METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING ROAD PARTITION

• US 20130148856A1
• Filed: 12/07/2012
• Published: 06/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Jichuan Zheng, Yaojie Lu
• Inventors: LU, Yaojie, YOU, Ganmei, ZHENG, Jichuan
• Granted Patent: US 9,373,043 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/104
• 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

A method and an apparatus are used for detecting a road partition, the method comprising: a step of obtaining a disparity top view having a road area; and a step of detecting parallel lines as the road partitions from the disparity top view.

Claims

1. A method for detecting a road partition, comprising:

a step of obtaining a disparity top view having a road area; and

a step of detecting parallel lines as the road partitions from the disparity top view.

2. The method for detecting a road partition according to claim 1, wherein the step of detecting the parallel lines from the disparity top view comprises:

a step of regarding points with a zero disparity value as basic points, and calculating included angles between straight lines, that are determined by points having non-zero disparity values in the disparity top view and the basic points and an equal disparity line, so as to obtain angle distributions of the included angles relating to the basic points; and

a step of detecting the parallel lines according to the angle distributions of the included angles of the basic points.

3. The method for detecting a road partition according to claim 2, wherein the step of detecting the parallel lines according to the angle distributions of the included angles of the basic points comprises:

a step of regarding top N basic points in descending order of degree of collectivity of the angle distributions of the included angles and/or the basic points having a value of degree of collectivity more than a predetermined threshold of degree of collectivity as road vanishing points, where N is an integer greater than or equal to one, the road vanishing point is a point at which the parallel road partitions intersect in the disparity top view, and the points at which the parallel road partitions in different directions intersect in the disparity top view are different; and

a step of regarding straight lines determined by the included angles, that have occurrence degrees of angles in the angle distributions of the included angles relating to the road vanishing points being more than a predetermined threshold, and the road vanishing points, as the parallel lines in which the road partitions are located.

4. The method for detecting a road partition according to claim 2, wherein the angle distribution of the included angle of the basic point X is calculated according to the following equation:

5. The method for detecting a road partition according to claim 1, further comprising:

a step of performing a further distinguishment of the road partitions according to at least one of height features, location features or area features of the detected road partitions in a corresponding disparity map, after the parallel lines of the disparity top view are determined as the road partitions.

6. The method for detecting a road partition according to claim 1, further comprising:

a step of obtaining the disparity top view by converting a disparity map, wherein an abscissa of the disparity top view is represented by u, an ordinate of the disparity top view is represented by d, d presents disparity, values of points P_ui(u_i,d_i)ε

U are the number of the points of the disparity map whose abscissa is u_i and disparity is d_i, and the values P_ui(u_i,d_i) of the points where the values P_ui(u_i,d_i) are less than a specific threshold are set to zero.

7. The method for detecting a road partition according to claim 1, wherein the step of obtaining the disparity top view having the road area comprises:

a step of obtaining a disparity map having the road area;

a step of estimating the road area and removing a non-road area from the disparity map; and

a step of obtaining the disparity top view having the road area by converting the disparity map where the non-road area has been removed.

8. An apparatus for detecting a road partition, comprising:

a disparity top view obtainment unit for obtaining a disparity top view having a road area; and

a road partition detection unit for detecting parallel lines as the road partition from the disparity top view.

9. The apparatus for detecting a road partition according to claim 8, wherein an operation of detecting the parallel lines from the disparity top view by the road partition detection unit comprises:

a step of regarding points with a zero disparity value as basic points, and calculating included angles between straight lines, that are determined by points having non-zero disparity values in the disparity top view and the basic points and an equal disparity line, so as to obtain angle distributions of the included angles relating to the basic points; and

a step of detecting the parallel lines according to the angle distributions of the included angles of the basic points.

10. The apparatus for detecting a road partition according to claim 9, wherein the step of detecting the parallel lines according to the angle distributions of the included angles of the basic points comprises:

a step of regarding top N basic points in descending order of degree of collectivity of the angle distributions of the included angles and/or the basic points having a value of degree of collectivity more than a predetermined threshold of degree of collectivity as road vanishing points, where N is an integer greater than or equal to one, the road vanishing point is a point at which the parallel road partitions intersect in the disparity top view, and the points at which the parallel road partitions in different directions intersect in the disparity top view are different; and

a step of regarding straight lines determined by the included angles, that have occurrence degrees of angles in the angle distributions of the included angles of the road vanishing points being more than a predetermined threshold, and the road vanishing points, as the parallel lines in which the road partitions are located.