Enhancing Driving Safety and Environmental Consciousness through Automated Road Sign Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Traffic accidents remain a pressing public safety concern, with a substantial number of incidents resulting from drivers' lack of attentiveness to road signs. Automated road sign recognition has emerged as a promising technology for enhancing driving assistance systems. This study explores the application of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in automatically recognizing road signs. CNNs, as deep learning algorithms, possess the ability to process and classify visual data, making them well-suited for image-based tasks such as road sign recognition. The research focuses on the data collection process for training the CNN, incorporating a diverse dataset of road sign images to improve recognition accuracy across various scenarios. A mobile application was developed as the user interface, with the output of the system displayed on the app. The results show that the system is capable of recognizing signs in real time, with average accuracy for sign recognition from a distance of 10 meters: i) daytime = 89.8%, ii) nighttime = 75.6%, and iii) rainy conditions = 76.4%. In conclusion, the integration of CNNs in automated road sign recognition, as demonstrated in this study, presents a promising avenue for enhancing driving safety by addressing drivers' attentiveness to road signs in real-time scenarios.