Review on Indian traffic sign detection and recognition using deep learning

Abstract

Traffic sign detection and recognition (TSDR) plays a crucial role in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving technologies. In the context of India, the development of robust traffic sign recognition systems is particularly challenging due to diverse road conditions, variations in sign design, occlusions, weather conditions, faded or damaged signs, and complex backgrounds. With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, deep learning techniques have emerged as powerful tools for automatically detecting and classifying traffic signs with high accuracy. This review paper presents a comprehensive analysis of recent research on Indian traffic sign detection and recognition using deep learning approaches. The study examines various deep learning architectures such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), You Only Look Once (YOLO), Region-Based Convolutional Neural Networks (R-CNN), Faster R-CNN, and Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD) that have been applied for traffic sign detection and classification. It also reviews publicly available datasets and Indian-specific traffic sign datasets used for training and evaluation. The paper highlights the advantages of deep learning models in handling complex visual features, real-time detection requirements, and large-scale image datasets compared with traditional machine learning approaches. Furthermore, this review identifies key challenges associated with Indian traffic environments, including inconsistent sign visibility, illumination variations, and limited annotated datasets. The comparative analysis of existing methodologies is presented in terms of accuracy, computational efficiency, and real-time implementation capability. Finally, the paper discusses potential future research directions, including the integration of edge computing, transfer learning, and lightweight deep learning models for efficient deployment in intelligent transportation systems. This review aims to provide researchers and practitioners with a clear understanding of current developments, challenges, and emerging opportunities in Indian traffic sign detection and recognition using deep learning techniques.