Detecting Small Chinese Traffic Signs via Improved YOLOv3 Method

Long-distance detection of traffic signs provides drivers with more reaction time, which is an effective technique to reduce the probability of sudden accidents. It is recognized that the imaging size of far traffic signs is decreasing with distance. Such a fact imposes much challenge on long-distance detection. Aiming to enhance the recognition rate of long-distance small targets, we design a four-scale detection structure based on the three-scale detection structure of YOLOv3 network. In order to reduce the occlusion effects of similar objects, NMS is replaced by soft-NMS. In addition, the datasets are trained and the K-Means method is used to generate the appropriate anchor boxes, so as to speed up the network computing. By using these methods, better experimental results for the recognition of long-distance traffic signs have been obtained. The recognition rate is 43.8 frames per second (FPS), and the recognition accuracy is improved to 98.8%, which is much better than the original YOLOv3.