Fully Automated Algorithm for Light Pole Detection and Mapping in Rural Highway Environment Using Mobile Light Detection and Ranging Point Clouds

Abstract

The widespread use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data provides a promising source for the automatic detection and inventory of roadside assets. One of the essential elements in roadside furniture is light poles. There is limited research on the mapping of light poles using point-cloud data on rural highways. In this environment, the placement of light poles within roadside clear zones often poses a safety concern, as they are related to an increased risk of collisions. Only a limited number of studies have explored the relationship between light poles and safety because of the time-consuming and labor-intensive practices of collecting light pole assets data using traditional manual methods. This paper proposes an automated approach to mapping the locations of light poles. First, the scanning vehicle trajectory is extracted, smoothed, and then used to segment the point-cloud data into smaller overlapped batches of data. Several filters are applied to extract pole-like objects from the data. The segments are combined back together, and a density-based clustering algorithm is used to group the remaining points into clusters. A geometric filter is finally applied to extract light poles. The model is tested on 28 km of data on three rural highways in Alberta, Canada. The proposed algorithm is found to be accurate relative to previous studies, with average precision, recall, and F1 scores exceeding 98% for the test segments. The proposed work can assist in the automation of light pole inventory and road safety audits by transportation agencies.