Pedestrian detection apparatus

• US 20050157929A1
• Filed: 01/07/2005
• Published: 07/21/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Subaru Corp.
• Original Assignee: Fuji Heavy Industries Limited (Subaru Corp.)
• Inventors: Ogasawara, Toyokazu
• Granted Patent: US 7,418,112 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/181
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/103 Static body considered as a whole, e.g. static pedestrian or occupant recognition

Abstract

A pedestrian extracting apparatus of the present invention extracts a whole-body region and a prospective head region based on a pattern matching between an input image picked up by an infrared camera and whole-body/head model images stored in a model-image storage unit. If the whole-body region has not been extracted, the prospective head region which is at the closest position to a prospective head region extracted from a preceding input image is extracted from the current input image, and an image matching with the head model image of the extracted prospective head region is determined to be a head.

Claims

1. A pedestrian extracting apparatus for extracting a pedestrian from an input image picked up by image pick-up means based on a pattern matching between the input image and model images of the pedestrian, comprising:

prospective pedestrian extracting means for extracting a whole-body region surrounding a whole-body model image and a prospective part region surrounding a part model image of the whole body from the input image based on a pattern matching using the whole-body model image and the part model image of the pedestrian; and

pedestrian extracting means for determining whether or not an extracted prospective part region is a part of the pedestrian if a prospective part region exists in the whole-body region extracted by the prospective pedestrian extracting means.

2. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the pedestrian extracting means compares a preceding prospective part region extracted from a preceding input image with a prospective part region extracted from the current input image if the whole-body region has not been extracted by the prospective pedestrian extracting means and, determines that the prospective part region extracted from the current input image is the part of the pedestrian if the distance between the both prospective part regions is equal to or smaller than a predetermined distance.

3. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the pedestrian extracting means compares a preceding prospective part region extracted from a preceding input image with one or more prospective part regions extracted from the current input image if the whole-body region has not been extracted by the prospective pedestrian extracting means, and determines the prospective part region being at the closest position to the preceding prospective part region and being within a predetermined distance among the extracted prospective part regions to be the part of the pedestrian.

4. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the part model image is a head model image.

5. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein:

the part model image is the head model image.

6. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein:

the part model image is the head model image.

7. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 4, wherein:

the pedestrian extracting means determines the prospective part region at the highest position to be a head if a plurality of prospective part regions exist in the whole-body region.

8. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of a far-infrared camera and an infrared camera.

9. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of the far-infrared camera and the infrared camera.

10. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of the far-infrared camera and the infrared camera.

11. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 4, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of the far-infrared camera and the infrared camera.

12. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 5, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of the far-infrared camera and the infrared camera.

13. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 6, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of the far-infrared camera and the infrared camera.

14. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 7, wherein:

the image pick-up means is one of the far-infrared camera and the infrared camera.

15. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the image pick-up means is provided in at least one of the vehicle and the street.

16. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein:

the image pick-up means is provided in at least one of the vehicle and the street.

17. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein:

the image pick-up means is provided in at least one of the vehicle and the street.

18. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 4, wherein:

the image pick-up means is provided in at least one of the vehicle and the street.

19. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 5, wherein:

the image pick-up means is provided in at least one of the vehicle and the street.

20. The pedestrian extracting apparatus according to claim 6, wherein:

the image pick-up means is provided in at least one of the vehicle and the street.