An integrated framework for knowledge based obstacle information system with image processing techniques

Abstract

One of the most important reasons of car accidents are collisions with vehicles that are not visible to a driver. This is why driver warning systems are developed. The main threat for a driver on the highway comes from the surrounding vehicles especially when the driver is not aware of the close presence generally known as driver’s blind spot. An area in and around the vehicle that cannot be directly observed by the driver are known as blind spots. Image processing plays a vital role in this scenario to safe guard drivers from sudden obstacles and blind spots. The pre-processed sequences of images acquired using front and rear camera of a vehicle are considered to train the case base reasoning (CBR) model, which detects the presence of dangerous objects in the blind spot area. To distinguish near and far obstacles, the same CBR model is used with a specified threshold in the vehicle blind spot area. The proposed knowledge based obstacle information system obtains promising results with standard blind spot camera which can improve safety of the driver and has the potential to be applied in vehicular applications for the detection of obstacles and blind spot area.