PT Journal AU Saad Minhas Zeba Khanam Shoaib Ehsan Klaus McDonald Maier Aura Hernandez-Sabate TI Weather Classification by Utilizing Synthetic Data SO Sensors JI SENS PY 2022 BP 3193 VL 22 IS 9 DI 10.3390/s22093193 DE Weather classification; synthetic data; dataset; autonomous car; computer vision; advanced driver assistance systems; deep learning; intelligent transportation systems AB Weather prediction from real-world images can be termed a complex task when targeting classification using neural networks. Moreover, the number of images throughout the available datasets can contain a huge amount of variance when comparing locations with the weather those images are representing. In this article, the capabilities of a custom built driver simulator are explored specifically to simulate a wide range of weather conditions. Moreover, the performance of a new synthetic dataset generated by the above simulator is also assessed. The results indicate that the use of synthetic datasets in conjunction with real-world datasets can increase the training efficiency of the CNNs by as much as 74%. The article paves a way forward to tackle the persistent problem of bias in vision-based datasets. ER