Device and method for detection and localization of vehicles

Abstract

A method for determining a location of a moving vehicle, the method comprising processing image data to determine a direction between a camera capturing an image and the moving vehicle; processing additional data comprising at least one of map data and velocity sensor data; and combining information based on the image data and the additional data to arrive at a location of the moving vehicle. The present invention also relates to a corresponding robot configured to carry out such a method.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 processing image data to determine a direction between a camera capturing images and a moving vehicle, wherein the images correspond to the image data;   processing additional data comprising at least one of map data and velocity sensor data; and   combining information based on the image data and the additional data to determine a location of the moving vehicle,   wherein the additional data comprises map data comprising data related to roads, wherein the combining the information to determine the location of the moving vehicle comprises: determining at least one intersection between at least one road and a line corresponding to a direction between the camera and the moving vehicle to arrive at a possible location of the moving vehicle;   wherein, in the step of determining at least one intersection, a plurality of intersections between the at least one road and lines are determined, wherein the at least one road is a plurality of roads, wherein the lines correspond to directions between the camera and the moving vehicle for images captured at different points of time, to arrive at possible locations of the moving vehicle for different points of time; and   wherein the step of combining the information to determine the location of the moving vehicle comprises: selecting a location of the possible locations as the location of the moving vehicle, wherein this selection step comprises generating speed hypotheses for the moving vehicle based on the possible locations at different points of time and selecting the location based on the most likely speed hypothesis for the moving vehicle.