Vehicle localization in open-pit mining using gps and monocular camera

Abstract

Described herein is a method and system for vehicle localization in an open pit mining environment having intermittent or incomplete GPS coverage. The system comprises GPS receivers associated with the vehicles and providing GPS measurements when available, as well as one or more camerasoverlooking the mine region. The camerasare at a known location and are used for generating a sequence of images in a field of view with predetermined calibration in a fixed coordinate system. The system further comprises a vehicle recognition processorfor analyzing individual images from the camera to identify and locate within an image a vehicle in the mine region, as well as a vehicle tracking processorfor analyzing a sequence of images from the camera to track the identified vehicle location in the sequence of images. A data fusion processoris coupled to receive GPS measurements, when available, from the vehicle GPS receivers, to fuse the received GPS measurement and corresponding vehicle image location, and to output a vehicle localization output