Road curb detection based on different elevation mapping techniques

A road curb detection algorithm for a 3D sensor, e.g. a dense stereo camera, is presented in this paper. The road curb detection is based on a digital elevation map. Different techniques and coordinate systems for mapping the height values are compared theoretically and by simulating a different quality of ego motion data. Furthermore we introduce a new approach of finding road curbs in an elevation map, which is based on a calculation of the most probable path. Using an elevation map the curb height can be calculated in an additional step. For evaluation we use highly accurate reference sensors and compare the detected curbs to a ground truth. Additionally we introduce a novel criteria to describe the quality of an elevation map and discuss the results. The road detection algorithm works in real-time and has a position accuracy of about 10 cm and an height error of about 1.5 cm.