Cooperative Tracking of Cyclists Based on Smart Devices and Infrastructure

TL;DR

This paper proposes a cooperative cyclist tracking system using smart devices and infrastructure sensors, improving tracking accuracy and occlusion handling in future interconnected traffic environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cooperative tracking approach combining camera data with smart device sensors, enhancing robustness over single-source methods.

Findings

Cooperative tracking improves cyclist detection during occlusions.

Combining camera and smart device data increases tracking accuracy.

The approach enhances safety for vulnerable road users.

Abstract

In future traffic scenarios, vehicles and other traffic participants will be interconnected and equipped with various types of sensors, allowing for cooperation based on data or information exchange. This article presents an approach to cooperative tracking of cyclists using smart devices and infrastructure-based sensors. A smart device is carried by the cyclists and an intersection is equipped with a wide angle stereo camera system. Two tracking models are presented and compared. The first model is based on the stereo camera system detections only, whereas the second model cooperatively combines the camera based detections with velocity and yaw rate data provided by the smart device. Our aim is to overcome limitations of tracking approaches based on single data sources. We show in numerical evaluations on scenes where cyclists are starting or turning right that the cooperation leads to an improvement in both the ability to keep track of a cyclist and the accuracy of the track particularly when it comes to occlusions in the visual system. We, therefore, contribute to the safety of vulnerable road users in future traffic.