Detection of traffic dynamics and road changes in autonomous driving

A road side unit for assisting with managing traffic in a road segment, comprising:

• an image template controller to send and receive images corresponding to the road segment from at least one of a vehicle traveling in the road segment, another road side unit, a virtual road side unit, a drone, or other mobile image collection device;
• an image template database that, when in operation, is coupled to the image template controller for storing the images corresponding to the road segment, the images comprising background and foreground images;
• and
• an image frame comparator to:
• compare at least two of the image frames corresponding to the road segment;
• separate foreground images and background images from an image frame using subtraction;
• remove foreground objects from the image frame to generate a background image template corresponding to the road segment;
• identify a road hazard object from the separated foreground images based on properties for objects that identify whether an object is a hazard obtained from a cloud based database;
• and
• store the background image template and the road hazard object in the image template database.

A computer implemented method for detecting objects on a road segment, comprising:

• receiving, an image frame corresponding to a road segment, the image frame having been captured by a camera assembly communicatively coupled to a vehicle;
• receiving, by a compute device on the vehicle, a background image frame;
• aligning the background image frame and the captured image frame corresponding to a road segment;
• separating a background portion and a foreground portion of the captured image frame, wherein the foreground portion includes moving and temporary objects in the captured image, and the background portion includes stable or generally unchanging objects in the captured image;
• identifying motion vectors for an object in the foreground portion and assigning properties to the object based on properties for objects obtained from a cloud based database, the properties for objects including properties that identify whether the object is a hazard and properties that characterize motion of the object;
• providing information about the foreground portion including the assigned properties of the object, to a maneuvering controller in the vehicle to assist with determining whether the vehicle is to adjust a maneuver based on the received information.

At least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed on a processor cause the processor to:

• receive a plurality of image frames corresponding to a road segment;
• receive a background image frame;
• align the background image frame and a captured image frame of the plurality of image frames corresponding to a road segment;
• separate a background portion and a foreground portion of the captured image frame, wherein the foreground portion includes moving and temporary objects in the captured image, and the background portion includes stable or generally unchanging objects in the captured image;
• receive information about the foreground portion including the assigned properties of the object, the information received from a cloud based database, the assigned properties including properties that identify whether an object is a hazard and properties that characterize motion of the object;
• identify motion vectors for an object in the foreground portion and assign properties to the object based on the information received from the cloud based database;
• and
• provide information about the foreground portion including the motion vectors and assigned properties of the object, to a maneuvering controller in a vehicle to assist with determining whether the vehicle is to adjust a maneuver based on the received information.