Highway Traffic Classification for the Perception Level of Situation Awareness

Abstract

The automotive industry is rapidly moving towards the highest level of autonomy. However, one of the major challenges for highly autonomous vehicles is the differentiation between driving modes according to different driving situations. Different driving zones have different driving safety regulations. For example, German traffic regulations require a higher degree of safety measurements for highway driving. Therefore, a classification of the different driving scenarios on a highway is necessary to regulate these safety assessments. This paper presents a novel vision-based approach to the classification of German highway driving scenarios. We develop three different and precise algorithms utilizing image processing and machine learning approaches to recognize speed signs, traffic lights, and highway traffic signs. Based on the results of these algorithms, a weight-based classification process is performed, which determines the current driving situation either as a highway driving mode or not. The main goal of this research work is to maintain and to ensure the high safety specifications required for the German highway. Finally, the result of this classification process is provided as an extracted driving scenario-based feature on the perceptual level of a system known as situation awareness to provide a high level of driving safety. This study was realized on a custom-made hardware unit called “CE-Box”, which was developed at the Department of Computer Engineering at TU Chemnitz as an automotive test solution for testing automotive software applications on an embedded hardware unit.