Measuring vegetation along railway tracks

This paper presents a novel system for measuring vegetation along railway tracks. The system, which is mounted on a train, consists of three multi-spectral cameras that are sensitive in the visible as well as in the near-infrared spectrum. The goal is to generate a vegetation profile and vegetation register for the efficient deployment of staff to eliminate vegetation. For this, two different problems are solved: The distinction of vegetation and non-vegetation and the SB-measurement of the vegetation. The use of multi-spectral cameras is necessary for the distinction of green vegetation and the green masts of the overhead contact system. The system segments vegetation correctly in 86% of the vegetated image regions. Only 0.4% of non-vegetation pixels are falsely classified. SD-measurement is performed by triangulation.