The impact of the camera setup on the visibility rate of traffic lights

Continuous and reliable object detection is essential for advanced driving assistant systems and in particular for fully automated vehicles. Most research focuses on developing object detection algorithms and optimizing the rate of successful object identifications on image frames. However, the sensor position as a relevant design variable is not considered, although it significantly influences whether an object is detectable by the camera, or if it is outside of the field of view or occluded by another traffic participant. This paper introduces a method to assess different camera setups to optimize traffic light visibility. We show that appropriate positioning of the cameras can improve the visibility of a traffic light by up to 90% as a vehicle approaches a junction. Furthermore, we show that the combination of a near-field camera with a long-range camera achieves a more robust result than using a single multi-purpose camera.