A Vision-Based Approach for Sidewalk and Walkway Trip Hazards Assessment

Tripping hazards on the sidewalk cause many falls annually, and the inspection and repair of these hazards cost cities millions of dollars. Currently, there is not an efficient and cost-effective method to monitor the sidewalk to identify any possible tripping hazards. In this paper, a new portable...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rachel Cohen, Geoff Fernie, Atena Roshan Fekr
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-11-01
Series:International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8438
Description
Summary:Tripping hazards on the sidewalk cause many falls annually, and the inspection and repair of these hazards cost cities millions of dollars. Currently, there is not an efficient and cost-effective method to monitor the sidewalk to identify any possible tripping hazards. In this paper, a new portable device is proposed using an Intel RealSense D415 RGB-D camera to monitor the sidewalks, detect the hazards, and extract relevant features of the hazards. This paper first analyzes the effects of environmental factors contributing to the device’s error and compares different regression techniques to calibrate the camera. The Gaussian Process Regression models yielded the most accurate predictions with less than 0.09 mm Mean Absolute Errors (MAEs). In the second phase, a novel segmentation algorithm is proposed that combines the edge detection and region-growing techniques to detect the true tripping hazards. Different examples are provided to visualize the output results of the proposed method.
ISSN:1661-7827
1660-4601