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Infrared traffic sensor with feature curve generation

  • US 5,995,900 A
  • Filed: 01/24/1997
  • Issued: 11/30/1999
  • Est. Priority Date: 01/24/1997
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A traffic monitoring system for monitoring a thoroughfare with vehicles traveling on the thoroughfare, comprising:

  • a detector for capturing image data of the thoroughfare;

    a processor in electrical communication with the detector for receiving the image data, the processor comprising;

    1) a background generator operative to remove the effects of system noise, performance anomalies, and environmental parameters from the image data comprising;

    (a) a first memory for storing a single frame captured from said detector as the reference frame;

    (b) a second memory for storing a second single frame from said detector at a subsequent time;

    (c) a third memory for storing a preselected value representing a frame without a vehicle;

    (d) a first comparator for comparing said reference frame and said second single frame to determine a background frame;

    (e) a second comparator for comparing said background frame to said predetermined value; and

    (f) a fourth memory for storing the background frame with least value compared to the predetermined value to designate a vehicle free background;

    2) a curve generator in electrical communication with the background generator for producing statistical feature curves representing a series of quantitative values; and

    3) an information processor in electrical communication with the curve generator for receiving the feature curves and deriving empirical data representing movement patterns of the vehicles within the thoroughfare based on the feature curves;

    means in electrical communication with the processor for receiving the empirical data and determining from the empirical data an amount of vehicles, speed assessment of the vehicles, and a classification of the vehicles within the thoroughfare captured by the image data.

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