Explicit Models for Road Following

Abstract

The authors discuss the need for explicit models in the context of road following, showing how previously built road followers have suffered by not having such models. The approach will not only model appearance and shape information, but also include semantics. It is suggested that using an explicit model will make it easier to program and debut a road follower and will lead to efficient programs. The bulk of the processing can be done by simple operators that need not be concerned with special cases, whereas the costlier recovery procedures and switching between operators will occur infrequently. The authors introduce FERMI (Following Explicit Road Models Intelligently) and describe its construction and performance. FERMI includes explicit geometric models and multiple trackers, and it uses explicit models to select features to track and methods to track them.