Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080309517 | VEHICLE SURROUNDINGS MONITORING APPARATUS - A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus includes an image pickup means for taking an image of the surroundings of a vehicle, a preceding-vehicle detecting means for detecting a preceding vehicle from the taken image, a monitored-region setting means for setting predetermined monitored regions around the preceding vehicle on the image, a predicting means for predicting a brightness of an environment the preceding vehicle is going to enter, on the basis of brightnesses of pixels in the monitored regions, and an adjusting means for adjusting at least one of an exposure amount of the image pickup means and the brightnesses of the pixels output from the image pickup means beforehand in accordance with the brightness of the environment predicted by the predicting means. | 12-18-2008 |
20090157286 | Branch-Lane Entry Judging System - A branch-lane entry judging system includes a traffic-line detecting means for detecting traffic lines on right and left sides of a vehicle, a length and width detecting means for detecting lengths and widths of the traffic lines in a real space, a lane-type judging means for judging types of the traffic lines and a type of a lane in which the vehicle is running, a branch-lane detecting means for detecting a branch lane when one of the traffic lines changes from a solid line to a broken line having a predetermined length and a predetermined width, the branch lane existing near the changed traffic line, and a branch-lane entry judging means for judging that the vehicle will enter the branch lane when the vehicle moves toward the branch lane or a directional indicator is operated toward the branch lane while the branch lane is detected. | 06-18-2009 |
20090184845 | Vehicle Detecting System - A vehicle detecting system includes image taking means for taking an image of the surroundings of a subject vehicle, vehicle detecting means for detecting a vehicle from the taken image, and lateral-position detecting means for detecting a lateral position of the vehicle in the taken image. The lateral-position detecting means vertically divides, into a plurality of sections, a region set in a portion of the taken image in which an image of the vehicle is included or is presumed to be included. The lateral-position detecting means calculates average brightnesses of pixels belonging to pixel columns vertically extending in the sections and having a width corresponding to one pixel or a plurality of number of pixels. The lateral-position detecting means calculates differences in average brightness between pixel columns adjacent in a lateral direction, and detects the lateral position of the vehicle on the basis of absolute values of the differences. | 07-23-2009 |
20090190827 | Environment recognition system - An environment recognition system includes image taking means for taking a pair of images of an object in a surrounding environment with a pair of cameras and outputting the pair of images, stereo matching means for conducting stereo matching on a plurality of pairs of images that are taken by different image taking methods or that are formed by subjecting the pair of taken images to different image processing methods and forming distance images respectively for the pairs of images, selection means for dividing the distance images into a plurality of sections, calculating representative parallaxes respectively for the sections, and selecting any of the representative parallaxes of the corresponding section as a representative parallax of the section, and detection means for detecting the object in the image on the basis of the representative parallaxes of the sections. | 07-30-2009 |
20090237491 | Object Detecting System - An object detecting system includes stereo-image taking means for taking images of an object and outputting the images as a reference image and a comparative image, stereo matching means for calculating parallaxes by stereo matching, and determination means for setting regions of objects in the reference image on the basis of the parallaxes grouped by grouping means, and performing stereo matching again for an area on the left side of a comparative pixel block specified on an epipolar line in the comparative image corresponding to a reference pixel block in a left end portion of each region. When a comparative pixel block that is different from the specified comparative pixel block and provides the local minimum SAD value less than or equal to a threshold value is detected, the determination means determines that the object in the region is mismatched. | 09-24-2009 |
20090244263 | Object Detecting System - An object detecting system includes stereo-image taking means for outputting a reference image and a comparative image, stereo matching means for performing stereo matching, object detecting means for detecting an object in the reference image, estimated-region setting means for setting estimated regions of the object in the current frame in the reference image and the comparative image, on the basis of a distance of the object in the reference image in the previous frame, and determination means for correlating information about the object detected in the estimated region of the reference image or information that the object is not detected with information that noise is included, when an absolute value of a difference between average luminances of the estimated regions is more than or equal to a predetermined threshold value. | 10-01-2009 |
20100246896 | Image processing device - An image processing device for dividing an image imaged by imaging means into multiple regions includes: processing means for grouping, when difference of the pieces of image data between a single pixel within the image and a pixel adjacent thereto is less than a predetermined threshold, the single pixel and the adjacent pixel, and dividing the image into multiple regions with finally obtained each group as each region of the image; and average-value calculating means for calculating the average value of the image data within the group including the single pixel; with the processing means comparing the image data of the single pixel, and the average value calculated at the average-value calculating means regarding the group to which the adjacent pixel belongs; and when the difference thereof is equal to or greater than a predetermined second threshold, doing not group the single pixel and the adjacent pixel. | 09-30-2010 |
20100299109 | ROAD SHAPE RECOGNITION DEVICE - A road shape recognition device includes: distance and height detecting means for detecting distance data having a distance and height in real space regarding a road surface where a vehicle is traveling at multiple mutually different points; approximation line calculating means for dividing the plurality of distance data into near and far groups as viewed from the vehicle to calculate an approximation line of the distance data for each group each time the distance data of the boundary portion between the two groups is transferred from one of the groups to the other; statistics calculating means for calculating statistics from the corresponding approximation line for each group where the distance data is transferred; and road shape model generating means for selecting one out of combinations of the approximation lines to generate a road shape model using the selected combination. | 11-25-2010 |
20110052080 | WHITE ROAD LINE RECOGNITION DEVICE FOR VEHICLE - In right and left white road line detection regions on a image, a stereo image recognition device of a white road line recognition device for a vehicle detects a pair of a white road line starting point and a white road line ending point for each of retrieval lines set in the horizontal direction based on the change in the luminance on the retrieval lines, calculates a midpoint Pm between each pair of the white road line starting point and white road line ending point, selects a point group with a smaller dispersion between the point group consisting of the white road line starting points and the point group consisting of midpoints based on a predetermined condition, and calculates a white road line based on the selected point group. | 03-03-2011 |
20120207348 | VEHICLE DETECTION APPARATUS - A vehicle detection apparatus includes a lamp candidate extraction unit that extracts a pixel region that may correspond to a tail lamp of a vehicle from pixel regions that an integration processing unit creates by extracting and integrating pixels of an image as a lamp candidate and a grouping unit that regroups groups containing the lamp candidate of the groups generated by grouping position data detected by a position detection unit and then regroups all groups. In the regrouping processing, a threshold used for regrouping groups containing the lamp candidate is set easier for regrouping than a threshold used for subsequently regrouping all groups. | 08-16-2012 |
20120242799 | VEHICLE EXTERIOR MONITORING DEVICE AND VEHICLE EXTERIOR MONITORING METHOD - A vehicle exterior monitoring device obtains position information of a three-dimensional object present in a detected region, divides the detected region with respect to an horizontal direction into plural first divided regions, derives a first representative distance corresponding to a peak in distance distribution of each first divided region based on the position information, groups the first divided regions based on the first representative distance to generate one or more first divided region groups, divides the first divided region group with respect to a vertical direction into plural second divided regions, groups second divided regions having relative distances close to the first representative distance to generate a second divided region group, and limits a target range for which the first representative distance is derived within the first divided region group in which the second divided region group is generated to a vertical range corresponding to the second divided region group. | 09-27-2012 |
20120269391 | ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION DEVICE AND ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION METHOD - An environment recognition device obtains a luminance of a target portion existing in a detection area, obtains a height of the target portion, and provisionally determines a specific object corresponding to the target portion or determines a specific object corresponding to grouped target objects, according to the luminance and the height of the target portion based on the association (specific object table) of a range of luminance and a range of height from a road surface with the specific object which is retained in a data retaining unit. | 10-25-2012 |
20130129150 | EXTERIOR ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION DEVICE AND EXTERIOR ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION METHOD - There is provided an exterior environment recognition device and an exterior environment recognition method. The exterior environment recognition device obtains a first image in a first exposure mode according to a level of light of an exterior environment, and obtains a second image in a second exposure mode of which exposure time is different from the first exposure mode and which allows determination as to whether a light emitting source is emitting light by itself or not. The exterior environment recognition device identifies, based on the first image, a vehicle area occupied by a vehicle preceding in a detection area, identifies a position of the light emitting source, based on luminance of the second image, and associates the position of the light emitting source and the vehicle area. | 05-23-2013 |
20130223689 | EXTERIOR ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION DEVICE - Provided is an exterior environment recognition device including: a parallax deriving unit for obtaining parallax by means of the pattern matching; a position information deriving unit for deriving a relative distance from the parallax; a grouping unit for grouping a block of which difference of the relative distance is included within a predetermined range, and specifying specified objects; a specified object selection unit for selecting a specified object; an offset amount deriving unit for, when the relative distance of the selected specified object becomes less than a threshold value determined in advance, deriving an amount of offset in accordance with the relative distance; and an offset execution unit for offsetting the image by the amount of offset. When the amount of offset is not zero, the position information deriving unit limits deriving of the relative distance in an image other than an image range corresponding to the selected specified object. | 08-29-2013 |