AI based monitoring of race tracks

A monitoring system for a race track comprising:

• one or more track-side cameras, each camera having a field of view covering at least one section of the race track;
• an image capturing system configured to obtain at least one sequence of images from at least one of the track-side cameras;
• one or more warning devices configured to be activated when a first warning and/or a second warning is triggered;
• and
• an image processing system comprising at least one processor configured to:
• segment images of the sequence of images into different areas associated with the race track;
• use automatic object recognition to detect vehicles in the sequence of images;
• map any detected vehicle to at least one of the different areas associated with the race track;
• compare a first image of the at least one sequence of images taken before a passage of at least one detected vehicle with a second image of the at least one sequence of images taken after the passage of the at least one detected vehicle to detect anomalies along the race track;
• classify a detected anomaly based on automatic pattern recognition;
• map the detected anomaly to at least one of the different areas associated with the race track;
• trigger the first warning if the at least one detected vehicle is mapped to a first predefined area of the race track, and/or trigger the second warning, if the detected anomaly is mapped to a second predefined area of the race track;
• re-identifying the at least one detected vehicle as a specific vehicle of a predetermined set of vehicles using embedding;
• and
• mapping the re-identified vehicle to a corresponding digital twin in a digital representation of the race track,
• wherein the predetermined set of vehicles corresponds to a subset of all vehicles having corresponding digital twins in the digital representation of the race track, and
• the subset is selected based on a set of rules providing a likelihood of re-identifying a given vehicle in a sequence of images corresponding to the at least one section of the race track based on the data of the corresponding digital twin.

A method of monitoring a race track comprising:

• obtaining at least one sequence of images from a camera capturing at least one section of the race track;
• detecting at least one vehicle in the sequence of images using automatic object recognition;
• re-identifying at least one detected vehicle as a specific vehicle of a predetermined set of vehicles using embedding, comprising computing at least one reference embedding vector for the embedding based on at least one image taken when the at least one detected vehicle entered the race track or the monitored part of the race track;
• mapping the re-identified vehicle to a corresponding digital twin in a digital representation of the race track;
• and
• showing an estimated position of the re-identified vehicle in the digital representation of the race track;
• wherein the predetermined set of vehicles corresponds to a subset of all vehicles having corresponding digital twins in the digital representation of the race track, and
• the subset is selected based on a third set of rules providing a likelihood of re-identifying a given vehicle in a sequence of images corresponding to the at least one section of the race track based on the data of the corresponding digital twin;
• determining a first real-world position of at least one re-identified vehicle based on a mapping relationship;
• and
• determining a second real-world position of the at least one anomaly detected along the race track based on a comparison of a first image of the at least one sequence of images taken before a passage of the at least one detected vehicle with a second image of the at least one sequence of images taken after the passage of the at least one detected vehicle based on the mapping relationship,
• wherein the mapping relationship maps a plurality of pixel areas in the images of the at least one sequence of images to a corresponding plurality of real-world positions of the corresponding section of the race track captured by the camera.