Vehicle Classification Based on FBG Sensor Arrays Using Neural Networks

This article is focused on the automatic classification of passing vehicles through an experimental platform using optical sensor arrays. The amount of data generated from various sensor systems is growing proportionally every year. Therefore, it is necessary to look for more progressive solutions to these problems. Methods of implementing artificial intelligence are becoming a new trend in this area. At first, an experimental platform with two separate groups of fiber Bragg grating sensor arrays (horizontally and vertically oriented) installed into the top pavement layers was created. Interrogators were connected to sensor arrays to measure pavement deformation caused by vehicles passing over the pavement. Next, neural networks for visual classification with a closed-circuit television camera to separate vehicles into different classes were used. This classification was used for the verification of measured and analyzed data from sensor arrays. The newly proposed neural network for vehicle classification from the sensor array dataset was created. From the obtained experimental results, it is evident that our proposed neural network was capable of separating trucks from other vehicles, with an accuracy of 94.9%, and classifying vehicles into three different classes, with an accuracy of 70.8%. Based on the experimental results, extending sensor arrays as described in the last part of the paper is recommended.