vehicles as well with higher number of training
images. Since the number of training images in this
paper is considered to be low, the detection results of
occluded vehicles and empty spaces was low. If the
position of the camera is placed at an increased height
or placed on top of the parking lot, unoccluded
images of vehicles can be obtained which can lead to
better detection rate in any environment or lighting
conditions.
A thermal camera can be used with less
restrictions compared to colour visual camera.
Privacy rules do not enable the free use of camera at
public places. The main drawback and advantage of
using a thermal camera is that the vehicles can be
recognized based on emitted heat. A vehicle can be
recognized during anytime or any environmental
conditions if there is sufficient amount of heat emitted
by the vehicle. This is one of the advantage of using
a thermal camera instead of a colour visual camera. If
a vehicle is stationary for a period of time, the heat in
the vehicle diminishes gradually and the vehicles
cannot be recognized easily which is disadvantage in
using thermal camera. The heat in the vehicle is
preserved in warm conditions while it diminishes
faster in cold conditions. Therefore, vehicles can be
recognized for a longer period of time in warmer
climate environments. It would be a challenge to
detect a vehicle without any heat in colder
environments based on the results. However, the
results might vary with larger training dataset. A
thermal camera does not work as a normal camera,
therefore, any algorithm or deep learning network
should be trained with the images or videos obtained
from the thermal camera which is also evident based
on the results obtained from the pre-trained detectors.
Training a deep learning network with many layers
take considerable amount of time. It took
approximately 8 hours to train the modified
FasterRCNN deep learning network with a single
CPU. The training time can be reduced with the use
of a graphical processing unit. There is also difference
between successful detection rates of vehicles and
empty spaces. In snowy conditions, vehicles which
are warm are successfully detected while few of the
empty spaces which are occluded are not detected
even in bright conditions. The lines of empty spaces
were not visible during snowy or dark conditions
making the detection of empty spaces challenging.
The empty spaces in third and fourth rows are
occluded and could not be detected in winter evening
or dark conditions.
6 CONCLUSION
The paper aims to identify parking occupancy
using a thermal camera. The first four rows of the
parking lot were considered to identify parking
occupancy. Pre-trained detectors, ACF detector,
HOG based cascade detector, Faster RCNN deep
network and modified Faster RCNN deep learning
network algorithms were used to identify parking
occupancy. The modified Faster RCNN deep learning
network performed better compared to other
detectors. Even with limited number of training
images, modified deep learning network achieved
88% successful detection of vehicles while it
achieved 66% of detection rate of empty spaces. The
future work can be focused on improving the
detection rate and to acquire real time parking
occupancy detection using thermal camera. This
paper addresses the first step in identifying parking
occupancy information and the next step would be to
train the detector with additional training images and
get the positional information of the vacant parking
space which can be fed to a parking guidance system.
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