US 11,714,423 B2
Voxel based ground plane estimation and object segmentation
Bertrand Robert Douillard, Palo Alto, CA (US); Subhasis Das, Menlo Park, CA (US); Zeng Wang, Menlo Park, CA (US); Dragomir Dimitrov Anguelov, San Francisco, CA (US); and Jesse Sol Levinson, Redwood City, CA (US)
Assigned to Zoox, Inc., Foster City, CA (US)
Filed by Zoox, Inc., Foster City, CA (US)
Filed on Sep. 26, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/584,392.
Application 16/584,392 is a continuation of application No. 15/622,905, filed on Jun. 14, 2017, granted, now 10,444,759.
Prior Publication US 2020/0026292 A1, Jan. 23, 2020
Int. Cl. G05D 1/02 (2020.01); G01S 17/58 (2006.01); G06T 7/187 (2017.01); G01S 17/66 (2006.01); G01S 17/02 (2020.01); G06T 7/11 (2017.01); G01S 17/89 (2020.01); G01S 17/93 (2020.01); G06K 9/00 (2022.01); G01S 17/86 (2020.01); G01S 17/931 (2020.01); G06V 20/56 (2022.01); G01S 13/86 (2006.01); G01S 15/931 (2020.01); G01S 13/931 (2020.01); G01S 13/72 (2006.01); G01S 15/86 (2020.01)
CPC G05D 1/024 (2013.01) [G01S 17/58 (2013.01); G01S 17/66 (2013.01); G01S 17/86 (2020.01); G01S 17/931 (2020.01); G05D 1/0212 (2013.01); G06T 7/11 (2017.01); G06T 7/187 (2017.01); G06V 20/56 (2022.01); G01S 13/726 (2013.01); G01S 13/862 (2013.01); G01S 13/865 (2013.01); G01S 13/867 (2013.01); G01S 13/931 (2013.01); G01S 15/86 (2020.01); G01S 15/931 (2013.01); G06T 2207/10028 (2013.01); G06T 2207/30252 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer- executable instructions that, when executed, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving a lidar dataset representing an environment;
associating the lidar dataset with a voxel space, the voxel space comprising a voxel;
determining, for the voxel of the voxel space, a normal vector associated with data represented by the voxel;
determining a reference orientation;
determining that an angle between the normal vector and the reference orientation is below a threshold value;
determining, based at least in part on the normal vector associated with the voxel and on the angle being below the threshold value, that the voxel is a ground voxel;
determining a ground cluster comprising a set of ground voxels, the set of ground voxels comprising the ground voxel; and
controlling a vehicle based at least in part on the ground cluster.