Traffic management to the fore at Vision 2014

Colin Sowman reviews some of the traffic-related exhibits at the 2014 Vision Show in Stuttgart.

Traffic was a major theme at this years’ 6963 Vision Show in Stuttgart and several manufacturers used the exhibition to highlight their traffic-related equipment and applications.

Making a major impact at the show was Tattile which is in the unusual position of providing complete camera systems for traffic monitoring, tolling and enforcement as well as supplying the industrial side of the market. According to its CEO Corrado Franchi: “There is a close synergy between the two industries as traffic utilises the same technology as the industrial sector and all the implementation done in the industrial division can be used, for instance, in plate reading for ANPR systems.

“There is definitely a close relationship between the two and we have the advantage of having both technologies,” said Franchi.

Currently the company is focussing on mobile plate reading for police applications which come with embedded technology so all the image processing is done within the camera itself. The camera features ‘plug & play’ installation and can also be used as a stand-alone application with events saved on an embedded micro SD.

Celebrating 25 years in the machine vision business was camera manufacturer Allied Vision (AV) which was highlighting its partnership approach to the various sectors – including traffic. “We don’t just sell cameras and technology, we engage onto an in-depth partnership with industry sectors including traffic to help them provide design solutions,” said corporate marketing manager Jean-Philippe Roman.

 AV’s technology is used for open road tolling as well as speed and red light enforcement by companies like 108 Q-Free and 83 Kria. Representation of this could be seen with Kria’s TExspeed speed enforcement system which was on display. The system uses image processing to determine speed rather than relying on radar, laser or any other measurement technology. It uses a stereoscopic system with two 2255 Prosilica GT cameras in a 40cm wide housing to monitor up to six lanes and from a series of images the software determines the distance a vehicle covered in the time interval between two images to calculate the exact speed.

Advice for authorities looking to replace and update their traffic cameras from 7311 Lumenera’s product manager Eric Ramsden is that they would do well to look at the latest generation of digital units. “Replacement installations have to be cost-effective in terms of reliability and efficiency and the latest electronic shutters are far more reliable than the old mechanical types.

As an example he points to the latest large sensor cameras such as the LT16059 on display which has a 16 megapixel CCD sensor with up to 82dB dynamic range and a global shutter for sharp images under all lighting conditions. The camera comes with USB 3.0 connection (as well as Ethernet and GigE) for ease of integration and high data transfer rates.

Perhaps the most striking indication of the increasing influence of machine vision to the traffic sector, and vice-versa, is the introduction of hardware specifically tailored to the rigours of roadside applications. One example is 7918 Vision Components’ VCSBC F series of board cameras which are designed for ITS applications.

The VCSBC F boards are based on Freescale’s quad-core processor which greatly increases the ability to process images in multiple ways and in real time. This allows optimised ANPR software to run on the embedded platform rather than on a separate PC. “There’s no need for an external pc – the system is entirely stand-alone,” said the company’s Jan-Erik Schmitt.

The new board is designed to accept two cameras to enable both colour contextual images and infrared monochrome images for the ANPR to be captured simultaneously. However as the processing is done by the embedded system the amount of information sent through the network is substantially reduced.  “Instead of sending 25 or 30 frames per second whereas we would send perhaps one when an offence has been committed,” said Schmitt.

For its part 7910 Qioptiq has introduced the MeVis-CF range of lenses specifically for use in harsh conditions, be that physical buffeting, extreme temperatures or high humidity.

These lenses are designed for use with sensors up to 25mm (one inch) in size and come in a range of fixed focal lengths of 12mm, 16mm, 25mm, 35mm and 50mm. They have a lockable focus ring and while this design precludes pan/tilt/zoom operations, according to Qioptiq director Thomas Schäffler, it makes for a more robust construction because, effectively, there are no moving parts. This approach extends to the fixed aperture design (f1.6 or f1.8), the housing, and glass retention system.

The C versions of the lenses have an adjustable and lockable iris and lockable focus ring while the CM version is motorised and comes with automatic focussing and iris control for fully remote applications.

While not currently used in traffic–related applications Qioptiq also demonstrated a liquid lens designed for use with 6mm (1/4 inch) sensors which can focus in a few milliseconds.

According to Schäffler it could be utilised in low light speed enforcement as the lens could refocus between taking the two images. This means capturing sharp images of a speeding vehicle in two positions would not rely on the small (light restricting) aperture required to achieve the depth of field needed to do the job with a fixed focus lens. 

 On the JAI stand was its 4th generation ITS camera package, the Viscam 1000, which comprises a camera and lens, illumination and image processing all mounted in a ‘sandwich’ housing.

The double skinned upper half effectively shades the top of the inner housing to minimise heat build-up and means a cooling fan is not required. The lower part of the housing has a dirt guard which removes the need for a wiper, so there are no moving parts in the housing construction.
 
Running at 72 frames per second and with built-in video triggering, the five megapixel CMOS camera can operate between -45° and +70° and comes with on-axis lighting (near infrared, white or blue) and can be connected to an external lighting source if required.

78 JAI’s sales director Thomas Moore said the camera is suited to high performance applications such as open road tolling, average or spot speed and red light applications. There is an optional heating system for cold weather and high humidity installations and to cater for the possibility of power loss, a moisture management system is included. However, when those systems are not in use, Moore said the complete package has very low power consumption making long-distance applications easier.

Gardasoft used the Vision Show for the first public showing of its Triniti Technology system, which is designed to simplify the connection and synchronisation of cameras, lighting and other auxiliary systems. Company director Peter Bhagat said Triniti has been developed for machine vison applications and makes set-up and operation much easier and provides a far greater degree of system integration.

While the system has initially been introduced for industrial applications, he expects it will find applications in the traffic sector very soon. Gardasoft is already offering GigE protocol versions of its LED strobe lighting modules that connect directly into many widely-used image processing packages.

7094 Basler is looking to reduce the price gap between high end cameras often used in enforcement or revenue generating applications, and their traditionally cheaper counterparts used in monitoring and traffic management applications. At the show it introduced its new Dart board level cameras which measure less than 30mm in each direction (without the S/CS mount lens) and start from only €99 ($125). They are fitted with the Aptina CMOS sensor offering resolutions between 1.2 and five megapixels and up to 54 frames per second in monochrome or colour. USB 3.0 connections gives near ‘plug and play’ connectivity.

“It’s going to be a game-changer and will remove the need for CCD sensors,” said Basler’s market manager Enzio Scheider. “This will allow the development of very price competitive products for the traffic market such as ANPR or similar.” 

The capturing and transmission of relevant images from standard analogue and Camera Link serial communication protocol video can be done using the latest frame grabbers from 7915 Active Silicon. Its strategic business manager Andrew Buglass said the grabbers are well suited to traffic applications because they reduced the amount of data that needs to be processed and sent over the network. The technology enables the six gigabytes/second output from four cameras to be processed by a single computer.

Looking to exploit the full capability of 576 Sony’s IMX174 global shutter CMOS sensor in its MV series of cameras is 7792 Matrix Vision which said the technology is ideal for the difficult lighting conditions experienced in traffic applications.

In ANPR applications the sensor is used to simultaneously capture numberplate details, contextual images and visual evidence of the driver from a single frame. In processing up to12dB of gain  is used on the darker parts of the image (such as the driver’s face) without, it is said, problematic noise degradation. The USB 3.0 mvBlueFOX3 version is capable of 162 frames per second.

Other transportation systems were also catered for at the show and the 6625 Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) displayed a system which applied machine vision techniques to trams in order to detect and prevent impending collisions. Based on a 3D sensor developed by AIT and 513 Bombardier, the technology identifies objects such as people and traffic and evaluates the risk of a collision. In the first generation displayed at the show, if the system detects an impending collision it will warn the driver. In future it is planned that the system will become more proactive and automatically apply the brakes if needed to avoid a collision or minimise the impact.

On Semiconductor exhibited its Python series cameras which offer up to 100 frames per second and resolutions between 0.3 and 25 megapixels.  For traffic applications product manager Joost Seijneve highlighted the five megapixel version which has eight outputs and a global shutter said to be 99.987% efficient. He highlights the relevance of this to the traffic market because it enables high dynamic range images to be captured of fast moving objects. Wide format versions can capture several number plates simultaneously in multilane applications.

Canadian camera producer 541 Point Grey has detected a preference for GigE vision connections in tolling and enforcement applications because of the long cable runs coupled with high bandwidth and low latency requirements. More recently there has been a move from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 with integrated processing installations so the company has updated its Grasshopper 3 range to take advantage of the trend. While the global shutter cameras are available with CCD or CMOS sensors, Point Grey’s Paul Kozik says in traffic applications the CCD sensor can experience some blooming and smear.

So it seems the machine vision industry really is becoming aware of the traffic sector’s needs.

Traffic take-up

That the traffic sector is beginning to take a serious interest in the capabilities of machine vision was evident to 593 Teledyne Dalsa’s product manager Manny Romero who spent the first day of the exhibition in traffic-related meetings. The company has clearly taken account of the sector’s needs for flexibility as its latest cameras, the Genie TS range, is said to be the fastest  five megapixel GigE Vision camera in the industry and can reach 51 frames per second.

Multiple regions of interest can be captured simultaneously from a single image; allowing only the parts of relevant frames to be transmitted to the control room and so minimising bandwidth requirements. In addition, Romero said the camera is programmed to take advantage of the wider dynamic range of the latest generation of sensors with on-chip image processing and photo correction which reduces the overall bandwidth requirement by up to 95%.

Spotting danger

1771 Survision is utilising Sony’s FCB cameras for its optical character recognition system to detect and track vehicles carrying dangerous goods by identifying the EU-specified orange signs that display information about the product being transported. The system uses two cameras: one to detect the dangerous material signage and the other the numberplate.
When a vehicle carrying dangerous goods is identified, the cameras send an alert to a variable message sign by, for instance, the entrance of the tunnel, to alert the driver to continue only if permitted, or turn back. The vehicle can also be tracked throughout the tunnel using a series of cameras, ensuring the authorities are aware of any incident instantly and precautions can be taken.