Traffic Sign Recognition Project Guide

In the realm of autonomous driving, recognizing traffic signs accurately is essential for safe navigation and compliance with road regulations. Self-driving cars must detect and interpret signs like stop, yield, speed limits, and pedestrian crossings under diverse weather, lighting, and angle conditions. Manual coding of traffic rules is impractical, and that's where deep learning excels — enabling dynamic, real-time traffic sign recognition from camera inputs.

By training a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) on labeled traffic sign images, the model can classify different types of signs with high accuracy. Techniques like data augmentation, color normalization, and bounding box detection further enhance performance. Models such as LeNet, VGG variants, and lightweight mobile architectures are ideal. This project closely aligns with the perception systems used in real-world self-driving car pipelines, making it a high-value and impressive project.

The system processes frames from a camera feed, detects regions containing traffic signs, and classifies them using a CNN model. Preprocessing includes resizing, normalizing images, and augmenting with rotations and distortions. After classification, appropriate signals can be sent to the vehicle's control system to react accordingly (e.g., slow down at a 'School Zone' sign). Datasets like GTSRB provide thousands of labeled traffic sign images to train robust recognition models.

• Collect labeled datasets like GTSRB (German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark) or BTSC datasets.
• Preprocess: resize images, apply histogram equalization, and augment with random brightness/rotation adjustments.
• Train a CNN model such as LeNet, ResNet, or MobileNet variants for sign classification.
• Evaluate using confusion matrices, precision-recall curves, and real-time inference FPS (frames per second) metrics.
• Deploy the system with a live camera feed that detects and labels traffic signs dynamically while driving simulations run.

• German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark (GTSRB)
• OpenCV Image Processing Tutorials
• TensorFlow Traffic Sign Recognition Example