All-weather vision for automotive safety: which spectral band?

SIA Vision 2016 - International Conference Night Drive Tests and Exhibition, Paris, FRANCE, 13-/10/2016 - 14/10/2016The AWARE (All Weather All Roads Enhanced vision) French public funded project is aiming at the development of a low cost sensor fitting to automotive and aviation requirements, and enabling a vision in all poor visibility conditions, such as night, fog, rain and snow. In order to identify the technologies providing the best all-weather vision, we evaluated the relevance of four different spectral bands: Visible RGB, Near-Infrared (NIR), Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) and Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR). Two test campaigns have been realised in outdoor natural conditions and in artificial fog tunnel, with four cameras recording simultaneously.This paper presents the detailed results of this comparative study, focusing on pedestrians, vehicles, traffic signs and lanes detection