DAMAGE RECOGNITION ASSIST SYSTEM

• US 20160144787A1
• Filed: 11/23/2015
• Published: 05/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Application Solutions (Electronics And Vision) Limited (Continental AG)
• Original Assignee: Application Solutions (Electronics And Vision) Limited (Continental AG)
• Inventors: Saward, Felix, Khafagy, Heba, Patel, Amit
• Granted Patent: US 9,672,440 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2021/0027 Post collision measures, e.g. notifying emergency services
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/0956 the prediction being responsive to traffic or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/14 Means for informing the driver, warning the driver or prompting a driver intervention
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/751 Comparing pixel values or logical combinations thereof, or feature values having positional relevance, e.g. template matching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2133 Recording or reproducing at a specific moment, e.g. time interval or time-lapse
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2145 of a sequence of images for selection of a single frame before final recording, e.g. from a continuous sequence captured before and after shutter-release
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/215 Recording a sequence of still pictures, e.g. burst mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3253 Position information, e.g. geographical position at time of capture, GPS data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

A damage recognition assist system of a vehicle, the system includes at least one vehicle camera adapted to provide a stream of camera frames including camera images of the vehicle'"'"'s surrounding and of areas or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis; a monitoring unit adapted to detect an imminent interaction of the vehicle with an external object and to identify areas or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis possibly affected by the detected interaction; a comparison unit adapted to compare recent camera images of the possibly affected areas or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis with previous camera images of the same areas included in reference camera frames to determine the state and level of damage of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis due to the detected interaction.

Claims

1. A damage recognition assist system of a vehicle, said system comprising:

at least one vehicle camera adapted to provide a stream of camera frames including camera images of the vehicle'"'"'s surrounding and of areas or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis;

a monitoring unit adapted to detect an imminent interaction of the vehicle with an external object and to identify areas or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis possibly affected by the detected interaction;

a comparison unit adapted to compare recent camera images of the possibly affected areas or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis with previous camera images of the same areas included in reference camera frames to determine the state and level of damage of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis due to the detected interaction.

2. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 1, further comprising a notification unit adapted to notify a driver of the vehicle about determined damaged areas and/or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis and/or other possibly affected components of the vehicle.

3. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 1, wherein a predetermined number of consecutive camera frames of the stream of camera frames provided by the at least one vehicle camera is stored periodically as reference camera frames in a memory.

4. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 1, wherein in response to a detected potential interaction with an external object and/or a detected collision with the external object camera images of the vehicle cameras are recorded for a predetermined time.

5. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 4, wherein the recorded camera images are processed by said monitoring unit to identify areas and/or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis and/or further components possibly affected by the detected interaction with the external object and/or to identify the external object'"'"'s characteristics.

6. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 5, wherein the identified external object'"'"'s characteristics comprise a speed, a size and/or a shape of the external object stored in a memory for further processing.

7. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 2, wherein the notification unit is adapted to display the recorded camera images of the determined damaged areas and/or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis.

8. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 1, wherein the monitoring unit is adapted to calculate an approximate speed and/or an approximate angle at which the external object collides with the vehicle'"'"'s chassis.

9. The damage recognition assist system according to claim 5, wherein the identified characteristics of the external object and/or the recorded camera images are evaluated by said monitoring unit to assess the damage caused by the interaction with the external object.

10. A method for performing a damage recognition of a damage of a vehicle'"'"'s chassis, said method comprising:

(a) detecting a potential interaction of the vehicle with at least one external object on the basis of camera images of the vehicle'"'"'s surrounding; and

(b) comparing recent camera images of areas of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis possibly affected by the detected interaction with previous camera images of the same areas included in reference camera images to determine a state and level of damage of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis and/or further components due to the detected interaction.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the driver of the vehicle is notified about determined damaged areas and/or parts of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis and/or other affected components of the vehicle.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein a predetermined number of consecutive camera frames of the stream of camera frames provided by the at least one vehicle camera is stored periodically as reference camera frames in a memory.

13. The method according to claim 10, wherein in response to a detected potential interaction with an external object and/or a detected collision with the external object camera images of the vehicle cameras are recorded for a predetermined time.

14. The method according to claim 10, wherein determined damaged areas and/or components of the vehicle'"'"'s chassis are notified to the driver of the vehicle.

15. The method according to claim 10, wherein the determined damaged areas and/or components are displayed using a three-dimensional vehicle model of the affected vehicle.

16. The method according to claim 10, wherein the external object is identified by evaluating the recorded camera images.

17. The method according to claim 10, wherein an interaction of the vehicle with the external object is detected by evaluating sensor data comprising image data generated by at least one vehicle camera and/or sensor data of at least one collision sensor.