Practical limitations of lane detection algorithm based on Hough transform in challenging scenarios

The vision-based road lane detection technique plays a key role in driver assistance system. While existing lane recognition algorithms demonstrated over 90% detection rate, the validation test was usually conducted on limited scenarios. Significant gaps still exist when applied in real-life autonomous driving. The goal of this article was to identify these gaps and to suggest research directions that can bridge them. The straight lane detection algorithm based on linear Hough transform (HT) was used in this study as an example to evaluate the possible perception issues under challenging scenarios, including various road types, different weather conditions and shades, changed lighting conditions, and so on. The study found that the HT-based algorithm presented an acceptable detection rate in simple backgrounds, such as driving on a highway or conditions showing distinguishable contrast between lane boundaries and their surroundings. However, it failed to recognize road dividing lines under varied lighting conditions. The failure was attributed to the binarization process failing to extract lane features before detections. In addition, the existing HT-based algorithm would be interfered by lane-like interferences, such as guardrails, railways, bikeways, utility poles, pedestrian sidewalks, buildings and so on. Overall, all these findings support the need for further improvements of current road lane detection algorithms to be robust against interference and illumination variations. Moreover, the widely used algorithm has the potential to raise the lane boundary detection rate if an appropriate search range restriction and illumination classification process is added.