Vehicle Motion Measurements Using Front Facing Camera and Digital Image Correlation

Modern active vehicle safety systems rely on certain vehicle motion states to function. ABS requires the vehicle longitudinal speed to calculate the tire slip. The vehicle speed is typically estimated using the speed of all the wheels and is therefore dependent on the slip states of all the wheels. Electronic stability programs can also make more informed decisions if the vehicle side-slip angle is known. Currently the side-slip angle is not measured on commercial vehicles due to the cost of the sensors. The side-slip angle can however be estimated using multiple onboard vehicle measurements. However, these estimation techniques require accurate sensors and large excitations to estimate accurately. The measurement of the vehicle motion is therefore crucial for modern vehicle safety systems. This paper proposes a method whereby all 6 vehicle velocities can be measured using inexpensive forward facing mono and stereo cameras utilizing Digital Image Correlation (DIC) algorithms.