Visual perception of obstacles and vehicles for platooning

This paper presents the methods for sensing obstacles and vehicles implemented on the University of Parma experimental vehicle (ARGO). The ARGO project is briefly described along with its main objectives; the prototype vehicle and its functionalities are presented. The perception of the environment is performed through the processing of images acquired from the vehicle. Details about the stereo vision-based detection of generic obstacles are given, along with a measurement of the performance of the method; then a new approach for leading vehicles detection is described, relying on symmetry detection in monocular images. This paper is concluded with a description of the current implementation of the control system, based on a gain scheduled controller, which allows the vehicle to follow the road or other vehicles.