Experiment on Distance Measurement Using Single Camera

One of the methods to achieve context-aware appliance in smart energy concept is to use computer vision. To develop a low-cost context-aware streetlight system, it is imperative to develop a computer vision system that can calculate the distance of a human using a single camera. This paper presents the result of experiment on distance calculation using a single camera. The experiment uses pinhole camera model and triangle similarity concept to measure human distance from a camera. The result of this experiment shows that for shorter distance, less than 200 cm, the calculation accuracy is quite good with less than 10% error from the actual distance. However, for longer distance the calculation error rose to 20%. This error is due to the difference between the reference height and the actual height of human target used in the experiment.