3D LIDAR Based Vehicle Localization Using Synthetic Reflectivity Map for Road and Wall in Tunnel

The position of autonomous driving vehicle is basically acquired through the global positioning system (GPS). However, GPS signals cannot be received in tunnels. Due to this limitation, localization of autonomous driving vehicles can be made through sensors mounted on them. In particular, a 3D Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) system is used for longitudinal position error correction. Few feature points and structures that can be used for localization of vehicles are available in tunnels. Since lanes in the road are normally marked by solid line, it cannot be used to recognize a longitudinal position. In addition, only a small number of structures that are separated from the tunnel walls such as sign boards or jet fans are available. Thus, it is necessary to extract usable information from tunnels to recognize a longitudinal position. In this paper, fire hydrants and evacuation guide lights attached at both sides of tunnel walls were used to recognize a longitudinal position. These structures have highly distinctive reflectivity from the surrounding walls, which can be distinguished using LIDAR reflectivity data. Furthermore, reflectivity information of tunnel walls was fused with the road surface reflectivity map to generate a synthetic reflectivity map. When the synthetic reflectivity map was used, localization of vehicles was able through correlation matching with the local maps generated from the current LIDAR data. The experiments were conducted at an expressway including Maseong Tunnel (approximately 1.5 km long). The experiment results showed that the root mean square (RMS) position errors in lateral and longitudinal directions were 0.19 m and 0.35 m, respectively, exhibiting precise localization accuracy.