Methodological Selection of Optimal Features for Object Classification Based on Stereovision System

With the expansion of green energy, more and more data show that wind turbines can pose a significant threat to some endangered bird species. The birds of prey are more frequently exposed to collision risk with the wind turbine blades due to their unique flight path patterns. This paper shows how data from a stereovision system can be used for an efficient classification of detected objects. A method for distinguishing endangered birds from common birds and other flying objects has been developed and tested. The research focused on the selection of a suitable feature extraction methodology. Both motion and visual features are extracted from the Bioseco BPS system and retested using a correlation-based and a wrapper-type approach with genetic algorithms (GAs). With optimal features and fine-tuned classifiers, birds can be distinguished from aeroplanes with a 98.6% recall and 97% accuracy, whereas endangered birds are delimited from common ones with 93.5% recall and 77.2% accuracy.