Visual Routines for Real-Time Monitoring of Vehicle Behavior

. Low-cost, purely visual modules are presented, which are able to reliably perform real-time computation of kinematic quantities relevant for the navigation of commercial vehicles moving along highways or motorways. Taking as input a video stream of b/w images coming from a standard camera mounted aboard the vehicle, the modules return instantaneous measurements for the speed of the vehicle, its lateral position in the lane, and the distance from the preceding vehicle. The modules, which are designed to work in real-time on standard PC platforms, have been tested under typical working conditions. Preliminary results are reported and discussed. Key words: Real-time computer vision -- Automotive technologies -- Intelligent sensors 1 Introduction The capability of measuring parameters related to the motion of vehicles is crucial for any possibility of influencing their behavior -- either manually or automatically, directly or indirectly. Over the last few years, a relevant research eff..