Wide area detection system: Conceptual design study

An integrated sensor for traffic surveillance on mainline sections of urban freeways is described. Applicable imaging and processor technology is surveyed and the functional requirements for the sensors and the conceptual design of the breadboard sensors are given. Parameters measured by the sensors include lane density, speed, and volume. The freeway image is also used for incident diagnosis

Determination of forest road surface roughness by kinect depth imaging

Roughness is a dynamic property of the gravel road surface that affects safety, ride comfort as well as vehicle tyre life and maintenance costs. A rapid survey of gravel road condition is fundamental for an effective maintenance planning and definition of the intervention priorities. Different non-contact techniques such as laser scanning, ultrasonic sensors and photogrammetry have recently been proposed to reconstruct three-dimensional topography of road surface and allow extraction of roughness metrics. The application of Microsoft Kinect\u2122 depth camera is proposed and discussed here for collection of 3D data sets from gravel roads, to be implemented in order to allow quantification of surface roughness. The objectives are to: i) verify the applicability of the Kinect sensor for characterization of different forest roads, ii) identify the appropriateness and potential of different roughness parameters and iii) analyse the correlation with vibrations recoded by 3-axis accelerometers installed on different vehicles. The test took advantage of the implementation of the Kinect depth camera for surface roughness determination of 4 different forest gravel roads and one well-maintained asphalt road as reference. Different vehicles (mountain bike, off-road motorcycle, ATV vehicle, 4WD car and compact crossover) were included in the experiment in order to verify the vibration intensity when travelling on different road surface conditions. Correlations between the extracted roughness parameters and vibration levels of the tested vehicles were then verified. Coefficients of determination of between 0.76 and 0.97 were detected between average surface roughness and standard deviation of relative accelerations, with higher values in the case of lighter vehicles

Vehicle detection and tracking using wireless sensors and video cameras

This thesis presents the development of a surveillance testbed using wireless sensors and video cameras for vehicle detection and tracking. The experimental study includes testbed design and discusses some of the implementation issues in using wireless sensors and video cameras for a practical application. A group of sensor devices equipped with light sensors are used to detect and localize the position of moving vehicle. Background subtraction method is used to detect the moving vehicle from the video sequences. Vehicle centroid is calculated in each frame. A non-linear minimization method is used to estimate the perspective transformation which project 3D points to 2D image points. Vehicle location estimates from three cameras are fused to form a single trajectory representing the vehicle motion. Experimental results using both sensors and cameras are presented. Average error between vehicle location estimates from the cameras and the wireless sensors is around 0.5ft

Design of a Miniature Camera System for Interior Vision Automotive Application

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the design process, goals, and analysis of the interior vision camera for a driver monitoring system. The design includes minimizing the overall footprint of the system by utilizing smaller more precise optics, as well as higher quantum efficiency (QE) image sensor technologies and packaging. As a result of this research, prototype cameras are constructed, and performance was analyzed. The analysis shows that Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) performance is stable at extreme hot and cold temperatures, while the cost is mitigated by using all plastic lens elements. New high QE image sensors are a potential improvement to this design. The mechanical part of the design has resulted in the filing of three different patents. The first patent was the athermalization spacer itself for automotive applications. The second patent was the way the lens barrel interacts with the athermalization piece. The third patent was the way the imager assembly accommodates the same Bill Of Material (BOM) components and different customer requirement angles

The Geometry and Usage of the Supplementary Fisheye Lenses in Smartphones

Nowadays, mobile phones are more than a device that can only satisfy the communication need between people. Since fisheye lenses integrated with mobile phones are lightweight and easy to use, they are advantageous. In addition to this advantage, it is experimented whether fisheye lens and mobile phone combination can be used in a photogrammetric way, and if so, what will be the result. Fisheye lens equipment used with mobile phones was tested in this study. For this, standard calibration of ‘Olloclip 3 in one’ fisheye lens used with iPhone 4S mobile phone and ‘Nikon FC‐E9’ fisheye lens used with Nikon Coolpix8700 are compared based on equidistant model. This experimental study shows that Olloclip 3 in one fisheye lens developed for mobile phones has at least the similar characteristics with classic fisheye lenses. The dimensions of fisheye lenses used with smart phones are getting smaller and the prices are reducing. Moreover, as verified in this study, the accuracy of fisheye lenses used in smartphones is better than conventional fisheye lenses. The use of smartphones with fisheye lenses will give the possibility of practical applications to ordinary users in the near future

Perpetual Pavement Instrumentation for the Marquette Interchange Project-Phase 1

This report provides details on the design, installation and monitoring of a pavement instrumentation system for the analysis of load-induced stresses and strains within a perpetual HMA pavement system. The HMA pavement was constructed as part of an urban highway improvement project in the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The outer wheel path of the outside lane was instrumented with asphalt strain sensors, base and subgrade pressure sensors, subgrade moisture and temperature sensors, HMA layer temperature sensors, traffic wander strips and a weigh in motion system. Environmental sensors for air temperature, wind speed and solar radiation are also included. The system captures the pavement response from each axle loading and transmits the data through a wireless link to a resident database at Marquette University. The collected data will be used to estimate the fatigue life of the perpetual HMA pavement and to modify, as necessary, pavement design procedures used within the State of Wisconsin

Marquette Interchange Phase I Final Report

This report provides details on the design, installation and monitoring of a pavement instrumentation system for the analysis of load-induced stresses and strains within a perpetual HMA pavement system. The HMA pavement was constructed as part of an urban highway improvement project in the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The outer wheel path of the outside lane was instrumented with asphalt strain sensors, base and subgrade pressure sensors, subgrade moisture and temperature sensors, HMA layer temperature sensors, traffic wander strips and a weigh in motion system. Environmental sensors for air temperature, wind speed and solar radiation are also included. The system captures the pavement response from each axle loading and transmits the data through a wireless link to a resident database at Marquette University. The collected data will be used to estimate the fatigue life of the perpetual HMA pavement and to modify, as necessary, pavement design procedures used within the State of Wisconsin

Low cost network camera sensors for traffic monitoring

Report on a study investigating the ways new video and wireless technology can be implemented into Texas Department of Transportation video monitoring systems to increase efficiency and reduce costs

Principal Component Analysis based Image Fusion Routine with Application to Stamping Split Detection

This dissertation presents a novel thermal and visible image fusion system with application in online automotive stamping split detection. The thermal vision system scans temperature maps of high reflective steel panels to locate abnormal temperature readings indicative of high local wrinkling pressure that causes metal splitting. The visible vision system offsets the blurring effect of thermal vision system caused by heat diffusion across the surface through conduction and heat losses to the surroundings through convection. The fusion of thermal and visible images combines two separate physical channels and provides more informative result image than the original ones. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is employed for image fusion to transform original image to its eigenspace. By retaining the principal components with influencing eigenvalues, PCA keeps the key features in the original image and reduces noise level. Then a pixel level image fusion algorithm is developed to fuse images from the thermal and visible channels, enhance the result image from low level and increase the signal to noise ratio. Finally, an automatic split detection algorithm is designed and implemented to perform online objective automotive stamping split detection. The integrated PCA based image fusion system for stamping split detection is developed and tested on an automotive press line. It is also assessed by online thermal and visible acquisitions and illustrates performance and success. Different splits with variant shape, size and amount are detected under actual operating conditions