Apparatus, method, and computer product for vehicle-type determination

• US 20090074250A1
• Filed: 11/12/2008
• Published: 03/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Hata, Sahoko, Shinjo, Takako, Ando, Atsuyoshi, Kodama, Kenji, Takahashi, Kunikazu
• Granted Patent: US 8,229,171 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/44 Local feature extraction by analysis of parts of the pattern, e.g. by detecting edges, contours, loops, corners, strokes or intersections; Connectivity analysis, e.g. of connected components
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/56 relating to colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/08 Detecting or categorising vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/015 with provision for distinguishing between two or more types of vehicles, e.g. between motor-cars and cycles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/04 using optical or ultrasonic detectors

Abstract

A vehicle-type determination apparatus includes a vehicle-portion extracting unit, a hood recognizing unit, and a vehicle-type determining unit. The vehicle-portion extracting unit extracts a vehicle portion from an image of a recognition object. The hood recognizing unit recognizes an area corresponding to a hood in the vehicle portion extracted by the vehicle-portion extracting unit. The vehicle-type determining unit determines the vehicle type based on the degree of inclination of a side of the hood area recognized by the hood recognizing unit.

Claims

1. A vehicle-type determination apparatus that determines a type of a vehicle based on an image of the vehicle captured, the vehicle-type determination apparatus comprising:

a unit that extracts, from the image, a horizontal straight line and a side straight line forming a contour of a vehicle-type determination area of the vehicle;

a unit that obtains an angle between the horizontal straight line and the side straight line; and

a vehicle-type determining unit that determines the type of the vehicle based on the angle.

2. The vehicle-type determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the side straight line corresponds to a side farther from an image capture device that has captured the image.

3. The vehicle-type determination apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a storage area that stores definition of a relation between an angle and each type of vehicle, wherein

the vehicle-type determining unit determines the type of the vehicle with reference to the storage area.

4. The vehicle-type determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle-type determination area corresponds to a hood of the vehicle.

5. The vehicle-type determination apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle-type determination area corresponds to a windshield of the vehicle.

6. The vehicle-type determination apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a vehicle-type determination area extracting unit that divides the vehicle into a plurality of areas with reference to edges obtained by scanning the image in a vertical direction and recognizes the vehicle-type determination area based on a color-change pattern of the areas.

7. The vehicle-type determination apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a vehicle-type determination area extracting unit that divides the vehicle into a plurality of areas with reference to edges obtained by scanning the image in a vertical direction and recognizes the vehicle-type determination area based on a height-change pattern of the areas.

8. A computer-readable recording medium that stores therein a computer program for determining a type of a vehicle based on an image of the vehicle captured, the computer program causing a computer to execute:

extracting, from the image, a horizontal straight line and a side straight line forming a contour of a vehicle-type determination area of the vehicle;

obtaining an angle between the horizontal straight line and the side straight line; and

determining the type of the vehicle based on the angle.

9. A vehicle-type determination method for determining a type of a vehicle based on an image of the vehicle captured, the vehicle-type determination method comprising:

extracting, from the image, a horizontal straight line and a side straight line forming a contour of a vehicle-type determination area of the vehicle;

obtaining an angle between the horizontal straight line and the side straight line; and

determining the type of the vehicle based on the angle.