Environment analysis of automatic vehicles needs the detection from 3-D point cloud information. This paper addresses this task when only partial scanning data are available. Our method develops the detection capabilities of autonomous vehicles equipped with 3-D range sensors for navigation purposes. In industrial practice, the safety scanners of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and a localization technology provide an additional possibility to gain 3-D point clouds from planar contour points or low vertical resolution. Based on this data and a suitable evaluation algorithm, intelligence of vehicles can be significantly increased without the need for installation of additional sensors. In this paper, we propose a solution for an obstacle categorization problem for partial point clouds without shape modeling. The approach is tested for a known database, as well as for real-life scenarios. In case of AGVs, real-time run is provided by on-board computers of usual complexity.

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Obstacle Prediction for Automated Guided Vehicles Based on Point Clouds Measured by a Tilted LIDAR Sensor

In this paper, a new model for retinal Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images is proposed. This statistical model is based on introducing a nonlinear Gaussianization transform to convert the probability distribution function (pdf) of each OCT intra-retinal layer to a Gaussian distribution. The retina is a layered structure and in OCT each of these layers has a specific pdf which is corrupted by speckle noise, therefore a mixture model for statistical modeling of OCT images is proposed. A Normal-Laplace distribution, which is a convolution of a Laplace pdf and Gaussian noise, is proposed as the distribution of each component of this model. The reason for choosing Laplace pdf is the monotonically decaying behavior of OCT intensities in each layer for healthy cases. After fitting a mixture model to the data, each component is gaussianized and all of them are combined by Averaged Maximum A Posterior (AMAP) method. To demonstrate the ability of this method, a new contrast enhancement method based on this statistical model is proposed and tested on thirteen healthy 3D OCTs taken by the Topcon 3D OCT and five 3D OCTs from Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) patients, taken by Zeiss Cirrus HD-OCT. Comparing the results with two contending techniques, the prominence of the proposed method is demonstrated both visually and numerically. Furthermore, to prove the efficacy of the proposed method for a more direct and specific purpose, an improvement in the segmentation of intra-retinal layers using the proposed contrast enhancement method as a preprocessing step, is demonstrated.

Statistical Modeling of Retinal Optical Coherence Tomography

Humans can identify a speaker by listening to their voice, over the telephone, or on any digital devices. Acquiring this congenital human competency, authentication technologies based on voice biometrics, such as automatic speaker recognition (ASR), have been introduced. An ASR recognizes speakers by analyzing speech signals and characteristics extracted from speaker’s voices. ASR has recently become an effective research area as an essential aspect of voice biometrics. Specifically, this literature survey gives a concise introduction to ASR and provides an overview of the general architectures dealing with speaker recognition technologies, and upholds the past, present, and future research trends in this area. This paper briefly describes all the main aspects of ASR, such as speaker identification, verification, diarization etc. Further, the performance of current speaker recognition systems are investigated in this survey with the limitations and possible ways of improvement. Finally, a few unsolved challenges of speaker recognition are presented at the closure of this survey.

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A Survey of Speaker Recognition: Fundamental Theories, Recognition Methods and Opportunities

Video surveillance has significant application prospects such as security, law enforcement, and traffic monitoring. Visual traffic surveillance using computer vision techniques can be non-invasive, cost effective, and automated. Detecting and recognizing the objects in a video is an important part of many video surveillance systems which can help in tracking of the detected objects and gathering important information. In case of traffic video surveillance, vehicle detection and classification is important as it can help in traffic control and gathering of traffic statistics that can be used in intelligent transportation systems. Vehicle classification poses a difficult problem as vehicles have high intra-class variation and relatively low inter-class variation. In this work, we investigate five different object recognition techniques: PCA + DFVS, PCA + DIVS, PCA + SVM, LDA, and constellation-based modeling applied to the problem of vehicle classification. We also compare them with the state-of-the-art techniques in vehicle classification. In case of the PCA-based approaches, we extend face detection using a PCA approach for the problem of vehicle classification to carry out multi-class classification. We also implement constellation model-based approach that uses the dense representation of scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) features as presented in the work of Ma and Grimson (Edge-based rich representation for vehicle classification. Paper presented at the international conference on computer vision, 2006, pp. 1185–1192) with slight modification. We consider three classes: sedans, vans, and taxis, and record classification accuracy as high as 99.25% in case of cars vs vans and 97.57% in case of sedans vs taxis. We also present a fusion approach that uses both PCA + DFVS and PCA + DIVS and achieves a classification accuracy of 96.42% in case of sedans vs vans vs taxis. 68T10; 68T45; 68U10

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Vehicle classification framework: a comparative study

A method and system for determining extrinsic calibration parameters for at least one pair of sensing devices mounted on transportable apparatus obtains (202) image data (110)representing images captured by an image generating sensing device (102) of the pair at a series of poses during motion through an environment (120) by transportable apparatus (100). The method obtains (202) data (112) representing a 3D point cloud based on data produced by a 2D LIDAR sensing device (104) of the pair. The method selects (204) an image captured by the image at a particular pose. The method generates (210) a laser reflectance image based on a portion of the point cloud corresponding to the pose. The method computes (212) a metric measuring alignment between the selected image and the corresponding laser reflectance image and uses (214) the metric to determine extrinsic calibration parameters for at least one of the sensing devices.

Extrinsic calibration of imaging sensing devices and 2d lidars mounted on transportable apparatus

Adaptive wavelet shrinkage for noise robust speaker recognition

In this project, we developed a mathematical model to predict the success and failure of the upcoming movies based on several attributes. Some of the criteria in calculating movie success included budget, actors, director, producer, set locations, story writer, movie release day, competing movie releases at the same time, music, release location and target audience. The success prediction of a movie plays a vital role in movie industry because it involves huge investments. However, success cannot be predicted based on a particular attribute. So, we have built a model based on interesting relation between attributes. The movie industry can use this model to modify the movie criteria for obtaining likelihood of blockbusters. Also, this model can be used by movie watchers in determining a blockbuster before purchasing a ticket. Each of the criteria involved was given a weight and then the prediction was made based on these. For example, if a movies budget was below 5 million, the budget was given a lower weight. Depending on the number of actors, directors and producers past successful movies, each of these categories was given a weight. If the movie was to be released on a weekend, it was given higher weight because the chances of success were greater. If with the release of a movie, there was another high success movie released, a lower weight was given to the release time indicating that the chances of movie success were low due to the competition. The criteria were not limited just to the ones mentioned. There were be additional factors discussed in this work. We have conducted our work with simulation data.

Movie success prediction using data mining

This paper presents our method of contrast enhancement and evaluation of the Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images using subjective and objective, Average gray level, indices of image quality metrics. Subjective assessment has been widely used due to high confidence and simplicity. However, extensive experience is required in subjective evaluation and it is affected by inconsistence. A good objective method represents future paradigm. Both methods have their own merits and demerits. This paper is to (1) present the most fundamental indices of measuring image quality through subjective evaluation and objective measures; (2) recommend objective metrics that are proportional to subjective measure and represent the expert understanding.

Contrast enhancement and assessment of OCT images

Remote worked spy-robots can be immensely helpful in the event that they can be controlled remotely over a bigger working reach. Availability of various modalities for their remote-control movement can furthermore upgrade their abilities and the extent of usages. The human lives are administered by automation industry and robotic world. The robots can be used widely mainly due to its simplicity and their ability to provide solution to the problems. The key intention of this paper is to create an automated vehicle for investigation by using progressive machineries like Wi-Fi. The robot containing the camera can continuously send the video. This class of surveillance robots can be mainly used for spying the enemy in battle.

Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Surveillance

Classroom engagement is one important factor that determines whether students learn from lectures. Most of the traditional classroom assessment tools are based on summary judgements of students in the form of student surveys filled out in class or online once a semester. Such ratings are often bias and do not capture the real time teaching of professors. In addition, they fail for the most part to capture the locus of teaching and learning difficulties. They cannot differentiate whether ongoing poor performance of students is a function of the instructor's lack of teaching skill or the student's lack of engagement in the class. So, in order to streamline and improve the evaluation of classroom engagement, we introduce human gestures as additional tool to improve teaching evaluation along with other techniques. In this paper we report the results of using a novel technique that uses a semi-automatic computer vision based approach to obtain accurate prediction of classroom engagement in classes where students do not have digital devices like laptops and, cellphones during lectures. We conducted our experiment in various class room sizes at different times of the day. We computed the engagement through a semi- automatic process (using Azure, and manual observation). We combined our initial computational algorithms with human judgment to build confidence the validity of the results. Application of the technique in the presence of distractors like laptops and cellphones is also discussed.

Prakash Duraisamy

Papers

Adaptive wavelet shrinkage for noise robust speaker recognition

Movie success prediction using data mining

Contrast enhancement and assessment of OCT images

Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Surveillance

Classroom engagement evaluation using computer vision techniques