A Biologically Inspired Visual Pedestrian Detection System

In this paper, we present a biologically inspired method for detecting pedestrians in images. The method is based on a convolutional neural network architecture, which combines feature extraction and classification. The proposed network architecture is much simpler and easier to train than earlier versions. It differs from its predecessors in that the first processing layer consists of a set of pre-defined nonlinear derivative filters for computing gradient information. The subsequent processing layer has trainable shunting inhibitory feature detectors, which are used as inputs to a pattern classifier. The proposed pedestrian detection system is evaluated on the DaimlerChrysler pedestrian classification benchmark database and its performance is compared to the performance of support vector machines and Adaboost classifiers.