A proposed vision and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication-based vehicle positioning approach

It is essential to obtain accurate location of vehicles for new applications of Intelligent Transportation Systems. To remedy the defects of present Global Positioning System and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V-I) positioning technology, a new positioning approach based on vision and V-I communication is proposed. This approach aims at lane-level positioning with lower cost than conventional ones. In this approach, the position of the vehicle is represented by its lateral position (the lane number) and longitudinal position (the distance from entrance of the road) in a course coordinate system along the road; the specific lane the vehicle is occupying (the lane number) can be judged using the information of lane lines detected by vision systems; then the distance to the vehicle is obtained by a Road Side Unit (RSU) during the V-I communication; and the longitudinal position is calculated. The error of the approach on typical operating conditions is analyzed, indicating that the new approach can achieve the accuracy of less than 0.31m for straight road and 0.58m for typical arc road with ultra-wideband communication and ranging technologies and rational arrangement of RSUs. The feasibility of this approach is presented.