Patent ID: 6694233
Filing Date: 2004-02-17
Classification: G05D

Abstract:
A means of localizing a vehicle without localization infrastructure comprising:(a) a means of establishing a starting position, (b) using dead-reckoning to estimate the vehicle position, wherein the dead reckoning is such that: (1) the vehicle position is defined as a distance to a next landmark, (2) the vehicle position is reset once the next landmark has been passed, (c) using range data to find topology of free space in front of the vehicle, (d) identifying changes in the topology as the next landmark, (e) matching said next landmark to a nodal-map to update the vehicle position, (f) using knowledge of position and the nodal-map to pass driving hints to vehicle control, and (g) using knowledge of the position and the nodal-path to pass steering hints to the vehicle control.