An automated vehicle counting system for traffic surveillance

The objective of this paper is to present a detailed description of using DSP board and image processing techniques to construct an automated vehicle counting system. Such a system has many potential applications, such as traffic signal control and district traffic abduction. We use TITMS320DM642 DSP as the computational unit to avoid heavy investment in industrial control computer while obtaining improved computational power and optimized system structure. The overall software is comprised of two parts: embedded DSP software and host PC software. The embedded DSP software acquires the video image from stationary cameras, detects and counts moving vehicles, and transmits the processing results and realtime images after compression to PC software through network. The host PC software works as a graphic user interface through which the end user can configure the DSP board parameters and access the video processing results. The vehicle detection and counting algorithm is carefully devised to keep robust and efficient in traffic scenes for longtime span and with changeful illumination. Experimental results show that the proposed system performs well in actual traffic scenes, and the processing speed and accuracy of the system can meet the requirement of practical applications.