Efficient algorithm for automatic road sign recognition and its hardware implementation

The automatic detection of road signs is an application that alerts the vehicle’s driver of the presence of signals and invites him to react on time in the aim to avoid potential traffic accidents. This application can thus improve the road safety of persons and vehicles traveling in the road. Several techniques and algorithms allowing automatic detection of road signs are developed and implemented in software and do not allow embedded application. We propose in this work an efficient algorithm and its hardware implementation in an embedded system running in real time. In this paper we propose to implement the application of automatic recognition of road signs in real time by optimizing the techniques used in different phases of the recognition process. The system is implemented in a Virtex4 FPGA family which is connected to a camera mounted in the moving vehicle. The system can be integrated into the dashboard of the vehicle. The performance of the system shows a good compromise between speed and efficiency.