Boundary line detection system with improved detection-performance

• US 20110205363A1
• Filed: 02/23/2011
• Published: 08/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Suzuki, Shunsuke
• Granted Patent: US 8,520,071 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/148
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/588 Recognition of the road, e.g. of lane markings; Recognition of the vehicle driving pattern in relation to the road

Abstract

In a boundary line detection system installed in a vehicle, an edge-point extracting unit extracts a plurality of edge points from an image of a road. A noise determining unit determines whether a number of edge points in the plurality of edge points are aligned in a direction corresponding to a vertical direction of the road. The number of edge points have an interval therebetween equal to or smaller than a preset interval. When it is determined that the number of edge points are aligned in the direction corresponding to the vertical direction of the road with the interval of the number of edge points being equal to or smaller than the preset interval, the noise determining unit determines that the number of edge points as noises.

Claims

1. A boundary line detection system installed in a vehicle, comprising:

an image pickup unit that picks up an image of a target region including a road ahead of the vehicle;

an edge-point extracting unit that extracts a plurality of edge points from the image picked-up by the image pickup unit;

a noise determining unit that;

determines whether a number of edge points in the plurality of edge points are aligned in a direction corresponding to a vertical direction of the road, the number of edge points having at least one interval therebetween equal to or smaller than a preset interval; and

when it is determined that the number of edge points are aligned in the direction corresponding to the vertical direction of the road with the at least one interval of the number of edge points being equal to or smaller than the preset interval, determines that the number of edge points as noises; and

a detecting unit that detects at least one boundary line marked on the road based on a remainder of the plurality of edge points from which the number of edge points as the noises have been extracted.

2. The boundary line detection system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one boundary line comprises a plurality of pointed markers arranged at intervals on the road along a corresponding lane on the road.

3. The boundary line detection system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one boundary line includes a first boundary line and a second boundary line, the first boundary line comprising a plurality of pointed markers arranged at intervals on the road along a corresponding lane on the road, the second boundary line comprising at least one liner marker having a preset length and arranged along a corresponding lane on the road, the edge-point extracting unit is configured to operate in a first mode to extract, from the image picked-up by the image pickup unit, the plurality of edge points for the plurality of pointed markers, and operate in a second mode to extract, from the image picked-up by the image pickup unit, the plurality of edge points for the at least one linear marker, and the noise determining unit is configured to carry out the determination operations when the edge-point extracting unit is configured to operate in the first mode.

4. The boundary line detection system according to claim 1, wherein the edge-point extracting unit is configured to extract the plurality of edge points on a plurality of horizontal lines on the image picked-up by the image pickup unit, the plurality of horizontal lines being arranged on the image so that actual distances between the respective adjacent horizontal lines are equal to each other, and the preset interval is a number of non-edge points located in the at least one interval.

5. A computer program product comprising:

a computer usable medium; and

a set of computer program instructions embodied on the computer useable medium, the instructions including;

a first instruction to capture an image of a target region including a road ahead of a vehicle picked up by an image pickup unit;

a second instruction to extract a plurality of edge points from the image picked-up by the image pickup unit;

a third instruction to determine whether a number of edge points in the plurality of edge points are aligned in a direction corresponding to a vertical direction of the road, the number of edge points having at least one interval therebetween equal to or smaller than a preset interval; and

a fourth instruction to, when it is determined that the number of edge points are aligned in the direction corresponding to the vertical direction of the road with the at least one interval of the number of edge points being equal to or smaller than the preset interval, determine that the number of edge points as noises; and

a fifth instruction to detect at least one boundary line marked on the road based on a remainder of the plurality of edge points from which the number of edge points as the noises have been extracted.