Road object detection: A comparative study of deep learning-based algorithms

Abstract

Automated driving and vehicle safety systems need object detection. It is important that object detection be accurate overall and robust to weather and environmental conditions and run in real-time. As a consequence of this approach, they require image processing algorithms to inspect the contents of images. This article compares the accuracy of five major image processing algorithms: Region-based Fully Convolutional Network (R-FCN), Mask Region-based Convolutional Neural Networks (Mask R-CNN), Single Shot Multi-Box Detector (SSD), RetinaNet, and You Only Look Once v4 (YOLOv4). In this comparative analysis, we used a large-scale Berkeley Deep Drive (BDD100K) dataset. Their strengths and limitations are analyzed based on parameters such as accuracy (with/without occlusion and truncation), computation time, precision-recall curve. The comparison is given in this article helpful in understanding the pros and cons of standard deep learning-based algorithms while operating under real-time deployment restrictions. We conclude that the YOLOv4 outperforms accurately in detecting difficult road target objects under complex road scenarios and weather conditions in an identical testing environment.