1. Method for detecting a clear path of travel for a vehicle, comprising generating a datastream corresponding to a three-dimensional scan of a target area surrounding the vehicle from a vehicle LIDAR system; estimating a ground plane for a present vehicle location using the datastream corresponding to the three-dimensional scan of the target area surrounding the vehicle; and comparing the datastream corresponding to the three-dimensional scan of the target area surrounding the vehicle with the estimated ground plane to detect a clear path of vehicle travel; wherein estimating the ground plane for the present vehicle location comprises executing a principal component analysis on the datastream corresponding to the three-dimensional scan of the target area surrounding the vehicle; wherein executing the principal component analysis on the datastream comprises executing the principal component analysis on a dataset sampled from the datastream corresponding to the three-dimensional scan of the target area surrounding the vehicle comprising transforming the sampled dataset into first, second, and third eigenvectors, the third eigenvector having a least variance associated therewith compared to the first and second eigenvectors; wherein estimating the ground plane comprises estimating the ground plane to correspond to datapoints from the transformed sampled dataset having projection coefficients corresponding to the third eigenvector that are less than a threshold value; and further comprising identifying obstacles comprising datapoints of the transformed sampled dataset having projection coefficients corresponding to the third eigenvector that exceed a second threshold value.