Background subtraction and 3D localization of moving and stationary obstacles at level crossings

This paper proposes an obstacle detection system for the purpose of preventing accidents at level crossings. In order to avoid the limits of already proposed technologies, this system uses stereo cameras to detect and localize multiple targets at the level crossing. In a first step, a background subtraction module is performed using the Color Independent Component Analysis (CICA) technique which allows to detect vehicles even if they are stopped (the main cause of accidents at Level Crossings). A novel robust stereo matching algorithm is then used to reliably localize in 3D each segmented object. Standard stereo datasets and real-world images are used to evaluate the performances of the proposed algorithm, showing the efficiency and robustness of the proposed video surveillance system.