Enhanced Cooperative Perception through Asynchronous Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Framework with Delay Mitigation for Connected and Automated Vehicles

<div>Perception is a key component of automated vehicles (AVs). However, sensors mounted to the AVs often encounter blind spots due to obstructions from other vehicles, infrastructure, or objects in the surrounding area. While recent advancements in planning and control algorithms help AVs react to sudden object appearances from blind spots at low speeds and less complex scenarios, challenges remain at high speeds and complex intersections. Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology promises to enhance scene representation for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in complex intersections, providing sufficient time and distance to react to adversary vehicles violating traffic rules. Most existing methods for infrastructure-based vehicle detection and tracking rely on LIDAR, RADAR, or sensor fusion methods, such as LIDAR–camera and RADAR–camera. Although LIDAR and RADAR provide accurate spatial information, the sparsity of point cloud data limits their ability to capture detailed object contours of objects far away, resulting in inaccurate 3D object detection results. Furthermore, the absence of LIDAR or RADAR at every intersection increases the cost of implementing V2I technology. To address these challenges, this article proposes a V2I framework that utilizes monocular traffic cameras at road intersections to detect 3D objects. The results from the roadside unit (RSU) are then combined with the on-board system using an asynchronous late fusion method to enhance scene representation. Additionally, the proposed framework provides a time delay compensation module to compensate for the processing and transmission delay from the RSU. Lastly, the V2I framework is tested by simulating and validating a scenario similar to the one described in an industry report by Waymo. The results show that the proposed method improves the scene representation and the CAV’s perception range, giving it enough time and space to react to the adversary vehicles.</div>