Visibility distance estimation based on structure from motion

It is obvious to say that perception is necessary to drive. Futhermore we can say that a good visibility is a guaranty for passengers security. The driver will adapt the vehicle speed to the offered visibility. Strong visibility reductions (dense fog for instance) are conditions of risk of accident. We therefore propose here a method to perform an onboard estimation of the visibility distance. Once this estimate is obtained, assistance could be offered to the driver (eg if it runs at a speed not adapted to the current visibility) or to the road infrastructure management so that it can inform other users of risk on his road network. This method uses images acquired by an onboard camera filming the scene and the estimation of vehicle motion. Thus, from this information we will explain how we can achieve a spatial partial structure reconstruction to estimate the visibility distance.