Data fusion of video camera and Laser Range Finder (LRF) for obstacle avoidance

Many people are involved in car accidents yearly, according to the World Health Organization about 1.25 million people die every year as a result of road traffic crashes. [1] This number is expected to increase if no immediate actions are taken. A collision avoidance system is designed to reduce the severity of an accident by detecting any imminent crash using sensors such as radar, camera and laser range finder. Most of current systems rely on only one sensor for detection. However, using only one sensor is proven to be insufficient in providing full information of the nature of the obstacle and crash. This arises the need for systems that fuse the data of two sensors to provide better result for object detection.