Vision-Based Highway Lane Extraction from UAV Imagery: A Deep Learning and Geometric Constraints Approach
Open Access
- 6 September 2025
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Electronics
- Vol. 14 (17) , 3554
Abstract
The rapid evolution of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology and low-altitude economic development have propelled drone applications in critical infrastructure monitoring, particularly in intelligent transportation systems where real-time aerial image processing has emerged as a pressing requirement. We address the pivotal challenge of highway lane extraction from low-altitude UAV perspectives by applying a novel three-stage framework. This framework consists of (1) a deep learning-based semantic segmentation module that employs an enhanced STDC network with boundary-aware loss for precise detection of roads and lane markings; (2) an optimized polynomial fitting algorithm incorporating iterative classification and adaptive error thresholds to achieve robust lane marking consolidation; and (3) a global optimization module designed for context-aware lane generation. Our methodology demonstrates superior performance with 94.11% F1-score and 93.84% IoU, effectively bridging the technical gap in UAV-based lane extraction while establishing a reliable foundation for advanced traffic monitoring applications.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (41801291, ZMF21020364)
- Scientific Research Foundation of Changzhou University (41801291, ZMF21020364)
This publication has 35 references indexed in Scilit:
- Traffic Analysis Through Deep-Learning-Based Image Segmentation From UAV StreamingIEEE Internet of Things Journal, 2022
- On the fundamental diagram and driving behavior modeling of heterogeneous traffic flow using UAV-based dataTransportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2021
- Automated Safety Diagnosis Based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Video and Deep Learning AlgorithmTransportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2020
- Smart traffic monitoring system using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)Computer Communications, 2020
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research ChallengesIEEE Access, 2019
- A Tutorial on UAVs for Wireless Networks: Applications, Challenges, and Open ProblemsIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 2019
- Utilizing UAV video data for in-depth analysis of drivers’ crash risk at interchange merging areasAccident Analysis & Prevention, 2019
- Aerial LaneNet: Lane-Marking Semantic Segmentation in Aerial Imagery Using Wavelet-Enhanced Cost-Sensitive Symmetric Fully Convolutional Neural NetworksIEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2018
- UAV-Based Traffic Analysis: A Universal Guiding Framework Based on Literature SurveyTransportation Research Procedia, 2017
- Lane Departure Identification for Advanced Driver AssistanceIEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2014