Dataset for trailer angle estimation using radar point clouds

Abstract

The automotive industry is interested in the estimation of vehicle trailer rotation (trailer angle or hitch angle) due to its use in trailer control algorithms. We present an experimental dataset collected in a study of the estimation problem [1] and a MATLAB code implementation of the study. The data collection apparatus is a truck mock-up that is attached to a flatbed trailer at the hitch ball. Two radars are installed in the taillight fixtures of the truck and a camera is installed in the truck’s tailgate like a typical backup camera installation. A rotary motion sensor is also installed at the hitch ball to provide ground truth measurement of the trailer angle. To aid analysis of the dataset, both radar detections are transformed onto a vehicle coordinate system (VCS) having its origin at the hitch ball i.e. the different radar viewpoints are combined into one with respect to the hitch ball. The MATLAB code presented with this article has two major functionalities. The first functionality is the visualization of both radar detections, the combined radar detections in the VCS, the camera images, and the ground truth angles, as the trailer rotates. The second functionality of the code is the replication of the estimation results in [1], which used only the radar detections from the dataset.

Keywords

• Hitch angle estimation
• Radar point cloud
• Trailer rotation