Real Time Speed Estimation of Moving Vehicles from Side View Images from an Uncalibrated Video Camera

Abstract

In order to estimate the speed of a moving vehicle with side view camera images, velocity vectors of a sufficient number of reference points identified on the vehicle must be found using frame images. This procedure involves two main steps. In the first step, a sufficient number of points from the vehicle is selected, and these points must be accurately tracked on at least two successive video frames. In the second step, by using the displacement vectors of the tracked points and passed time, the velocity vectors of those points are computed. Computed velocity vectors are defined in the video image coordinate system and displacement vectors are measured by the means of pixel units. Then the magnitudes of the computed vectors in image space should be transformed to the object space to find the absolute values of these magnitudes. This transformation requires an image to object space information in a mathematical sense that is achieved by means of the calibration and orientation parameters of the video frame images. This paper presents proposed solutions for the problems of using side view camera images mentioned here. © 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.