Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080208460 | Lane determining device, method, and program - Devices, methods, and programs obtain vehicle position information indicating a current position of a vehicle, and based on the vehicle position information, obtain road information including positions and forms of lane markings around the current position of the vehicle. Based on the road information, the devices, systems, and methods determine whether a branch point exists on the road in a forward direction of the vehicle. If a branch point exists, the devices, methods, and programs obtain image information of an area before the branch point, and determine whether no lane marking is imaged or is partly imaged in the image information of the area before the branch point. If there is no lane marking or only a partial lane marking imaged in the area before the branch point, the devices, methods, and programs obtain image information of the branch point including a captured image of a lane marking, and determine a lane in which the vehicle is traveling after the branch point based on an imaging order of the lane marking, a form of the lane marking, a position of the lane marking in the image information of the branch point, and the road information. | 08-28-2008 |
20080240505 | Feature information collecting apparatuses, methods, and programs - Apparatuses, methods, and programs acquire vehicle position information that represents a current position of a vehicle, acquire image information of a vicinity of the vehicle, and carry out image recognition processing of a target feature that is included in the image information to determine a position of the target feature. The apparatuses, methods, and programs store recognition position information that is based on the acquired vehicle position information and that represents the determined recognition position of the target feature. The apparatuses, methods, and programs determine an estimated position of the target feature based on a set of a plurality of stored recognition position information for the target feature, the plurality of stored recognition position information for the target feature being stored due to the target feature being subject to image recognition processing a plurality of times. | 10-02-2008 |
20080240506 | Feature information management apparatuses, methods, and programs - Apparatuses, methods and programs store a plurality of target types, each target type having recognition attribute information indicating the likelihood that the target type will be recognized based on a type of road or a type of area. The apparatuses, methods and programs acquire vehicle position information indicating a current position of a vehicle, acquire image information in the vicinity of the vehicle, and acquire road attribute information about a road on which the vehicle is traveling, the road attribute information acquired based on the vehicle position information. The apparatuses, methods and programs determine a target type defining a target for image recognition within the image information, the target type being determined based on the acquired road attribute information and the stored recognition attribute information, and perform image recognition of a target feature included in the image information, the target feature being of the determined target type. | 10-02-2008 |
20080240573 | Feature information collecting apparatus and feature information collecting method - Feature information collecting apparatuses, methods, and programs acquire vehicle position information that represents the current position of a vehicle, acquire image information for a vicinity of the vehicle, and carry out image recognition processing on recognition target objects that are included in the image information. The apparatuses, methods, and programs store recognition information in a memory that represents a result of the image recognition of the recognition target objects in association with information for the recognition position of the recognition target objects, the recognition position determined based on the vehicle position information. The apparatuses, methods, and programs extract, as learned features, recognition target objects that can be repeatedly recognized by image recognition based on a plurality of sets of recognition information related to the same position, the plurality of sets of recognition information being stored due to the image information for the same position being recognized a plurality of times by image recognition. | 10-02-2008 |
20080243312 | Vehicle behavior learning apparatuses, methods, and programs - Vehicle behavior learning apparatuses, methods, and programs store pieces of feature information including position information and attribute information of a plurality of target features. The apparatuses, methods, and programs obtain vehicle position information that shows a current position of a vehicle, obtaining image information of surroundings of the vehicle, and obtain one of the stored pieces of feature information corresponding to the surroundings of the vehicle based on the vehicle position information. The apparatuses, methods, and programs perform an image recognition for recognizing a target feature contained in the image information that corresponds to the obtained piece of feature information, detect a behavior of the vehicle that is performed within a predetermined range from a position of the recognized target feature, and store, based on the vehicle position information, the detected behavior in correspondence with information of a position in which the detected behavior was detected. The apparatuses, methods, and programs extract, based the detected behavior being stored a plurality of times at the same position, the detected behavior as a learned behavior, output learned behavior information including attribute information of the detected behavior and the position information of the detected behavior, each of which are kept in correspondence with the piece of feature information of the recognized target feature. | 10-02-2008 |
20080273757 | Image Recognizing Apparatus and Method, and Position Determining Apparatus, Vehicle Controlling Apparatus and Navigation Apparatus Using the Image Recognizing Apparatus or Method - There is provided e.g. an image recognizing apparatus which can increase the recognition rate of the image of a recognition target even when the recognition rate in the image recognition operation would deteriorate otherwise due to inability of obtaining good image information on the recognition target, if the operation relied solely on picked up image information. | 11-06-2008 |
20090088978 | Road Marking Recognition System - Systems, methods, and programs capture an image of a periphery of a vehicle. The systems, methods, and programs, store predetermined patterns representing conditions of road markings formed on a road surface, detect a road marking on the basis of the captured image, and compare the detected road marking to the predetermined patterns. If the detected road marking matches one of the predetermined patterns, the systems, methods, and programs execute a predetermined action associated with the matching predetermined pattern. | 04-02-2009 |
20090174577 | Image recognition apparatuses, methods and programs - Image information apparatuses, methods, and programs acquire image information of a plurality of frames of images sensed at predetermined regular time intervals. The apparatuses, methods, and programs detect a leading and trailing end of a lane mark included in a detection area defined in each frame of the image information. The apparatuses, methods, and programs detect a detected distance from one of the leading and trailing end of the lane mark to the other one as a detected distance based on the speed of the vehicle and the number of frames between a frame in which one of the leading end and the trailing end of the lane mark is detected and a frame in which the other one of the leading end and the trailing end of the lane mark is detected and determine a lane mark type of the lane mark on the basis of the detected distance. | 07-09-2009 |
20110044543 | FEATURE EXTRACTION METHOD, AND IMAGE RECOGNITION METHOD AND FEATURE DATABASE CREATION METHOD USING THE SAME - A feature extraction method includes: the step of grouping a cluster of features, in which an internal of the respective features is less than or equal to a predetermined grouping interval, to form a feature group, for a plurality of features of which feature information including at least information of a position and a feature type is included in a predetermined feature information storage unit; the step of excluding the feature, not suitable for use in an image recognition process of the feature with respect to image information, from the cluster of the features within the feature group; and the step of extracting a part or all of one or more of the features within the feature group remaining as a result of the exclusion step as a target feature suitable for the use in the image recognition process. | 02-24-2011 |
20110144907 | TRAVEL GUIDING APPARATUS FOR VEHICLE, TRAVEL GUIDING METHOD FOR VEHICLE, AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM - A travel guiding apparatus, method, and program for a vehicle store map information and marker pattern identification information used to identify a marker pattern for each road type, wherein the marker pattern is a pattern of a marker included in a lane marking. The apparatus, method, and program determine a type of road on which the vehicle is traveling and detect the maker pattern on the road. The apparatus, method, and program again determine the type of the road based on the detected marker pattern and change the type of determined road from a road other than an expressway to an expressway, if the first detected type of road is a road other than an expressway and the type of road detected based on the marker pattern is an expressway. | 06-16-2011 |