations as well as sensor coverage of the vehicle's relevant surrounding area.