Towards A Practical Pedestrian Detection Method for Supporting Autonomous Driving

In recent years, people have paid more and more attention to the operational efficiency of the transportation system and the corresponding traffic safety and energy consumption issues. As a possible solution, with the improvement of vehicle detection capabilities and the corresponding computing power of vehicle computing equipment, the development of autonomous driving technology as an important application of AI technology in the automotive industry has attracted considerable attention from academics and industry. Technically, we consider vehicles and pedestrians to be the two most important participants of the transportation system. Accordingly, efficient coordination of relative movement between on-road vehicles and pedestrians plays a critical role in improving road safety. The effective detection of pedestrians from the vehicles’ point of view is fundamental for achieving such coordination. Therefore, in this paper, we will first provide a comprehensive study of existing pedestrian detection methods, especially the occluded pedestrian detection method. Then, we will discuss the potential solution for designing a practical pedestrian detection method for supporting autonomous driving.