Image recognition apparatus and image recognition method
First Claim
1. An image recognition apparatus comprising:
- image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from map information, road feature information associated with a feature in the neighborhood of a position where the image is taken; and
image information recognition means for recognizing the image information using the road feature information to recognize an image of a recognition target corresponding to the feature included in the image information.
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Abstract
An image recognition apparatus is capable of recognizing an image of an object of interest with high recognition accuracy even when the object is difficult to recognize only from image information acquired by an image pickup apparatus. The image recognition apparatus includes image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image taken on a road, road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from map information, road feature information C associated with a feature in the neighborhood of a position where the image information is taken, and image information recognition means for recognizing the image information using the road feature information C to recognize an image of an object to be recognized corresponding to the feature included in the image information.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. An image recognition apparatus comprising:
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image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from map information, road feature information associated with a feature in the neighborhood of a position where the image is taken; and
image information recognition means for recognizing the image information using the road feature information to recognize an image of a recognition target corresponding to the feature included in the image information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. An image recognition apparatus comprising:
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image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from map information, road feature information associated with a first feature and a second feature in the neighborhood of the capturing position of the image information;
first target recognition means for recognizing an image of the first recognition target corresponding to the first feature that can be relatively easily recognized and that is included in the image information;
road feature information comparison means for comparing the image of the first recognition target recognized by the first target recognition means with the road feature information associated with the first feature acquired by the road feature information acquisition means to detect the correspondence between the image information and the road feature information;
likely area detection means for, based on the result of the comparison made by the road feature information comparison means, detecting from the image information an area likely to include an image of a second recognition target corresponding to the second feature that is more difficult to recognize than the first recognition target; and
second target recognition means for recognizing an image of the second recognition target included in the image information, by adjusting a recognition algorithm based on the result of the detection made by the likely area detection means such that a criterion to determine whether an image is of the second recognition target becomes lower for the area likely to include the image of the second recognition target than for the other area. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A vehicle control apparatus comprising:
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image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from map information, road feature information associated with a feature in the neighborhood of a position where the image is taken;
image information recognition means for recognizing the image information using the road feature information to recognize an image of a recognition target corresponding to the feature included in the image information; and
running control means for controlling the running of the vehicle based on a result of recognition performed by the image information recognition means.
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15. A navigation apparatus comprising:
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a map information database in which map information is described;
image information acquisition means for capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
road feature information acquisition means for acquiring, from the map information, road feature information associated with a feature in the neighborhood of the vehicle position acquired by the position information acquisition means;
image information recognition means for recognizing the image information using the road feature information to recognize an image of a recognition target corresponding to the feature included in the image information. - View Dependent Claims (16)
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17. An image recognition method comprising the steps of:
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capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
acquiring, from map information, road feature information associated with a feature in the neighborhood of a position where the image is taken; and
recognizing the image information using the road feature information to recognize an image of a recognition target corresponding to a feature included in the image information. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19)
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20. An image recognition method comprising the steps of:
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capturing image information of an image taken on a road;
acquiring, from map information, road feature information associated with a first feature and a second feature in the neighborhood of the capturing position of the image information;
recognizing an image of the first recognition target corresponding to the first feature that can be relatively easily recognized and that is included in the image information;
comparing the image of the first recognition target recognized in the first target recognition step with the road feature information associated with the first feature acquired in the road feature information acquisition step to detect the correspondence between the image information and the road feature information;
based on the result of the comparison made in the road feature information comparison step, detecting from the image information an area likely to include an image of a second recognition target corresponding to the second feature that is more difficult to recognize than the first recognition target; and
recognizing an image of the second recognition target included in the image information, by adjusting a recognition algorithm based on the result of the detection made in the likely area detection step such that a criterion to determine whether an image is of the second recognition target becomes lower for the area likely to include the image of the second recognition target than for the other area.
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Specification