IIT Kharagpur develops technology for safer driving in rain

IIT Kharagpur researchers have developed a visual technology that enables safer driving during rain, a recent statement said.

The technology developed by researchers from the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communications removes from a real-time video the obscuring effects of rain and displays it on the windscreen of vehicles to increase the clarity of driver's view. 'Real-time Rain Removal from Videos' is a proprietary algorithm that has an advantage for driver-assistance systems that use video information to impart traffic-related information.

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Lead researcher Sudipta Mukhopadhyay, faculty member at IIT Kharagpur, said,

It is envisioned to be used to enhance the safety of air, rail, ship, and auto transportation by providing on-screen visualisation of clear videos in rainy conditions. The visual acuity of rainy videos captured by surveillance cameras can also be enhanced by this algorithm.

It is also able to distinguish moving objects from the rain regions in the video, explained researcher Abhishek Kumar Tripathi. The technology has been patented internationally by the team as 'Method and Apparatus for Detection and Removal of Rain from Videos using Temporal and Spatiotemporal Properties'.

According to a recent report by The Wire, a majority of train accidents were caused due to derailments (60 percent), followed by accidents at level crossings (33 percent) in the year 2015–16. When compared to over a decade ago, the number has declined from 325 in 2003–04 to 106 in 2015–16. The report further says that, of the 1,14,907 km of railway tracks active in the country, 4,500 km should be renewed annually. However, this number hasn't been met so far, so much so that, in 2015–16 only 2,700 km out of 5,000 km was renewed.

With inputs from IANS.

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