Smart cars and smart roads

Abstract

This paper describes two projects applying computer vision to Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems. The first project has resulted in the development of a system for monitoring traffic scenes using video information. The objective is to estimate traffic parameters such as flow rates, speeds and link travel times, as well as to detect quickly disruptive incidents such as stalled vehicles and accidents. The second project is aimed at developing vision as a sensor technology for vehicle control. The novel feature of this project, compared to most previous approaches, is the extensive use of binocular stereopsis. First, it provides information for obstacle detection, grouping, and range estimation which is directly used for longitudinal control. Secondly, the obstacle-ground separation enables robust localization of partially occluded lane boundaries as v/ell as the dynamic update of camera rig parameters to deal with vibrations and vertical road curvature.