Real-Time Lane Departure Detection Using Google Routes

Our previously developed Lane Departure Detection and Warning System (LDWS) used a standard GPS receiver and two algorithms to detect an unintentional lane departure. The first algorithm generated the Road Reference Heading (RRH) from a vehicle's past trajectories, while the second algorithm predicted lane departure in real time using RRH. A significant limitation of this system is the dependency on past trajectories. A vehicle must travel on the road at least once in the past to use that trajectory for RRH generation needed for future lane departure detection. To avoid dependency on past trajectories, this work uses Google routes instead of past trajectories to extract the RRH of any given road. We also compared the RRH generated from a Google route with that of a past trajectory and found both RRHs to be comparable indicating that our LDWS does not need to rely on RRH from past trajectories. To evaluate the accuracy of lane departure detection using Google RRH, we performed many field tests on a freeway. Our field test results show that our LDWS can accurately detect all lane departures on long straight sections of the freeway irrespective of whether the RRH was generated from a Google route or past trajectory.