Automatic Vehicle Classification in Systems with Single Inductive Loop Detector

Abstract

Abstract The work proposes a new method for vehicle classification, which allows treating vehicles uniformly at the stage of defining the vehicle classes, as well as during the classification itself and the assessment of its correctness. The sole source of information about a vehicle is its magnetic signature normalised with respect to the amplitude and duration. The proposed method allows defining a large number (even several thousand) of classes comprising vehicles whose magnetic signatures are similar according to the assumed criterion with precisely determined degree of similarity. The decision about the degree of similarity and, consequently, about the number of classes, is taken by a user depending on the classification purpose. An additional advantage of the proposed solution is the automated defining of vehicle classes for the given degree of similarity between signatures determined by a user. Thus the human factor, which plays a significant role in currently used methods, has been removed from the classification process at the stage of defining vehicle classes. The efficiency of the proposed approach to the vehicle classification problem was demonstrated on the basis of a large set of experimental data.