Robotics and eSafety Research Group

The invention relates to equipment for the automatic assessment of road signs and panels, said equipment performing, for said purpose, a retroreflection measurement of the white element of said signs or panels, and a measurement of the contrast between the white element of the sign or panel and a characteristic element of same (borders or text) in order to ensure a particular level of legibility. To this end, a vehicle (1) is equipped with a pulsed infrared illumination system (3), a system of stereoscopic cameras (2), a GPS (11), an odometer (12), a computer (5) mounted on an industrial rack, a data storage system (8), an event keyboard (7), and a TFT monitor (6) for viewing results. The infrared illumination system (3) is synchronised with the cameras (2). In this way, the infrared illuminator (3) illuminates the road area in alternate images, thereby providing illuminated road images and non-illuminated road images.