Vision system detects empty parking places
Researchers from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Malaysia (Gambang, Pahang, Malaysia) have developed a vision-based intelligent parking space detection system that could help motorists identify the free spaces in car parking lots.
To enable the system to automatically identify the location of the parking spaces, the researchers painted large filled-in circles on the floor of the parking lot in the center of the parking bays. This also enables the vision system to identify the presence or absence of a car.
After an RGB image of a parking bay with several parking spaces has been acquired by a camera, it is converted to a grey scale image. Next, a thresholding operation is performed to produce a binary image which is then enhanced to remove any noise and to trace the boundary of the objects that have been detected in the image.
Finally, the shapes of the objects in the images are calculated. From these, it can be deduced whether or not the brown circular object indicative of an empty parking space is present in the image.
The results can then be displayed on a graphical user interface as well as on an LCD panel as shown in the image above.
The researchers presented their work in the June issue of the International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology. A copy of an article on the subject can be found here.
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-- Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design