VISION-BASED ROBOTIC CONVOY DRIVING

This article describes a method for vision-based autonomous convoy dri ving in which a robotic vehicle autonomously pursues another vehicle. Pursuit is achieved by visually tracking a target mounted on the back of the pursued vehicle. Visual tracking must be robust, since a failur e leads to catastrophic results. To make our system as reliable as pos sible, uncertainty is accounted for in each measurement and propagated through all computations. We use a best linear unbiased estimate (BLU E) of the target's position in each separate image, and a polynomial l east-mean-square fit (LMSF) to estimate the target's motion. Robust an tonomous convoy driving has been demonstrated in the presence of vario us lighting conditions, shadowing, other vehicles, turns at intersecti ons, curves, and hills. A continuous, autonomous, convoy drive of over 33 km (20 miles) was successful, at speeds averaging between 50 and 7 5 km/h (30-45 miles/h).