Abstract
Many conventional methods for distinguishing road surface condition using car-mounted cameras have already been proposed. However, most of these methods are only effective for daytime and bright conditions. We need to expand the application of distinguishing methods at night-time, which is a much more dangerous environment. In this paper, we propose a new distinction method for road surface conditions at night-time. The method uses only video information acquired by an inexpensive car-mounted video camera and analyzes the difference in road surface features for each condition. The image features of the road surface depend on the illumination conditions such as street lamps, signal lights, reflections and other light sources. We analyze the image features based on color information and the presence of other light sources. As a result, the distinction of road surface conditions has been achieved with high accuracy, including the areas illuminated by street lamps and other light sources.
