Method for the Operation of an Assistance System of a Motor Vehicle, as well as Assistance System

• US 20160026882A1
• Filed: 07/24/2015
• Published: 01/28/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Conti Temic Microelectronic GmbH (Continental AG)
• Original Assignee: Conti Temic Microelectronic GmbH (Continental AG)
• Inventors: BEHRENS, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 9,792,511 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/46 Descriptors for shape, contour or point-related descriptors, e.g. scale invariant feature transform [SIFT] or bags of words [BoW]; Salient regional features colour feature extraction G06V10/56
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/582 of traffic signs

Abstract

The invention relates to a method (20) for operating an assistance system (2) of a motor vehicle for detecting a polygon traffic sign (4) with a number of edges (14). By means of a camera (8) an image (16) of the traffic sign (4) is detected and within the detected image (16) a number of first routes (40) is determined, which is smaller than the number of edges (14) of the traffic sign (4). Based on the first routes (40) a reproduction (18) of the traffic sign (4) is identified. The invention relates further to an assistance system (2) of a motor vehicle.

Claims

1-10. -10. (canceled)

11. A method of operating an assistance system of a motor vehicle for detecting a polygon traffic sign having a number of edges, comprising steps:

with a camera, detecting an image of the traffic sign;

with a computing unit of the assistance system, analyzing the image of the traffic sign and thereby determining first line segments in the image of the traffic sign, wherein the number of the first line segments is smaller than the number of edges of the traffic sign; and

with the computing unit, identifying a reproduction of the traffic sign based on and dependent on the first line segments that were determined.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the analyzing of the image of the traffic sign comprises performing a gradient method to determine the first line segments in the image.

13. The method according to claim 11, wherein the number of edges of the traffic sign minus one specifies the number of the first line segments.

14. The method according to claim 11, further comprising, with the computing unit, defining a region within the image, determining a number of second line segments in the region, and then performing the determining of the first line segments by selecting the first line segments from among the second line segments.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein all substantially horizontal line segments and all substantially vertical line segments within the region in the image of the traffic sign are determined as the second line segments.

16. The method according to claim 14, wherein the region in the image of the traffic sign comprises a plurality of rectangular shapes.

17. The method according to claim 16, further comprising changing respective sizes of the rectangular shapes.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the rectangular shapes are arranged in a U-shape with respect to one another to form the region.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the U-shape is an upside-down U-shape, wherein the plurality of rectangular shapes comprises one horizontally extending rectangular shape and two vertically extending rectangular shapes, and wherein the horizontally extending rectangular shape is located above the vertically extending rectangular shape, to form the region.

20. The method according to claim 16, wherein respective ones of the first line segments are respectively assigned to or located within respective ones of the rectangular shapes.

21. An assistance system of a motor vehicle for detecting a polygon traffic sign having a number of edges, said assistance system comprising:

a camera configured and adapted to detect an image of the traffic sign, and

a computing unit that is configured and adapted to analyze the image of the traffic sign and thereby determine first line segments in the image of the traffic sign, wherein the number of the first line segments is smaller than the number of edges of the traffic sign, and that is configured and adapted to identify a reproduction of the traffic sign based on and dependent on the first line segments that were determined.