Real-time vehicle detection using parts at intersections

In this study, we propose a novel, lightweight approach to real-time detection of vehicles using parts at intersections. Intersections feature oncoming, preceding, and cross traffic, which presents challenges for vision-based vehicle detection. Ubiquitous partial occlusions further complicate the vehicle detection task, and occur when vehicles enter and leave the camera's field of view. To confront these issues, we independently detect vehicle parts using strong classifiers trained with active learning. We match part responses using a learned matching classification. The learning process for part configurations leverages user input regarding full vehicle configurations. Part configurations are evaluated using Support Vector Machine classification. We present a comparison of detection results using geometric image features and appearance-based features. The full vehicle detection by parts has been evaluated on real-world data, runs in real time, and shows promise for future work in urban driver assistance.