LIDAR-Based High Reflective Landmarks (HRL)s For Vehicle Localization in an HD Map

Accurate localization is very important to ensure performance and safety of autonomous vehicles. In particular, with the appearance of High Definition (HD) sparse geometric road maps, many research works have been focusing on the deployment of accurate localization systems in a previously built map. In this paper, we solve a localization problem by matching road perceptions from a 3D LIDAR sensor with HD map elements. The perception system detects High Reflective Landmarks (HRL) such as: lane markings, road signs and guard rail reflectors (GRR) from a 3D point cloud. A particle filtering algorithm estimates the position of the vehicle by matching observed HRLs with HD map attributes. The proposed approach extends our work in [1] and [2] where a localization system based on lane markings and road signs has been developed. Experiments have been conducted on a highway-like test track using GNSS/INS with RTK corrections as a ground truth (GT). Error evaluations are given as cross-track (CT) and along-track (AT) errors defined in the curvilinear coordinates [3] related to the map. The obtained accuracies of our localization system is 18 cm for the cross-track error and 32 cm for the along-track error.