Enhancing autonomous vehicle safety in rain: a data-centric approach for clear vision
This work addresses safety for autonomous vehicles in rainy conditions, but it is incremental as it builds on existing encoder-decoder architectures with novel batching schemes.
The study tackled the problem of rain impairing camera-based vision for autonomous vehicles by developing a deep learning model to remove rain from live camera feeds, resulting in improved steering accuracy in simulated tests.
Autonomous vehicles face significant challenges in navigating adverse weather, particularly rain, due to the visual impairment of camera-based systems. In this study, we leveraged contemporary deep learning techniques to mitigate these challenges, aiming to develop a vision model that processes live vehicle camera feeds to eliminate rain-induced visual hindrances, yielding visuals closely resembling clear, rain-free scenes. Using the Car Learning to Act (CARLA) simulation environment, we generated a comprehensive dataset of clear and rainy images for model training and testing. In our model, we employed a classic encoder-decoder architecture with skip connections and concatenation operations. It was trained using novel batching schemes designed to effectively distinguish high-frequency rain patterns from low-frequency scene features across successive image frames. To evaluate the model performance, we integrated it with a steering module that processes front-view images as input. The results demonstrated notable improvements in steering accuracy, underscoring the model's potential to enhance navigation safety and reliability in rainy weather conditions.