Title: Real-time automatic obstacle detection and alert system for driver assistance on Indian roads

Authors: Sachin Sharma; Dharmesh Shah

Addresses: Department of Electronics & Communication, Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, India ' Department of Electronics & Communication, Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, India

Abstract: Road crashes have been a major problem in India in recent times. The occurrences have increased considerably owing to the influx of four-wheelers and two-wheelers on roads. The interior roads connecting villages and towns have been instrumental in multiple animal-vehicle collisions. Though numerous efforts have been in progress to reduce the number of collisions, lack of practical applications has impeded any major breakthrough in the scenario. In our current work, we designed a system based on histograms of oriented gradients and cascade classifiers for cow detection. The Indian cow has been the biggest obstacle compared to other animals on Indian roads. The distance between a cow and the vehicle is calculated prompting an alert signal to notify the driver for applying brakes. The method is implemented in OpenCV software and tested on various video clips. The proposed system has achieved an accuracy of 80% in terms of cow detection.

Keywords: animal detection system; automotive electronics; cascade classifier; computer vision; histogram of oriented gradient; intelligent highway safety; OpenCV; road accidents.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVAS.2017.083499

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems, 2017 Vol.13 No.3, pp.189 - 202

Received: 21 Dec 2015
Accepted: 14 Mar 2016
Published online: 08 Apr 2017 *

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