Real-time Object and Event Detection Service through Computer Vision and Edge Computing
This addresses the problem of reducing accidents involving vulnerable road users in urban areas, though it appears incremental as it combines existing technologies like computer vision and edge computing.
The paper tackles road safety in smart cities by developing a computer vision and edge computing system for real-time detection and tracking of vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles, with results showing accurate prediction of road states and collision events.
The World Health Organization suggests that road traffic crashes cost approximately 518 billion dollars globally each year, which accounts for 3% of the gross domestic product for most countries. Most fatal road accidents in urban areas involve Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs). Smart cities environments present innovative approaches to combat accidents involving cutting-edge technologies, that include advanced sensors, extensive datasets, Machine Learning (ML) models, communication systems, and edge computing. This paper proposes a strategy and an implementation of a system for road monitoring and safety for smart cities, based on Computer Vision (CV) and edge computing. Promising results were obtained by implementing vision algorithms and tracking using surveillance cameras, that are part of a Smart City testbed, the Aveiro Tech City Living Lab (ATCLL). The algorithm accurately detects and tracks cars, pedestrians, and bicycles, while predicting the road state, the distance between moving objects, and inferring on collision events to prevent collisions, in near real-time.