Omni-directional Polarization Image Sensor Based on an Omni-directional Camera and a Polarization Filter

An effective method for detecting road surface conditions is the use of polarization features. In this paper we describe this method, for which we use two cameras for taking vertical and horizontal polarized images simultaneously. Generally, camera calibrations have to be processed, however in this paper we explain how we managed to avoid this processing, by introducing the omni-directional polarization image capture method, using an omni-directional camera and a polarization filter. This method enables to take vertical and horizontal polarized images at the same time, without using the camera calibration.