Abstract
Vehicle movement detection by high order correlation analysis of optical sensor array signals is introduced. The optical sensors observe the road which is assumed to be a non-uniform speckle-like texture. The measurement system is applicable to general robotic movement detection because : 1) It employs a non-contact measurement method, 2) The system can be made very compact, and 3) It enables approximation of the movement trace with a sequence of arcs instead of the conventional connection of simple line segments. In this work, we have looked into estimation of running trace of an autonomous vehicle by observing the ground pattern.