Continual Cross-Dataset Adaptation in Road Surface Classification

Accurate road surface classification is crucial for autonomous vehicles (AVs) to optimize driving conditions, enhance safety, and enable advanced road mapping. However, deep learning models for road surface classification suffer from poor generalization when tested on unseen datasets. To update these models with new information, also the original training dataset must be taken into account, in order to avoid catastrophic forgetting. This is, however, inefficient if not impossible, e.g., when the data is collected in streams or large amounts. To overcome this limitation and enable fast and efficient cross-dataset adaptation, we propose to employ continual learning finetuning methods designed to retain past knowledge while adapting to new data, thus effectively avoiding forgetting. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of this approach over naive finetuning, achieving performance close to fresh retraining. While solving this known problem, we also provide a general description of how the same technique can be adopted in other AV scenarios. We highlight the potential computational and economic benefits that a continual-based adaptation can bring to the AV industry, while also reducing greenhouse emissions due to unnecessary joint retraining.