Fully Convolutional Neural Network for Vehicle Speed and Emergency-Brake Prediction

Abstract

Ego-vehicle state prediction represents a complex and challenging problem for self-driving and autonomous vehicles. Sensorial information and on-board cameras are used in perception-based solutions in order to understand the state of the vehicle and the surrounding traffic conditions. Monocular camera-based methods are becoming increasingly popular for driver assistance, with precise predictions of vehicle speed and emergency braking being important for road safety enhancement, especially in the prevention of speed-related accidents. In this research paper, we introduce the implementation of a convolutional neural network (CNN) model tailored for the prediction of vehicle velocity, braking events, and emergency braking, employing sequential image sequences and velocity data as inputs. The CNN model is trained on a dataset featuring sequences of 20 consecutive images and corresponding velocity values, all obtained from a moving vehicle navigating through road-traffic scenarios. The model’s primary objective is to predict the current vehicle speed, braking actions, and the occurrence of an emergency-brake situation using the information encoded in the preceding 20 frames. We subject our proposed model to an evaluation on a dataset using regression and classification metrics, and comparative analysis with existing published work based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Through our efforts to improve the prediction accuracy for velocity, braking behavior, and emergency-brake events, we make a substantial contribution to improving road safety and offer valuable insights for the development of perception-based techniques in the field of autonomous vehicles.