Vision-Based Lane-Changing Behavior Detection Using Deep Residual Neural Network

Accurate lane localization and lane change detection are crucial in advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving systems for safer and more efficient trajectory planning. Conventional localization devices such as Global Positioning System only provide road-level resolution for car navigation, which is incompetent to assist in lane-level decision making. The state of art technique for lane localization is to use Light Detection and Ranging sensors to correct the global localization error and achieve centimeter-level accuracy, but the real-time implementation and popularization for LiDAR is still limited by its computational burden and current cost. As a cost-effective alternative, vision-based lane change detection has been highly regarded for affordable autonomous vehicles to support lane-level localization. A deep learning-based computer vision system is developed to detect the lane change behavior using the images captured by a front-view camera mounted on the vehicle and data from the inertial measurement unit for highway driving. Testing results on real-world driving data have shown that the proposed method is robust with real-time working ability and could achieve around 87% lane change detection accuracy. Compared to the average human reaction to visual stimuli, the proposed computer vision system works 9 times faster, which makes it capable of helping make life-saving decisions in time

A REAL-TIME TRAFFIC CONDITION ASSESSMENT AND PREDICTION FRAMEWORK USING VEHICLE-INFRASTRUCTURE INTEGRATION (VII) WITH COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

This research developed a real-time traffic condition assessment and prediction framework using Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII) with computational intelligence to improve the existing traffic surveillance system. Due to the prohibited expenses and complexity involved for the field experiment of such a system, this study adopted state-of-the-art simulation tools as an efficient alternative. This work developed an integrated traffic and communication simulation platform to facilitate the design and evaluation of a wide range of online traffic surveillance and management system in both traffic and communication domain. Using the integrated simulator, the author evaluated the performance of different combination of communication medium and architecture. This evaluation led to the development of a hybrid VII framework exemplified by hierarchical architecture, which is expected to eliminate single point failures, enhance scalability and easy integration of control functions for traffic condition assessment and prediction. In the proposed VII framework, the vehicle on-board equipments and roadside units (RSUs) work collaboratively, based on an intelligent paradigm known as \u27Support Vector Machine (SVM),\u27 to determine the occurrence and characteristics of an incident with the kinetics data generated by vehicles. In addition to incident detection, this research also integrated the computational intelligence paradigm called \u27Support Vector Regression (SVR)\u27 within the hybrid VII framework for improving the travel time prediction capabilities, and supporting on-line leaning functions to improve its performance over time. Two simulation models that fully implemented the functionalities of real-time traffic surveillance were developed on calibrated and validated simulation network for study sites in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina. The simulation models\u27 encouraging performance on traffic condition assessment and prediction justifies further research on field experiment of such a system to address various research issues in the areas covered by this work, such as availability and accuracy of vehicle kinetic and maneuver data, reliability of wireless communication, maintenance of RSUs and wireless repeaters. The impact of this research will provide a reliable alternative to traditional traffic sensors to assess and predict the condition of the transportation system. The integrated simulation methodology and open source software will provide a tool for design and evaluation of any real-time traffic surveillance and management systems. Additionally, the developed VII simulation models will be made available for use by future researchers and designers of other similar VII systems. Future implementation of the research in the private and public sector will result in new VII related equipment in vehicles, greater control of traffic loading, faster incident detection, improved safety, mitigated congestion, and reduced emissions and fuel consumption

Conteo de vehículos a partir de vídeos usando machine learning

This work presents a framework for vehicle counting from videos, using deep neural networks as detectors. The framework has 4 stages: preprocessing, detection and classification, tracking, and post-processing. For the detection stage, several deep object detector are compared and 3 new ones are proposed based on Tiny YOLOv3. For the tracking, a new tracker based on IOU is compared against the classic ones: Boosting, KCF, TLD, Mediaflow, MOSSE and CSRT. The comparison is based on 8 multi-object tracking metrics over the Bog19 dataset. The Bog19 dataset is a collection of annotated videos from the city of Bogota. The annotations include bicycles, buses, cars, motorbikes and trucks. Finally, the system is evaluated for the task of vehicle counting on this dataset. For the counting task, the combinations of the proposed detectors with the Medianflow and MOSSE trackers obtain the best results. The founded detectors have the same performance as those of the state of the art but with a higher speed.Este trabajo presenta un framework para el conteo de vehı́culos a partir de videos, utilizando redes neuronales profundas como detectores. El framework tiene 4 etapas: preprocesamiento, detección y clasificación, seguimiento y post-procesamiento. Para la etapa de detección se comparan varios detectores de objetos profundos y se proponen 3 nuevos basados en Tiny YOLOv3. Para el rastreo, se compara un nuevo rastreador basado en IOU con los clásicos: Boosting, KCF, TLD, Mediaflow, MOSSE y CSRT. La comparación se hace en base a 8 métricas de seguimiento multiobjeto sobre el conjunto de datos del Bog19. El conjunto de datos Bog19 es una colección de videos anotados de la ciudad de Bogotá. Las clases de objetos anotados incluyen bicicletas, autobuses, coches, motos y camiones. Finalmente el sistema es evaluado para la tarea de contar vehı́culos en este conjunto de datos. Para la tarea de conteo, las combinaciones de los detectores propuestos y los rastreadores Medianflow y MOSSE obtienen los mejores resultados. Los detectores encontrados tienen el mismo desempeño que los del estado del arte pero con una mayor velocidad.Magíster en Ingeniería - Ingeniería de Sistemas y ComputaciónMaestrí

Novel statistical modeling methods for traffic video analysis

Video analysis is an active and rapidly expanding research area in computer vision and artificial intelligence due to its broad applications in modern society. Many methods have been proposed to analyze the videos, but many challenging factors remain untackled. In this dissertation, four statistical modeling methods are proposed to address some challenging traffic video analysis problems under adverse illumination and weather conditions. First, a new foreground detection method is presented to detect the foreground objects in videos. A novel Global Foreground Modeling (GFM) method, which estimates a global probability density function for the foreground and applies the Bayes decision rule for model selection, is proposed to model the foreground globally. A Local Background Modeling (LBM) method is applied by choosing the most significant Gaussian density in the Gaussian mixture model to model the background locally for each pixel. In addition, to mitigate the correlation effects of the Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) color space on the independence assumption among the color component images, some other color spaces are investigated for feature extraction. To further enhance the discriminatory power of the input feature vector, the horizontal and vertical Haar wavelet features and the temporal information are integrated into the color features to define a new 12-dimensional feature vector space. Finally, the Bayes classifier is applied for the classification of the foreground and the background pixels. Second, a novel moving cast shadow detection method is presented to detect and remove the cast shadows from the foreground. Specifically, a set of new chromatic criteria is presented to detect the candidate shadow pixels in the Hue, Saturation, and Value (HSV) color space. A new shadow region detection method is then proposed to cluster the candidate shadow pixels into shadow regions. A statistical shadow model, which uses a single Gaussian distribution to model the shadow class, is presented to classify shadow pixels. Additionally, an aggregated shadow detection strategy is presented to integrate the shadow detection results and remove the shadows from the foreground. Third, a novel statistical modeling method is presented to solve the automated road recognition problem for the Region of Interest (RoI) detection in traffic video analysis. A temporal feature guided statistical modeling method is proposed for road modeling. Additionally, a model pruning strategy is applied to estimate the road model. Then, a new road region detection method is presented to detect the road regions in the video. The method applies discriminant functions to classify each pixel in the estimated background image into a road class or a non-road class, respectively. The proposed method provides an intra-cognitive communication mode between the RoI selection and video analysis systems. Fourth, a novel anomalous driving detection method in videos, which can detect unsafe anomalous driving behaviors is introduced. A new Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) method is proposed to extract the velocities and trajectories of moving foreground objects in video. The new MOT method is a motion-based tracking method, which integrates the temporal and spatial features. Then, a novel Gaussian Local Velocity (GLV) modeling method is presented to model the normal moving behavior in traffic videos. The GLV model is built for every location in the video frame, and updated online. Finally, a discriminant function is proposed to detect anomalous driving behaviors. To assess the feasibility of the proposed statistical modeling methods, several popular public video datasets, as well as the real traffic videos from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) are applied. The experimental results show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed methods

Intelligent Sensors for Real-Time Hazard Detection and Visual Indication on Highways

Traffic collisions, in particular high speed car accidents often result in huge damages, long traffic queues and loss of human lives. In this work we present an intelligent modular system that monitors traffic in highways and alerts drivers of sudden stops, in poor visual conditions. The system is composed of several identical modules, to be placed in the middle of a highway’s lane, that sense the lights and communicate their presence and velocity to their neighbor modules via RF. With such information, the nearby modules estimate the velocity of the passing cars. When the module ahead detects a car passing at a much slower speed than what was previously estimated, it alerts the other modules, so they produce a visual indication for the oncoming drivers, preventing accidents. The system operates autonomously using solar energy harvesting

Fully automated urban traffic system

The replacement of the driver with an automatic system which could perform the functions of guiding and routing a vehicle with a human's capability of responding to changing traffic demands was discussed. The problem was divided into four technological areas; guidance, routing, computing, and communications. It was determined that the latter three areas being developed independent of any need for fully automated urban traffic. A guidance system that would meet system requirements was not being developed but was technically feasible