Patent Document ID: 20160018524
Application ID: 14828402
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A system for fusing outputs from multiple LiDAR sensors with other object data, said system comprising: a plurality of LiDAR sensors configured to detect objects in proximity to a host entity; a radar sensor or a vision system configured to detect objects in proximity to the host entity; and a processor in communication with the LiDAR sensors and the radar sensor or the vision system, said processor being configured with an algorithm including steps of; providing object files for objects detected by the LiDAR sensors at a previous sample time, said object files having object models that identify a position, orientation and velocity of the detected objects by the sensors; tracking the object models of the objects detected by the sensors; projecting tracked object models in the object files from the previous sample time to provide predicted object models; receiving a plurality of scan returns from objects detected in a field-of-view of the sensors at a current sample time; constructing a scan point cloud from the scan returns; segmenting the scan points in the scan point cloud into predicted scan clusters where each scan cluster initially identifies an object detected by the LiDAR sensors; matching the predicted scan clusters with the predicted object models; reading object data from objects detected by the radar sensor or the vision system; registering the object data to a coordinate frame designated for the scan points of the LiDAR sensors; matching the object data with the object models in the object files using the predicted object models; merging predicted object models that have been identified as separate scan clusters in the previous sample time but are now identified as a single scan cluster in the current sample time using the matched predicted scan clusters and the matched object data; and splitting predicted object models that have been identified as a single scan cluster in the previous sample time but are now identified as separate scan clusters in the current sample time using the matched predicted scan clusters and the matched object data.