System and method for vehicle wheel detection

1. A system comprising:

a data processor; and

an autonomous vehicle wheel detection system, executable by the data processor, the autonomous vehicle wheel detection system being configured to perform an autonomous vehicle wheel detection operation for autonomous vehicles, the autonomous vehicle wheel detection operation being configured to:

receive training image data from a training image data collection system;

obtain ground truth data corresponding to the training image data;

perform a training phase to train one or more classifiers for processing images of the training image data to detect vehicle wheel objects of other vehicles in the images of the training image data;

receive operational image data from an image data collection system associated with an autonomous vehicle; and

perform an operational phase including applying the trained one or more classifiers to extract vehicle wheel objects of other vehicles from the operational image data and produce vehicle wheel object data related to wheels of other vehicles, the vehicle wheel object data including vehicle wheel contour data corresponding to the contours surrounding the wheels of other vehicles.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the training phase being configured to obtain ground truth data from a manual image annotation or labeling process.

3. The system of claim 1 being further configured to generate a blended visualization of a raw image combined with the ground truth.

4. The system of claim 1 being further configured to generate the ground truth by filling in the interior regions defined by contours surrounding the extracted vehicle wheel objects.

5. The system of claim 1 being further configured to use a fully convolutional neural network (FCN) as a machine learning model.

6. The system of claim 1 being further configured to use a fully convolutional neural network (FCN) as a machine learning model with semantic segmentation using dense upsampling convolution (DUC) and semantic segmentation using hybrid dilated convolution (HDC).

7. The system of claim 1 being configured to generate object-level contour detections for each extracted vehicle wheel object of the operational image data.

8. A method comprising:

receiving training image data from a training image data collection system;

obtaining ground truth data corresponding to the training image data;

performing a training phase to train one or more classifiers for processing images of the training image data to detect vehicle wheel objects of other vehicles in the images of the training image data;

receiving operational image data from an image data collection system associated with an autonomous vehicle; and

performing an operational phase including applying the trained one or more classifiers to extract vehicle wheel objects of other vehicles from the operational image data and produce vehicle wheel object data related to wheels of other vehicles, the vehicle wheel object data including vehicle wheel contour data corresponding to the contours surrounding the wheels of other vehicles.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the training phase includes obtaining ground truth data from a manual image annotation or labeling process.

10. The method of claim 8 including generating a blended visualization of a raw image combined with the ground truth.

11. The method of claim 8 including generating the ground truth by filling in the interior regions defined by contours surrounding the extracted vehicle wheel objects.

12. The method of claim 8 including using a fully convolutional neural network (FCN) as a machine learning model.

13. The method of claim 8 including using a fully convolutional neural network (FCN) as a machine learning model with semantic segmentation using dense upsampling convolution (DUC) and semantic segmentation using hybrid dilated convolution (HDC).

14. The method of claim 8 including generating object-level contour detections for each extracted vehicle wheel object of the operational image data.

15. A non-transitory machine-useable storage medium embodying instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:

receive training image data from a training image data collection system;

obtain ground truth data corresponding to the training image data;

perform a training phase to train one or more classifiers for processing images of the training image data to detect vehicle wheel objects of other vehicles in the images of the training image data;

receive operational image data from an image data collection system associated with an autonomous vehicle; and

perform an operational phase including applying the trained one or more classifiers to extract vehicle wheel objects of other vehicles from the operational image data and produce vehicle wheel object data related to wheels of other vehicles, the vehicle wheel object data including vehicle wheel contour data corresponding to the contours surrounding the wheels of other vehicles.

16. The non-transitory machine-useable storage medium of claim 15 wherein the training phase being configured to obtain ground truth data from a manual image annotation or labeling process.

17. The non-transitory machine-useable storage medium of claim 15 being further configured to generate a blended visualization of a raw image combined with the ground truth.

18. The non-transitory machine-useable storage medium of claim 15 being further configured to generate the ground truth by filling in the interior regions defined by contours surrounding the extracted vehicle wheel objects.

19. The non-transitory machine-useable storage medium of claim 15 being further configured to use a fully convolutional neural network (FCN) as a machine learning model.

20. The non-transitory machine-useable storage medium of claim 15 being configured to generate object-level contour detections for each extracted vehicle wheel object of the operational image data.