Comparing effectiveness of feature detectors in obstacles detection from video

We have already proposed an obstacles detection method using a video taken by a vehicle-mounted monocular camera. In this method, correct obstacles detection depends on whether we can accurately detect and match feature points. In order to improve the accuracy of obstacles detection, in this paper, we make comparison among four most commonly used feature detectors; Harris, SIFT, SURF and FAST detectors. The experiments are done using our obstacles detection method. The experimental results are compared and discussed, and then we find the most suitable feature point detector for our obstacles detection method

Learning Reservoir Dynamics with Temporal Self-Modulation

Reservoir computing (RC) can efficiently process time-series data by transferring the input signal to randomly connected recurrent neural networks (RNNs), which are referred to as a reservoir. The high-dimensional representation of time-series data in the reservoir significantly simplifies subsequent learning tasks. Although this simple architecture allows fast learning and facile physical implementation, the learning performance is inferior to that of other state-of-the-art RNN models. In this paper, to improve the learning ability of RC, we propose self-modulated RC (SM-RC), which extends RC by adding a self-modulation mechanism. The self-modulation mechanism is realized with two gating variables: an input gate and a reservoir gate. The input gate modulates the input signal, and the reservoir gate modulates the dynamical properties of the reservoir. We demonstrated that SM-RC can perform attention tasks where input information is retained or discarded depending on the input signal. We also found that a chaotic state emerged as a result of learning in SM-RC. This indicates that self-modulation mechanisms provide RC with qualitatively different information-processing capabilities. Furthermore, SM-RC outperformed RC in NARMA and Lorentz model tasks. In particular, SM-RC achieved a higher prediction accuracy than RC with a reservoir 10 times larger in the Lorentz model tasks. Because the SM-RC architecture only requires two additional gates, it is physically implementable as RC, providing a new direction for realizing edge AI

Comparing effectiveness of feature detectors in obstacles detection from video

We have already proposed an obstacles detection method using a video taken by a vehicle-mounted monocular camera. In this method, correct obstacles detection depends on whether we can accurately detect and match feature points. In order to improve the accuracy of obstacles detection, in this paper, we make comparison among four most commonly used feature detectors; Harris, SIFT, SURF and FAST detectors. The experiments are done using our obstacles detection method. The experimental results are compared and discussed, and then we find the most suitable feature point detector for our obstacles detection method

Moving objects segmentation at a traffic junction from vehicular vision

Automatic extraction/segmentation and the recognition of moving objects on a road environment is often problematic. This is especially the case when cameras are mounted on a moving vehicle (for vehicular vision), yet this remains a critical task in vision based safety transportation. The essential problem is twofold: extracting the foreground from the moving background, and separating and recognizing pedestrians from other moving objects such as cars that appear in the foreground. The challenge of our proposed technique is to use a single mobile camera for separating the foreground from the background, and to recognize pedestrians and other objects from vehicular vision in order to achieve a low cost and intelligent driver assistance system. In this paper, the normal distribution is employed for modelling pixel gray values. The proposed technique separates the foreground from the background by comparing the pixel gray values of an input image with the normal distribution model of the pixel. The model is renewed after the separation to give a new background model for the next image. The renewal strategy changes depending on if the concerned pixel is in the background or on the foreground. Performance of the present technique was examined by real world vehicle videos captured at a junction when a car turns left or right and satisfactory results were obtained

Detection and tracking of a human on a bicycle using HOG feature and particle filter

Detection of a human on a bicycle is an important research subject in an advanced safety vehicle driving system to decrease traffic accidents. The Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG) feature has been proposed as useful feature for detecting a standing human in various kinds of background. So, many researchers use currently the HOG feature to detect a human. Detecting a human on a bicycle is more difficult than detecting a standing human, because the appearance of a bicycle can change dramatically according to viewpoints. In this paper, we propose a method of detecting a human on a bicycle using HOG feature and RealAdaBoost algorithm. When detecting a human on a bicycle, occlusion is a cause of decreasing detection efficiency. Occlusion is a serious problem in car vision research, because there are often occlusion in real transportation environment. In such a case, the proposed method predicts the next position of a human on a bicycle using a tracking strategy. Experimental results and their evaluation show satisfactory performance of the proposed method