Road recognition algorithm using principal component neural networks and K-means

A new road recognition algorithm based on local statistical features and principal component analysis is introduced to improve whose robustness and adaptiveness. The weights of the principal component neural networks is trained with the aid of the algorithm of generalized Hebbian learning rule, and the input vectors of the local spatial features and image pixels value are transformed into feature vectors which are once clustered by K-means classifier, the road surface and un-road surface can be distinguished by the reference area finally. The simulation results confirm the fine robustness and adaptiveness of the newly proposed algorithm, especially, the improved performance to recognize road images affected by illuminantion variations or shadows.