Docking assistant
First Claim
1. A method for assisting guidance of a motor vehicle on the basis of image data, the method comprising:
- acquired image data using an imaging sensor from a surrounding field of the motor vehicle;
extracting from the acquired image data positional parameters of at least one potential destination relative to the motor vehicle; and
calculating at least one trajectory describing an optimized travel path using the positional parameters so as to assist a subsequent vehicle guidance for at least one of the potential destinations, wherein the extracting includes;
performing an edge detection and edge segmentation on the image data so as to break down the image data into a plurality of edge segments and storing interrelationships of the plurality of edge segments in a mathematical tree structure;
analyzing the plurality of edge segments for the presence of a geometric object associated with a geometrical form that may at least partially describe a potential destination so as to identify one or more potential geometric objects;
analyzing the one or more potential geometric objects for plausibility using a matching algorithm so as to identify one or more plausible objects;
performing an additional acceptance analysis so as to identify at least one accepted object, the additional acceptance analysis including analyzing a shape of the image formation of each object in the image data based on knowledge of at least one imaging property of the imaging sensor relative to the surrounding field; and
storing at least one accepted object that corresponds to a most proximate destination together with corresponding relative positional data in an object list.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Many day-to-day driving situations require that an operator of a motor vehicle guide the motor vehicle along a specific course and bring the vehicle to a stop at a specific location, for example in a parking bay or at a loading platform. To assist a vehicle operator in such situations, a method and a suitable device for implementing this method, include detecting the potential target objects in the image data of an image sensor and identifying the potential target objects as potential destinations in a multi-stage exclusionary method, whereupon a trajectory describing an optimized travel path is computed at least in relation to the most proximate destination. By using the multi-stage exclusionary method according to the present invention, it is possible to reliably identify potential destinations in complex image scenarios solely on the basis of their geometric form, even when the destinations have not been encoded by specific symbols.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A method for assisting guidance of a motor vehicle on the basis of image data, the method comprising:
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acquired image data using an imaging sensor from a surrounding field of the motor vehicle;
extracting from the acquired image data positional parameters of at least one potential destination relative to the motor vehicle; and
calculating at least one trajectory describing an optimized travel path using the positional parameters so as to assist a subsequent vehicle guidance for at least one of the potential destinations, wherein the extracting includes;
performing an edge detection and edge segmentation on the image data so as to break down the image data into a plurality of edge segments and storing interrelationships of the plurality of edge segments in a mathematical tree structure;
analyzing the plurality of edge segments for the presence of a geometric object associated with a geometrical form that may at least partially describe a potential destination so as to identify one or more potential geometric objects;
analyzing the one or more potential geometric objects for plausibility using a matching algorithm so as to identify one or more plausible objects;
performing an additional acceptance analysis so as to identify at least one accepted object, the additional acceptance analysis including analyzing a shape of the image formation of each object in the image data based on knowledge of at least one imaging property of the imaging sensor relative to the surrounding field; and
storing at least one accepted object that corresponds to a most proximate destination together with corresponding relative positional data in an object list. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A device for assisting guidance of a motor vehicle using image data, the device comprising:
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an imaging sensor configured to acquire image data from a field surrounding the motor vehicle;
an image-processing unit configured to extract positional parameters of at least one potential destination relative to the motor vehicle from the image data;
a processing unit configured to compute at least one trajectory describing an optimized travel path to a potential designation; and
a vehicle guidance system configured to assist in guiding the vehicle to the potential destination, wherein the image-processing unit includes;
an edge detector and segmenter for extracting relative positional parameters of the at least one potential destination from the image data;
a locating unit disposed downstream from the image processing unit and configured to locate corresponding objects in the image data having geometric shapes corresponding at least partially to the at least potential destination;
a memory unit for storing object patterns;
a comparator unit configured to analyze the corresponding geometric objects, to check for plausibility using a matching algorithm for comparing the object patterns stored in the memory unit;
a data memory storing the geometric object detected in the image data corresponding to the most proximate destination is stored, along with the corresponding relative positional data, in an object list;
an acceptance analysis unit configured to analyze a shape of an image formation of the objects in the image data based on the knowledge of the imaging properties of the imaging sensor in relation to its surrounding field, to communicate with the data memory, and to transfer the most proximate destination to the processing unit;
- View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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Specification