Computer vision application for environmentally conscious smart painting truck

Abstract

Transportation industry is heavily regulated in the United States to ensure passenger safety and low environmental impact. Highways, being the primary mode of transportation, offer an exciting area of research to achieve both objectives. For instance, road markings play an important role in maintaining traffic safety by providing proper guidance to the vehicle drivers. The marking activities require strict control technologies due to the properties of the liquids used that may be hazardous to the driver and to the environment. With this motivation, this paper proposes an environmentally friendly system for paint consumption monitoring and inventory control that keeps track of the utilization rate of the marking liquid (i.e., paint) while the paint trucks are on service. Through this system the paint crew and the decision makers would receive information regarding the amount of paint that is consumed so that refilling would be possible without significant time loss. The system, using a shortest path routing algorithm, directs the truck driver to the nearest refill station and then, if needed, to the nearest customer. The real time information sharing allows accurate billing and real time inventory control. A computer vision system is used to monitor the amount of paint consumption where the collected data are then sent to a multi-network system for real-time communication.