Patent ID: 11885886
Assignee: FORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 11:
12. A system, comprising:
a processor;
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising programming instructions that are configured to cause the processor to implement a method for operating an autonomous vehicle, wherein the programming instructions comprise instructions to:
obtaining, by a computing device, a LiDAR dataset generated by a LiDAR system of the autonomous vehicle;
using, by a computing device, the LiDAR dataset and at least one image to detect an object that is in proximity to the autonomous vehicle, the object being detected by
matching points of the LiDAR dataset to pixels in the at least one image, and
detecting the object in a point cloud defined by the LiDAR dataset based on the matching;

using, by the computing device, the object detection to facilitate at least one autonomous driving operation,
wherein the matching comprises determining a probability distribution of pixels of the at least one image to which a point of the LiDAR dataset may project taking into account a projection uncertainty in view of camera calibration uncertainties, and the probability distribution is determined by computing a probability distribution function over image space coordinates for a pixel to which a point of the LiDAR dataset would probably project.