Robust Lane Detection in Shadows and Low Illumination Conditions using Local Gradient Features

This paper presents a method for lane boundaries detection which is not affected by the shadows, illumination and uneven road conditions. This method is based upon processing grayscale images using local gradient features, characteristic spectrum of lanes, and linear prediction. Firstly, points on the adjacent right and left lane are recognized using the local gradient descriptors. A simple linear prediction model is deployed to predict the direction of lane markers. The contribution of this paper is the use of vertical gradient image without converting into binary image(using suitable threshold), and introduction of characteristic lane gradient spectrum within the local window to locate the preciselane marking points along the horizontal scan line over the image. Experimental results show that this method has greater tolerance to shadows and low illumination conditions. A comparison is drawn between this method and recent methods reported in the literature.