Object-Centric Stereo Ranging for Autonomous Driving: From Dense Disparity to Census-Based Template Matching

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive stereo ranging system for autonomous driving that combines dense disparity, object-centric Census template matching, and monocular priors, achieving real-time, robust depth estimation.

Contribution

The novel object-centric Census template matching algorithm and the integrated multi-approach pipeline improve long-range depth accuracy and robustness in diverse driving conditions.

Findings

Achieves real-time performance with asynchronous GPU pipeline.

Provides robust ranging in nighttime, rain, and varying illumination.

Introduces an online calibration refinement framework for continuous drift correction.

Abstract

Accurate depth estimation is critical for autonomous driving perception systems, particularly for long range vehicle detection on highways. Traditional dense stereo matching methods such as Block Matching (BM) and Semi Global Matching (SGM) produce per pixel disparity maps but suffer from high computational cost, sensitivity to radiometric differences between stereo cameras, and poor accuracy at long range where disparity values are small. In this report, we present a comprehensive stereo ranging system that integrates three complementary depth estimation approaches: dense BM/SGM disparity, object centric Census based template matching, and monocular geometric priors, within a unified detection ranging tracking pipeline. Our key contribution is a novel object centric Census based template matching algorithm that performs GPU accelerated sparse stereo matching directly within detected bounding boxes, employing a far close divide and conquer strategy, forward backward verification, occlusion aware sampling, and robust multi block aggregation. We further describe an online calibration refinement framework that combines auto rectification offset search, radar stereo voting based disparity correction, and object level radar stereo association for continuous extrinsic drift compensation. The complete system achieves real time performance through asynchronous GPU pipeline design and delivers robust ranging across diverse driving conditions including nighttime, rain, and varying illumination.