Speed-adaptive ratio-based lane detection algorithm for self-driving vehicles

Lane detection algorithm using a vision sensor or a camera would be more effective for self-driving vehicles to keep in lane, if it is possible to derive a distance ratio between a vehicle and left-right lanes. However, a dangerous situation may occur if the performance of the camera (e.g., frame/sec.) and the real-time speed of the vehicle are not considered properly because of the huge distance difference among frames for a fast moving vehicle with a low-speed camera. In this study, we propose a simple method to anticipate the relative position of the vehicle in the following frame from the current frame image. The expected ratio between a vehicle and the left-right lanes can be obtained by using of the speed of a vehicle and the frame speed of a camera. Experiment results show that less than 5.28% error occurs by the proposed algorithm for various cars and cameras.