Automated extraction of lane markings from mobile LiDAR point clouds based on fuzzy inference
Abstract Mobile LiDAR systems (MLS) are rapid and accurate technologies for acquiring three dimensional (3D) point clouds that can be used to generate 3D models of road environments. Because manual extraction of desirable features such as road traffic signs, trees, and pavement markings from these point clouds is tedious and time consuming, automatic information extraction of these objects is desirable. This paper proposes a novel automatic method to extract pavement lane markings (LMs) using point attributes associated with the MLS point cloud based on fuzzy inference. The proposed method begins with dividing the MLS point cloud into a number of small sections (e.g. tiles) along the route. After initial filtering of non ground points, each section is vertically aligned. Next, a number of candidate LM areas are detected using a Hough Transform (HT) algorithm and considering a buffer area around each line. The points inside each area are divided into "probable LM" and "non LM" clusters. After extracting geometric and radiometric descriptors for the "probable LM" clusters and analyzing them in a fuzzy inference system, true LM clusters are eventually detected. Finally, the extracted points are enhanced and transformed back to their original position. The efficiency of the method was tested on two different point cloud datasets along 15.6 km and 9.5 km roadway corridors. Comparing the LMs extracted using the algorithm with the manually extracted LMs, 88% of the LM lines were successfully extracted in both datasets.