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LANE LINE ESTIMATING APPARATUS

  • US 20120057757A1
  • Filed: 09/08/2011
  • Published: 03/08/2012
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A lane line estimating apparatus comprising:

  • an imaging unit mounted on a vehicle and configured to image an external environment of the vehicle;

    a storage unit configured to store data of a lane-line width for each of plural predetermined lane-line types;

    a lane-line candidate point setting unit configured to detect left-hand and right-hand lane-line detection points on a driving lane, on which the vehicle runs, based upon an image of the external environment imaged by the imaging unit, and to set lane-line candidate points on the opposite lane line at a space of the lane-line width, using the left-hand and right-hand lane-line detection points as starting points;

    a curve approximation processing unit configured to obtain a curve approximation equation based upon lane-line detection points opposite to the lane-line detection points detected by the detecting unit and the lane-line candidate points set by the lane-line candidate point setting unit, in order to set virtual lines on the left side and on the right side of the driving lane from the curve approximation equation; and

    lane-line type estimating unit configured to obtain the dispersion of the virtual lines set by the curve approximation processing unit so as to estimate the lane-line type of at least one of the left-hand and right-hand virtual lines from the pair of left-hand and right-hand virtual lines indicating the smallest dispersion.

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