Toyota Research Institute, Inc.

Matthew T Kliemann

Jonathan A Daudelin

Adrien David Gaidon

Kuan-Hui Lee

Michael James Delp

Randall J St Romain

Antonio Prioletti

Systems, methods, controllers, and techniques for addressing the parallax occlusion effect caused by non-collocated sensors are disclosed. A controller is configured to fuse image data received from an imaging device and depth data received from a depth sensor to form a mesh, project a ray from the imaging device to a pixel of the image data fused with a point of the depth data forming the mesh, determine an occlusion boundary surface within the depth data, and in response to determining that the ray intersects the occlusion boundary surface, determine that the imaging device is occluded from a fused point in the mesh.

Multimodal sensor measurement fusion through a combined geometrical approach of time warping and occlusion surface ray projection

Systems and methods determining velocity of an object associated with a three-dimensional (3D) scene may include: a LIDAR system generating two sets of 3D point cloud data of the scene from two consecutive point cloud sweeps; a pillar feature network encoding data of the point cloud data to extract two-dimensional (2D) bird's-eye-view embeddings for each of the point cloud data sets in the form of pseudo images, wherein the 2D bird's-eye-view embeddings for a first of the two point cloud data sets comprises pillar features for the first point cloud data set and the 2D bird's-eye-view embeddings for a second of the two point cloud data sets comprises pillar features for the second point cloud data set; and a feature pyramid network encoding the pillar features and performing a 2D optical flow estimation to estimate the velocity of the object.

Bird's eye view based velocity estimation

System, methods, and other embodiments described herein relate to improving clustering of points within a point cloud. In one embodiment, a method includes grouping the points into cells of a grid. The grid divides an observed region of a surrounding environment associated with the point cloud into the cells. The method includes computing feature vectors for the cells that use cell features to characterize the points in the cells and relationships between the cells. The method includes analyzing the feature vectors according to a clustering model to identify clusters for the cells. The clustering model evaluates the cells to identify which of the cells belong to common entities. The method includes providing the clusters as assignments of the points to the entities depicted in the point cloud.

Systems and methods for clustering using a smart grid

System, methods, and other embodiments described herein relate to tracking dynamic objects in a surrounding environment of a vehicle. In one embodiment, a method includes, in response to acquiring sensor data from at least one sensor, generating a current occupancy map that indicates locations of occupied grid cells as identified by the sensor data. The method includes updating a difference map according to the current occupancy map. The difference map encodes temporal changes in relation to prior states of occupancy of the grid cells to track dynamic objects in the surrounding environment over a defined temporal horizon. The method includes computing dynamics of the dynamic objects according to the difference map. The method includes providing the dynamics to at least one vehicle system within the vehicle.

Systems and methods for estimating dynamics of objects using temporal changes encoded in a difference map

The systems and methods described herein disclose vehicle positioning and benefit distribution in a vehicle platoon. As described here, vehicles are organized in the platoon based on maximum benefit to the platoon as a whole. The systems and methods then determine the difference in benefit received between each platoon member and equalize between members. The systems and methods can include determining cumulative travel benefits for a group of vehicles. A platoon organization can then be created to achieve the cumulative travel benefits. A platoon can then be created using the platoon organization. The benefit distribution of the platoon can then be determined. Then, the actualized benefits can be apportioned to the one or more platoon members based on the benefit distribution.

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Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

Matthew T Kliemann