Patent ID: 8229663

Claim:
A method of enhancing a host vehicle awareness system relative to remote vehicles, the host vehicle including at least one object sensing device for sensing objects remote from the host vehicle, the host vehicle further including a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system for exchanging vehicle data in vehicle-to-vehicle messages between remote vehicles and the host vehicle, the method comprising the steps of: generating a sensor object data map in response to the sensed objects; generating a vehicle-to-vehicle object data map in response to a vehicle-to-vehicle message; merging data from the vehicle-to-vehicle object data map and data from the sensor object data map in a data association and merging module to collectively determine relative positions of remote vehicles to the host vehicle, wherein merging data from the vehicle-to-vehicle object data map and data from the sensor object data map includes integrally fusing the respective data into a merged object observation map, wherein integrally fusing the respective data includes detecting a mismatch in the determined relative position between the data from the vehicle-to-vehicle object data map and the sensor object data map for a respective remote vehicle, the mismatch being identified by an associated sensor error in a covariance noise matrix, and wherein sensor error and sensor bias as identified by the covariance noise matrix is corrected in at least one of the respective data maps for cooperatively merging data in the respective object data maps; estimating the relative position of the remote vehicles to the host vehicle utilizing the merged data maps; and outputting tracking data to safety related applications for identifying threat assessments to the host vehicle, the safety related applications actuating a safety countermeasure in the host vehicle based on the threat assessment determined by the safety related applications.