Author(s)

M. Ukai

Abstract

In order to detect obstacles on railway tracks, we have developed a forward monitoring system, which plays an important role to ensure the safety of train operation. In this paper, we propose a method of detecting obstacles with an image sequence taken by an ultra telephoto lens camera mounted on train which monitors the status of the track for 600m (brake distance) or over ahead of the train. We first discussed the railway track environment recognition. Particularly extraction of two parallel rails is a fundamental issue in applying image processing to railways. It is inevitable to limit the area where obstacles exist. A first detection algorithm is based on the analysis of optical flow which characteristically occurs in those moving obstacles. Assuming that pixels corresponding to the same object have similar flow vectors, we extract a connected

Keywords