322 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 9, NO.

2, JUNE 2008

Real-Time Speed Sign Detection Using the

Radial Symmetry Detector
Nick Barnes, Member, IEEE, Alexander Zelinsky, Fellow, IEEE, and
Luke S. Fletcher, Member, IEEE

Abstract—Algorithms for classifying road signs have a high

computational cost per pixel processed. A detection stage that
has a lower computational cost can facilitate real-time process-
ing. Various authors have used shape and color-based detectors.
Shape-based detectors have an advantage under variable lighting
conditions and sign deterioration that, although the apparent color
may change, the shape is preserved. In this paper, we present the
radial symmetry detector for detecting speed signs. We evaluate
the detector itself in a system that is mounted within a road vehicle.
We also evaluate its performance that is integrated with classi-
fication over a series of sequences from roads around Canberra
and demonstrate it while running online in our road vehicle. We
show that it can detect signs with high reliability in real time. We
examine the internal parameters of the algorithm to adapt it to
road sign detection. We demonstrate the stability of the system
under the variation of these parameters and show computational
speed gains through their tuning. The detector is demonstrated to
Fig. 1. ANU/NICTA/CSIRO intelligent vehicle. The cameras are mounted
work under a wide variety of visual conditions. where the rearview mirror would be.
Index Terms—Detection, fast radial symmetry, real time,
road sign.

I. I NTRODUCTION
I MPROVING safety is a key goal in road vehicle technology.
Driver support systems aim to improve safety by helping
drivers react to changing road conditions. Although the full
automation of road vehicles remains a motivating goal, our
research focuses on systems that can immediately assist drivers.
Rather than replacing the drivers, we aim to keep the drivers
in the loop while supporting them in controlling the car. This
is the approach that has been adopted by driver assistance
systems (DASs).
The risk of a crash causing death or injury rapidly increases
with increases in the speed over an appropriately set speed
Manuscript received April 10, 2007; revised August 5, 2007, October 28,
2008, December 11, 2007, and December 24, 2007. The National ICT Australia
is funded by the Australian Government’s Backing Australia’s Ability initiative
in part through the Australian Research Council. The Associate Editor for this
paper was S. Nedevschi.
N. Barnes is with the National ICT Australia, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600,
Australia, and also with the Department of Information Engineering, The
Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T. 0200, Australia (e-mail:
nick.barnes@nicta.com.au).
A. Zelinsky is with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Re-
search Organization ICT Centre, Canberra, A.C.T. 0200, Australia (e-mail:
alex.zelinsky@csiro.au).
L. S. Fletcher is with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labo-
ratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
(e-mail: lukesf@mit.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TITS.2008.922935
1524-9050/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
limit [1]. There are many possible reasons that a driver may
be speeding; one of these is failure to notice a speed sign.
In laboratory experiments, it has been shown that distractions
result in a twofold increase in the failure to detect simulated
traffic signals [2].
Technology can assist by alerting drivers to speed limit
changes to which they do not appear to have reacted and
by maintaining a monitor of the current speed limit. Road
sign recognition also has other possible applications, such as
building and maintaining maps of signs within an urban envi-
ronment and automated inspection of signs for deterioration.
The primary focus of the research program at the National
ICT Australia (NICTA) on sign detection is on road safety,
particularly supporting drivers in their tasks.
Presently, available techniques for the classification of can-
didate signs show strong performance. The major shortcoming
of many systems is with high-speed detection, i.e., quickly
identifying likely candidates for classification in a way that
is robust to the vast range of lighting conditions that occur
in road scenes. In this paper, we present the application of a
shape detection algorithm, i.e., the radial symmetry detector, to
speed sign detection. We present its integration into a system
for speed sign recognition, showing real-time performance and
robustness to a broad array of lighting conditions over image
sequences. The detector system is also demonstrated running
real time in on-road trials at the Australian National Univer-
sity (ANU)/NICTA/Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organization (CSIRO) intelligent vehicle, as shown
in Fig. 1.
BARNES et al.: REAL-TIME SPEED SIGN DETECTION USING THE RADIAL SYMMETRY DETECTOR
II. B ACKGROUND
Speed sign regulations vary worldwide. We consider the
Australian regulatory framework that offers a typical exam-
ple of conditions.1 Speed signs are one of several ways in
which the current speed limit may be specified. A single type
of regulation sign indicates a change in the speed limit; the
signs are rectangular with a red circle and black numbers or
illuminated white numbers indicating the prescribed speed.
A speed zone can end with another speed sign, a dead end, a
T-intersection, or a derestriction sign. Derestriction signs also
have a circle on a rectangular background. Furthermore, some
areas have geographic limits, such as a limit of 50 km/h on
urban local streets, unless a sign indicates otherwise. However,
noting a reduction of speed limit is clearly a critical aspect for
any complete system and would form a useful function on its
own. For the purposes of this detector, Australian signs are
largely consistent with many international road signs such as
the European Union, and therefore, the technology that has
been developed would be applicable more broadly.
A. Sign Recognition Approaches
Generally, proposals for automatically informing the driver
of the current speed limit are based on three major
technologies—the GPS, the RF transmitters, and vision. The
road angel system (http://www.roadangel.co.uk/) employs the
GPS and a map of speed zones. Installing an RF transmitter on
every speed sign to broadcast the speed to in-car receivers has
been proposed. Other sensors that may be usefully employed
are the speedometer and inertial sensing.
The GPS and the RF offer viable solutions to suburban
geography-based speed limits. However, difficulties arise with
frequent updates to speed signs, including regulatory changes,
temporary signs such as roadwork, and automatically changing
speed signs such as some bridges with high winds. To track all
these changes online, a database must be maintained, and this
information somehow has to be made available to the driver in
real time for all signs. For the RF, installing the receiver in a
vehicle is low cost and simple; however, it is unclear who bears
the cost for a large number of transmitters. Government funding
may be politically difficult, and it is unlikely that any single
industry player would pay such an infrastructure cost. Other
problems must also be overcome: Single sign posts on narrow
roads indicate different speeds to different directions of traffic,
and on multilane highways, signs may be far from the vehicle,
whereas exit ramps may have a sign just off the highway.
Thus, although we consider that the GPS and the RF trans-
mitters may be plausible parts of an automated sign detection
system, vision-based sign recognition is a necessary compo-
nent. Certainly, combining the GPS and/or the RF transmitters
with visual sign recognition into a single system could improve
the performance over any individual component. Lindner et al.
[3] demonstrated a very low rate of false positives by combining
visual traffic signal recognition with the GPS. Furthermore, the
1 See http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/rulesregulations/downloads/pts1-21.pdf.
323
GPS or a gyro and a speedometer may be useful to note things
such as T-intersections. In this paper, we focus on vision-based
detection.
B. Vision-Based Sign Recognition Systems
Research into vision-based road sign recognition began in
earnest in the mid-1980s. Brute force approaches may be
used where classifiers, such as normalized correlation, are
applied at every image pixel. Such an approach is computa-
tionally prohibitive; however, this can be eased somewhat by
approaches such as simulated annealing [4] or coarse-to-fine
techniques in applying a hierarchy of templates [5]. However,
these methods are still computationally expensive. To manage
computation while still maintaining classification quality, many
approaches have introduced separate stages for the detection
and the classification of the sign type (e.g., [6]–[8]). A low-
expense algorithm that produces few false negatives is used, and
then, only a small fraction of the incoming image stream needs
to be explored with more expensive and accurate classification
algorithms.
C. Detection Techniques
Color-based segmentation is commonly used for detection
either to identify likely signs or eliminate regions that are
unlikely to contain signs. The standard assumption behind these
techniques is that the wavelength arriving at the camera from
a sign is invariant to the intensity of the incident light and
that the transformation into an image preserves this relation.
This assumption is typically stated in the form where the hue,
saturation, and value or hue, saturation, and intensity (HSI)
spaces or the ratios over the red, green, and blue color space are
invariant to lighting conditions [8], [9]. Much of the color-based
detection research literature exploits this assumption (e.g., [6]
and [8]–[14]). Researchers have also attempted more complex
analysis of hue and saturation [15] and other schemes such as
CIECAM97 [16], which is a color appearance standard based
on human perception. Systems often use the color first and then
combine other methods, such as Estevez and Kehtarnavaz [17],
who developed real-time implementation to recognize various
traffic signs by combining the color, the edges, and a local
histogram.
Alternatively, a priori assumptions about the scene structure
are often used in association with color-based segmentation.
A simple example is to assume that the road is approximately
straight, so that, using color segmentation, much of the image
can be ignored [13]. More complex approaches use some de-
tection to facilitate scene understanding and eliminate regions
where signs are unlikely to appear, e.g., detecting large uniform
regions corresponding to the road and the sky and assuming that
signs are only likely to appear in the region alongside the road
and below the sky [10].
Some work has tackled shape-based detection, often in as-
sociation with color. De la Escalera et al. [9] applied a corner
detector with the color to find signs. However, they only used a
few points at the border of the circle, rather than all pixels, and
therefore, the method is prone to problems of occlusion. The
same group performed detection by combining the color and
324 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 9, NO. 2, JUNE 2008
Fig. 2. (a) Systems that are overly dependent on image structure may miss
one of the two signs here, missing a chance for correct classification. (b) Radial
symmetry detector correctly detected this sign in heavy rain.
Fig. 3. Typical detected candidate sign (a) at input image size and (b) close
up. The circle does not appear as a single color, the edges fall within pixels, and
the right edge touches the edge of the sign.
the shape using edges [18] in an interesting method that applies
a deformable model using genetic algorithms and simulated
annealing. Real-time detection performance was not possible
at the time of publication. Recent work has combined the
color with support vector machines (SVMs) for shape-based
detection as well as SVM-based classification [19]. The system
is able to classify a broad array of signs at 1.7 frames/s using
large images with high accuracy. Early work by Besserer et al.
[20] used evidential reasoning for shape-based detection of
traffic signs, finding circles, triangles, and polygons from
chain codes.
The complexity of sign detection. Lighting conditions change
between direct sunlight, headlights at night, heavy cloud cover,
and smog, and a sign may be in complete shadow on a bright
day.2 Such changes have an impact on lighting chromaticity
and, therefore, on the wavelength of the reflected light. Also,
heavy rain may blur the sign appearance [see Fig. 2(b)]. Fur-
thermore, for most cameras, the varying incident intensity and
wavelength produce both nonlinear and interdependent effects
on the HSI in the resultant image [21]. Ideally, signs have clear
color contrast; however, over time, they may fade but are still
clear to drivers [see Fig. 14(d)].
Last, compared to ideogram-based signs, speed signs only
have narrow bands of color, which are a few pixels wide unless
some form of high-resolution active vision is employed. If more
than one color falls on a charge-coupled device element, the
resulting color is not easily predicted (e.g., Fig. 3).
In practice, as signs may appear in many image positions
on highways, or over uneven and winding roads, a priori
2 See Fig. 14 and the supporting video at http://cecs.anu.edu.au/~nmb/
speedsigns/.
restriction is difficult. Furthermore, a simple road scene under-
standing, such as a single-colored sky and a road, is inadequate
on road scenes where trees overhead break up the sky and
cast strong shadows on the road [see Fig. 14(a)–(c)]. These
exceptions cannot be ignored, as the false-negative rate for a
commercial sign recognition system must be very low, and slow
processing in difficult situations is not acceptable. By detecting
and modeling the road [22], it may be possible to dictate parts
of the image where a sign cannot appear; however, robust road
modeling has its own computational expense.
However, the roadway is well structured. Signs are placed to
be easily visible so that the driver can easily see them without
having to look away from the road. Unless damaged, critical
signs, including speed signs, give way signs, and stop signs,
have a highly regulated appearance; they appear upright and
approximately orthogonal to the road. Even on rapidly curving
roads, there will be a short period where the sign appears
parallel to the image plane, and this will be when the vehicle
is close to the sign. Thus, the problem is solvable through a
system that can recognize a sign from a small number of frames
and processes frames sufficiently quickly.
D. Sign Recognition
As early as 1996, correct classification rate percentages of
more than 90% were reported using normalized cross cor-
relation [10]. More recently, Escalera and Radeva [18] have
applied the normalized k nearest neighbor classification after
initial detection using Adaboost and orientation correction
using algorithms such as the radial symmetry. They have re-
ported 98% correct classification. Another approach [23] also
applied Adaboost for detection but used Bayesian generative
modeling for classification, reporting error rates of 6% over a
large data set. SVMs have shown impressive results for sign
classification, with the correct class selected out of 35 general
sign types in over 97% of the cases and substantially improving
for smaller sets of classes [24]. Recent work by Paclik et al.
[25] improves the performance over standard cross correlation
with a trainable similarity measure. By incorporating the most
discriminative regions, the classifier is not sensitive to uninfor-
mative pixels such as occlusions. Computational demands are
also reduced.
Although commercial systems will require results of close to
100% recognition with few false positives, with the incorpora-
tion of additional cues and further research, viable commercial
classification may be possible in the near future. For example,
the application of superresolution over multiple images [26] can
improve classification performance. Alternatively, better classi-
fication may be achieved by the fusion of multiple classifiers,
such as Adaboost, if their problems are complementary.
In general, sign classification is closer to commercial appli-
cation than detection. Thus, in this paper, we focus on detection.
We combine our detection algorithm with basic classification
based on normalized cross correlation. Our aim here is not to
propose an ideal method for classification but to demonstrate
that the detection method can be effectively combined with
classification to produce an effective complete sign-recognition
system.
BARNES et al.: REAL-TIME SPEED SIGN DETECTION USING THE RADIAL SYMMETRY DETECTOR 325

E. Driver Feedback
Once a sign is detected, this information must be presented to
the driver. The most passive approach that is likely to have high
acceptance is to add a simple readout of the current speed limit,
perhaps by dynamically changing the speedometer to show the
current speed limit. However, a driver may also wish to be
alerted in the case that he or she has failed to notice the speed
sign. Speed monitors that sound an alert when a driver-specified
Fig. 4. Radial symmetry voting. (a) For a given edge point as shown, the
warning limit is exceeded are now common features in vehicles. centroids of a 1-D family of circles lie along the line that is orthogonal to
These could be set based on the currently detected speed, along the direction of the edge point. Note that if we have no prior expectation
with a driver-specified tolerance if they so choose. Alerting the of light–dark versus dark–light transitions on the circle, the family of circles
extends in both directions from the edge point. (b) From a continuous circle,
driver to a sign only when an adjustment is required, and he or every edge point votes along a line of possible radii; these lines will all intersect
she has not seen it, is easily implemented within a DAS, such at the center of the circle, resulting in a peak. A number of vote lines are
as monitoring if the driver has looked at the sign [26]. Heads- shown here.
up displays, e.g., from Volkswagen, could be used to draw the
driver’s attention when required.
point. The fast radial symmetry detector eliminates factor b by
directly taking the gradient of the edge point from the output
III. A PPROACH of the Sobel edge detector. Instead of voting in all directions, it
only votes in the direction that is orthogonal to the edge, which
We examine an efficient method for speed sign detection—
is where the center must lie. This way, the computation of the
the fast radial symmetry detector [27]. Many shape detectors
radial symmetry detector is reduced by a factor of b, and the
are nonrobust because they require closed shapes. Robust tech-
resulting circle map is simplified by a dimension. This makes it
niques such as Hough circle detection [28] are slow to compute
suitable for real-time use.
over large images. Fast radial symmetry can be run as a detector
The operation of the fast radial symmetry detector can be
at the frame rate. All Australian speed signs have a red circle
understood simply by considering all the possible circles of
with a contrasting background. We are able to eliminate the
which an image edge pixel could be part. If we have the
vast majority of false positives by considering only radially
direction of the edge pixel, then a family of circles lies along a
symmetric regions that are stable across several images and
line in the direction that is orthogonal to the edge, with varying
have a high count of pixels in proportion to the radius. This
radius [see Fig. 4(a)]. A single edge point such as this would
reduces the number of locations where signs can possibly occur.
vote for all circle centroids along this line.
Fast-radial-symmetry-based detection is compatible with all
In considering an edge image, for each edge pixel, we form
major forms of classification, as it identifies the center of the
a set of radial symmetry transform images for different radii.
sign according to maximum-likelihood criteria. The maximum-
Thus, when many edge points align around the boundary of
likelihood formulation follows from the maximum-likelihood
a circle, each of them will vote along their orthogonal lines.
basis of the regular polygon algorithm (see [29]). With the
This set of votes will peak at the circle center. Fig. 4(b) shows
center of the sign identified with the center of the circle,
sample vote lines that would emerge from a continuous set of
recognition only needs to be applied to a small number of
edge points corresponding to the circle shown. All of these lines
pixels. To demonstrate the compatibility of fast radial symmetry
intersect at the centroid, leading to a peak in the vote space.
detection with classification, we apply normalized cross cor-
In practice, this is performed on a discrete image, and the
relation to detected candidates. Typically, for recognition after
radius space is sampled with separate vote spaces for each
detection, an unknown scale requires further processing or, for
radius to simplify the interpretation. An image and samples of
cross correlation, multiple templates at all possible resolutions.
its radial symmetric vote space are shown in Fig. 5. The sign
However, from the radius that is returned by the fast radial
vote peaks in Fig. 5(c). It appears blurred in Fig. 5(b) due to
symmetry detector, we know the approximate scale of the
the detector radius being too small and in Fig. 5(d) due to the
candidate.
detector radius being too large.
For the sake of self-contained presentation, we include a
A. Sign Detection: Fast Radial Symmetry formal description of the detector largely taken from [27]. For a
given pixel p, the gradient g is calculated using an edge operator
The fast radial symmetry detector [27] is a variant on the that yields orientation. If this pixel lies on the arc of a circle,
circular Hough transform that executes in the order kp, where then its center would be in the direction of the gradient at the
p is the number of pixels, and k is the number of discrete radii size of the radius. To achieve lighting invariance, we apply the
that are searched. This is as opposed to the traditional circular discrete form of the detector. The location of a pixel that will
Hough transform that executes in the order kbp. For the circular gain a vote as a potential center is defined as follows:
Hough transform, each edge pixel votes on all circles over a
discrete set of radii k that could pass through that edge pixel.

Factor b comes from the discretization into a number of bins g(p)
p+ve = p + round n (1)
on the angle of circular tangents that could pass through this
g(p)

326 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 9, NO. 2, JUNE 2008
Fig. 5. Image including a road sign and sample radial symmetry images for
the three largest radii. Detection peaks in (c).
where n ∈ N is the radius, and N is the set of possible radii.
In application to sign detection, this is defined by expectations
about the apparent sign size. (A negative image is similarly
defined, facilitating constraining the operator to find only dark
light circles or only light dark circles.) A vote image is incre-
mented for each pixel based on the orientation votes, i.e.,
On (p+ve ) = On (p+ve ) + 1.
In our implementation, the vote image is defined as follows:
Õn (p)
F̂n (p) =
kn
where kn is a scaling factor that normalizes On across different
radii. We do not use the other parameters from the original
paper, as we are only interested in the maxima of the radial
symmetry.
To obtain the radial symmetry image, F̂n is convolved with a
Gaussian function. There are several images that are produced
by the transform. Each radius of N votes into a separate image.
There is also a full transform image that averages all the
symmetry contributions over all the radii considered, i.e.,
1 
S= Sn .
|N |
n∈N
See [27] for full details.
Sensitivity to sign alignment with the image plane. The
radial symmetry detector is derived for circles; however, in our
discrete implementation, we accept votes for a single circle over
a capture zone of four pixels. Thus, a vote from an edge point
must miss the centroid by at least 1.5 pixels to not count. The
largest radius that is applied in this paper is 13. Thus, if we turn
a sign off the image plane by up to 25◦ in either direction, then,
without noise, the votes of the outer edge pixels should still fall
Fig. 6. Templates that are used for matching. From the largest shown [(a) and
(c)], we scale all sizes down to (b) and (d).
within the capture zone for the centroid. Thus, the sign should
have its full vote. As all edge points vote, the degradation is
graceful with larger angles.
B. Sign Classification
To show the efficacy of a detector, we must demonstrate that
it can be effectively combined with classification. We reviewed
the effective methods for classification above; however, for the
purposes of this paper, we combined the detector with simple
standard classification. We applied normalized cross correlation
from the Intel Integrated Performance Primitives library. Cross
correlation is run based on the templates that come from the text
of a single sign from close by. We scaled this down by linear
interpolation across all color channels to all expected radii N
to form a total of eight templates for each sign. Prescaling of
templates saves online computation. The base templates used
for 40 and 60 signs are shown in Fig. 6. For each candidate
found, we are able to run cross correlation on only a 5 × 5
pixel window around the center of the candidate. The algorithm
(2) provides a good estimate of the radius, and therefore, we are
able to apply a narrow band of sizes of templates. Note that the
radius is only as precise as the sampling of the radial symmetry
transform in the radius dimension. Furthermore, the circle on
the sign has a finite width. The radius returned is the sample
(3)
that has the most support. As the sign is assumed to be vertical
and parallel to the image plane, no scaling or rotation of the
template is necessary. The detector itself, however, is unaffected
by text orientation within the plane; therefore, recognition could
be extended to recognize damaged signs that are rotated in the
image plane. Given the simplified nature of the recognition
problem as described, it takes less than 1 ms to classify a
single candidate as 40 or 60. Note that this classification can
be performed on a separate processor and does not have to
be synchronized with detection; overall, it must keep up to
minimize the delays in the display to the driver.
(4) IV. A DAPTATION OF THE R ADIAL S YMMETRY T RANSFORM
TO S IGN D ETECTION
Detecting speed signs using the radial symmetry transform
assumes that the sign is close to parallel to the image plane.
However, road signs are designed to be visible to the driver. On
a straight road, the sign will always be oriented perpendicular
to the motion of the car. On highly curved roads, motion will be
slower, and the sign will appear perpendicular to the car motion
when it is most visible to the driver. This means that when the
sign is most easily detectable, unless it is damaged, the circle
will appear approximately as a circle in the image.
BARNES et al.: REAL-TIME SPEED SIGN DETECTION USING THE RADIAL SYMMETRY DETECTOR 327

To detect speed signs, we search the full transform image

[see (4)] for local maxima. This will result in some false
positives, many of which can be quickly eliminated. For each
of the maxima, we search all individual radius images [see (3)]
to find the actual candidates, as a high vote in (4) often results Fig. 7. x and y 3 × 3 Sobel masks.
from a collection of accidental votes from several contributing
radii.
Accidental alignment of objects or image noise may result
in false positives; we found that most instances only last a
single frame. At the same time, on corners, signs may only
appear for a few frames. We found that simple matching over
Fig. 8. Horizontal edge without noise and with 30% noise.
a small number of frames was sufficient to eliminate many
false positives. The sign must not move far (we used ten pixels
per frame) nor have large changes in the estimated radius.
When integrated with classification, the classification result
must be consistent. If the vehicle velocity and the steering angle
were available, tracking using Bayesian filters would reduce
false positives. However, this would increase complexity by
adding other components. In the absence of vehicle dynamic
information, methods such as Kalman filtering are not well
suited to tracking for very short sequences.

A. Radial Symmetry Detection Parameters for Sign Detection

We found the fast radial symmetry algorithm to be highly
suitable and robust for road sign detection. Good results can
be directly achieved with this algorithm; however, to reduce
the computational demands, we identified and tuned some
parameters. This analysis is largely independent of the platform
(the vehicle and the camera) and scales in the obvious way with
the camera resolution. The parameters are as follows:
1) the minimum radius considered;
2) the maximum radius considered;
3) the increments between radii;
4) the gradient threshold for voting;
5) the number of votes required to be a candidate or the
number of candidates taken for each image;
6) the number of frames we require a candidate to be present
before we declare it to be valid.
The minimum and maximum radii are the embodied param-
eters of the system [30] and are set by constraints of sign
appearance. Very small circles are ignored, as the signs are too
far to be recognized. Furthermore, in normal driving conditions,
a sign will not appear very close to the camera; therefore, for a
known focal length, a maximum can be set.
A simple empirical exercise minimizes the number of radii to
be detected. From in-vehicle sequences, we sample the radius
space densely enough that at least one radius strongly responds
for every visible sign. As sign borders have a finite width,
and we take the dark and light votes from (1), the voting
naturally blurs in radius space, allowing a sparse sample. This
also enables elliptical features to be detected if signs are not
quite frontoparallel.
To contain the number of false positives to be classified,
we only consider a fixed number of peaks from each radius
per image. We examine the relation between this parameter
and the number of frames. Last, if we take all points with a
nonzero gradient, we will not miss additional signs; however,
Fig. 9. Four images showing speed signs. (a)–(c) Same road scene from a
range of distances, with the sign appearing at larger radii. (d) Different road
scene where it is raining heavily, and visual conditions vary quite substantially
from the other images.
by eliminating some, the computation can be greatly reduced
with a little impact on performance.
B. Sensitivity With Respect to the Gradient Threshold
Consider the 3 × 3 Sobel masks (Fig. 7) convolved with a
local area that has noise (specifically a straight line in x), where
the third column is all increased by 30% (Fig. 8). Without noise,
the total y gradient is 36k, and the total x gradient is zero.
With noise, the y gradient is 39.7k, and the x gradient is 9.3k,
i.e., shifted by 13◦ . Thus, at radius 9 (a typical radius for sign
voting), the error is greater than two pixels and, therefore, is
unlikely to have a great impact on the sign vote.
In practice, most systems take the edge magnitude as the
threshold. Radial symmetry has different demands, however, as
we are considering direction and voting over a distance. Thus,
given a constant amount of noise in an image, we can expect
that regions of a low-intensity gradient will not lead to accurate
votes in radial-symmetry-based algorithms.
Fig. 9 shows images with different sized signs and visibility
conditions. For these images, we consider the pixels that vote
for the signs shown and their gradient magnitude. Fig. 10(a)
328
Fig. 10. Cumulative histogram of the gradient magnitude of (a) pixels that fell
within two pixels of a sign center for all the images of Fig. 9 and (b) all pixels
(excluding invalid edges at the image boundary).
shows a graph of the number of pixels that would vote for the
signs versus the log of squared magnitude of the pixel gradient
summed across all four images. This graph shows that only a
small percentage of pixels actually have a low-gradient thresh-
old. Particularly, the curve flattens out at about 9 or, actually,
11 299 in squared magnitude. Setting the threshold on the
gradient squared magnitude to this value would remove 28%
of sign votes. However, many of these pixel votes are actually
erroneous and have fallen close to the center by accident. The
surrounding structure also contributes; for example, the sign
circle falls close to the left-hand edge of the sign in Fig. 9(b).
This edge has low contrast and votes to the center but is not
actually part of the circle. This 28% appears to include much of
the noise.
Fig. 10(b) shows a cumulative histogram of the gradient
magnitude (greater than zero) for all pixels over all images
of Fig. 9. Eighty percent of pixels lie below 9—where we
propose the threshold; much of the signal is in the top 20%
gradient magnitudes. Fig. 11 shows an image comparison with
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 9, NO. 2, JUNE 2008
Fig. 11. Radial symmetry in the rain [see Fig. 9(d)]. (a) Detector vote image
with a threshold 10. (b) Detector image with a threshold 11 299.
the threshold applied. The signal-to-noise ratio is substantially
improved, with little loss of votes for the sign. In practice, this
yields a decrease of a factor of four to five in the execution time
of voting, which is the largest component of the computation.
A dynamic threshold can be efficiently implemented using
the “getkth element” algorithm [31] (order n average). Further-
more, with slow changes in illumination, it is adequate to adjust
the threshold in the background every few seconds. See [32] for
further empirical analysis.
We tested this threshold over many images with highly
shadowed scenes and degraded signs (e.g., Fig. 14). Of these,
there were no cases where having a low-gradient threshold
would have increased the ranking of a candidate and only very
few where a threshold of less than 80% would do so. We
conclude from the trials over many images that there is little
to be gained by considering low-contrast edges.
V. E MPIRICAL A SSESSMENT
We empirically assessed detector performance, including its
parameters and its incorporation into a system for sign recog-
nition. All equipment was on board the ANU/NICTA/CSIRO
intelligent vehicle (see Fig. 1) with cameras of approximately
380-pixel focal length at approximately the position of the
rearview mirror, with a horizontal field of view of around 45◦ .
BARNES et al.: REAL-TIME SPEED SIGN DETECTION USING THE RADIAL SYMMETRY DETECTOR 329

Fig. 12. Images from the second sequence taken around the university.

Normal sized signs were detectable from around 20 m away,

whereas highway signs are about 50% larger and, therefore,
were detectable from around 30 m. Our assessment includes
the system of detector plus classifier running online trials in the
vehicle and many recorded image sequences from the camera.
Two videos of this assessment appear on the accompanying
Web site.3 All sequences that are used in the experiments were
taken from signs on public roads around Canberra, including
in the campus at The Australian National University. Some
sequences were taken while driving at approximately the speed
limit, whereas others were taken during slower driving. As can
be seen from the sample signs that are shown throughout this
paper, there is a great variation in sign appearance. The vari-
ation includes scale, lighting, deterioration due to weathering,
and the weather conditions under which they were taken. Night
performance is also demonstrated.

A. Detector Stability and ROC Curves

Fig. 13(a) shows the receiver operating characteristic (ROC)
curve for detection under the variation of the number of frames
where detection is present, and the data points are the number of
candidates that are considered per radius. This analysis is based
on 132 frames composed of two sequences—the highway off-
ramp and another around the university (see Fig. 12). In these
sequences, we begin at the point where the sign is first detected
and end when it leaves the frame. The line of best fit (cubic
splines) is for the ten candidates per set of radius data.
The shape of the curve does not vary greatly with the number
of candidates. Furthermore, the data tightly cluster around this
curve, with a slight performance improvement for less than ten
candidates. This shows that the detector is stable and reliable.
If we take the reasonable assumption that a sign will be visible
for at least a significant fraction of a second (otherwise, a driver
would not see it) and, furthermore, that a reliable slow classi-
fication method is available, then, over the visible frames, this
shows the possibility of this detector being a component of a
highly reliable sign warning system. Under these assumptions,
the detector will have a little tolerance for false negatives and a
reasonable tolerance for false positives per frame, as shown in
Fig. 13(a). The curve also points to the ideal balance of each,
given the available processing and system requirements. We
now consider a configuration for a particular example system
that we use to demonstrate this performance.
3 http://cecs.anu.edu.au/~nmb/speedsigns/.
Fig. 13. ROC curves with respect to the number of frames for which a
candidate is required to be present. (a) Number of frames is varied from 0 to
9, while data is shown for accepting the single best to the ten best candidates.
The fit curve shows the best ten candidates. (b) For the top four candidates per
radius.
B. System Considerations
Within the current system, we classify six candidate signs per
frame. As classification processing is asynchronous with frame
processing, the system can tolerate five false positives per frame
on average. Given this, we seek a point where false positives are
less than five, and we maximize the number of correct classifi-
cations. We take the four candidates with maximum votes at
each radius and keep those that have a similar size and position
for two frames. In this case, the average false-positive rate is
4.23, and over a number of processed frames, the system has a
low false-negative rate. To statistically consider the error rate,
note that the total number of false negatives per frame for the
top four candidates is 0.1894. For any given sequence of images
where the sign is visible, there are two failure cases when
every odd or even image is not recognized. Assuming that the
failure probability arises from a uniform distribution of failures
330 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 9, NO. 2, JUNE 2008
Fig. 14. Signs in difficult images were generally correctly detected with a
high threshold, even when difficult with the human eye. All these signs were
detected with the standard threshold. (a)–(c) Heavily shadowed scenes and
(d) a weathered sign.
across the sequence, we may estimate the total probability of
not detecting a sign as 0.1894n/2 for missing each of the odd
and even frames based on this data set. If we assume that a
sign is visible to the camera for half a second with a processing
rate of 30 Hz (n = 15 frames, (n/2) = 7 and 8) within the
possible range of radii, the probability of a false negative is
9 per 1 million. This is actually a poor case of an assumed
distribution. Most failed recognition cases are clustered toward
the start of the sequences, as when the sign is closer, it is easier
to detect; therefore, the true failure rate for these sequences
is lower. These statistics are only taken across two sequences.
Clearly, for a thorough examination, a very large number of
sequences are necessary; however, this would be a significant
exercise.
C. Difficult Cases
The system, including the detector, was run over sequences
showing varying lighting conditions and sign quality. In the
case of Fig. 14, the heavily weathered sign was not well
detected until it was a little closer than is generally the case but
was detected in the image shown. The ANU campus has many
shaded roads. Fig. 14 shows a number of images where the
scene is difficult for color-based methods, and the substantial
lighting variation means that the sign has poor contrast. All
signs in these images were correctly detected.
Last, Fig. 15 shows images with signs that are too small
to be recognized but were recognized in subsequent images.
Note that the detector may not reliably detect small signs as
the number of possible pixels becomes small, and the high
curvature of the circle may reduce the accuracy of the gradient
direction estimation. With a faster processor, higher resolution
images could be used. Multiple processors could also process
parts of the image.
Fig. 15. These sign images were too small to be detected but were detected in
subsequent images in Fig. 14(a) and (b), respectively.
Fig. 16. Parameters used in the integrated system.
D. Real-Time Performance
The detector returning candidates comfortably runs at the
given frame rate (30 Hz) with four radii and a 320 × 240
image. Classification only slows this down when synchronously
run. The implementation is in C++ with some mmx operations
running on an Intel Xeon 3.40-GHz machine mounted within
the car. A slightly reduced version of the detector and the
recognition system comfortably runs on a standard Pentium 4
1.6-GHz laptop.
E. Integration With Classification
We combined the detector and the classifier to demonstrate
the detection ability in real time over a large number of video
sequences, and running online in the vehicle on public roads, as
what appears on the Web site. The parameters used are shown
in Fig. 16. The sequence video screen classification display is
updated every time the system detects signs, and it has high
correlation for two successive frames. For most sequences, the
sign is classified once or more than once, and often, multiple
correct classifications occur, although, in a few instances, the
best correlation is with the wrong speed. The last classification
remains on the screen, and, although a sign is visible, this may
rapidly change. Stepping through the video frame by frame, it
is possible to see the transitions.
Fig. 17 shows false positives versus false negatives for all of
the sequences of signs using the detector classifier combination.
Four candidates are taken for each radius of the detector per
frame, and zero to five repeated appearances are required.
Fig. 17 shows that by requiring classification for two frames,
we can have 93% successful detection with around 0.5 false
positive per sequence or 86% successful detection with a false
positive for every five signs that appear.
Note that this classifier may report multiple different sign
classifications in a sequence rather than taking the most likely
over the whole sequence. As noted earlier, better methods
BARNES et al.: REAL-TIME SPEED SIGN DETECTION USING THE RADIAL SYMMETRY DETECTOR
Fig. 17. ROC curves with respect to the correlation value that is required for
different numbers of frames for which the sign is required to be present.
for classification are available, and clearly, there are methods
that are available to improve the classification results shown.
Some failures were also noticed on multilane roads, where a
wider field-of-view camera would help. Possibly, high-quality
imaging devices could also assist. However, video and on-
road trials illustrate that the detector is able to produce reliable
results within a sign recognition system and run at the frame
rate on off-the-shelf PCs.
VI. C ONCLUSION
The fast radial symmetry detector has been demonstrated
to be highly effective for sign detection, combining well with
recognition. We have shown that it has a low false-negative rate
and a sufficiently low false-positive rate ans that, when com-
bined with reliable classification, effective online sign recogni-
tion can be demonstrated. The fast radial symmetry detector
runs in real time and, being a pixel-based shape detector, is
robust under changing lighting conditions that cause problems
for color-based detectors.
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332 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 9, NO. 2, JUNE 2008

Nick Barnes (M’92) received the B.Sc. degree
(with Honors) and the Ph.D. degree in computer
vision for robot guidance from The University of
Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, in 1992 and 1999,
respectively.
From 1992 to 1994, he was a Consultant in the IT
industry. In 1999, he was a Visiting Research Fellow
with the LIRA-Lab, University of Genoa, Genoa,
Italy, where he was supported by an Achiever Award
from the Queens’ Trust for Young Australians. From
2000 to 2003, he lectured in computer science and
software engineering with The University of Melbourne. Since 2003, he has
been with the Canberra Research Laboratory, National ICT Australia, Canberra,
Australia, where he is currently the Principle Researcher and Research Group
Manager in computer vision. His research interests include visual dynamic
scene analysis, computational models of biological vision, feature detection,
vision for vehicle guidance, and medical image analysis.
Luke S. Fletcher (M’06) received the B.E. (Elec.)
(Hons.) and B.Sc. (Comp. Sci.) degrees from The
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, in
1996. He is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree in engineering at The Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia, specializing in
driver monitoring integrated with environmental
perception.
He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labo-
ratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
Cambridge. He recently competed in the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency Urban Challenge on the MIT team and is now working on related
technologies for driver support.

Alexander Zelinsky (M’93–SM’07–F’08) lectured

in computer science with the University of
Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, from 1984
to 1991. From 1992 to 1995, he was a Research
Scientist with the Electrotechnical Laboratory,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology, Japan. He was the Chief Executive
Officer and the Cofounder of Seeing Machines: a
computer vision systems company. Seeing Machines
is publicly listed in the London Stock Exchange.
Seeing Machines technology was developed at
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, where he was a
Professor of systems engineering from 1996 to 2004. In July 2004, he joined
the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO),
Canberra, where he is currently the Group Executive of Information and
Communication Sciences and Technology. He has over 100 publications in
robotics and is an active member of the robotics community. Since 2000, he
has served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Robotics
Research. His research interests include mobile robotics, computer vision, and
human–machine interaction.
Dr. Zelinsky became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological
Sciences and Engineering in 2002. His contributions have been recognized
by awards given in Australia and internationally. These include the Australian
Engineering Excellence Awards in 1999 and 2002, the US R&D magazine Top
100 Award in 2001, the Technology Pioneer at the World Economic Forum
from 2002–2004, and the Clunies Ross Award in 2005. In 1997, he founded the
Field & Services Robotics conference series. From 2005 to 2007, he served with
the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society,
where he is currently the Vice President of the Industrial Activities Board. He
served on the editorial board of IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine from
2002 to 2006. He is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON I NTELLIGENT T RANSPORTATION S YSTEMS .