A near-infrared imaging method for capturing the interior of a vehicle through windshield

We investigate a near-infrared (NIR) imaging method for capturing the interior of vehicles, the purpose of which is to automatically monitor and count vehicle occupants. The proposed NIR imaging method can effectively deal with the challenge due to windshield reflection and operate during both day and night. Our goal is to improve the clarity of the captured image of the vehicle interior under these adverse conditions, in order to facilitate the task of monitoring and counting of vehicle occupants either by human screeners or by pattern recognition algorithms. The NIR imaging approach is demonstrated with numerical results in our experiments.