Automatic travelling apparatus
First Claim
1. An automatic travelling apparatus for a vehicle, comprising:
- an image pickup device attached to the vehicle;
means for presetting course information as to which way of a cross or branch in a road travelled by the vehicle that the vehicle shall take;
means responsive to detection of a crossing or branch appearing ahead of the vehicle for outputting relevant course information;
means for identifying the crossing or branch appearing ahead of the vehicle on the basis of images taken by the image pickup device and showing the sight of the area extending ahead of the vehicle; and
means for reading the relevant course information outputted and controlling the vehicle with reference to the information of the identified crossing or branch so as to permit the vehicle to take the preset course of the crossing or branch in the road.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An automatic travelling apparatus which permits: determination of a permissible travelling area on the basis of images taken by an image pickup device or video camera, showing the sight of the area appearing ahead of the vehicle; steering control of the vehicle to go into a target course in the permissible travelling area; and selection of a predetermined way of a selected crossing or branch in the target course.
For the image pickup device or video camera taking images of the area extending ahead of the vehicle for determining a permissible travelling area, a wide-angle camera, a telescopic range camera and an ordinary camera are selectively used to meet particular situations for example, taking pictures of a crossing, zigzag way or straight long way. This selective use of cameras of different characteristics permits correct identification of particular roads with those stored in the map storage.
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Citations
5 Claims
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1. An automatic travelling apparatus for a vehicle, comprising:
- an image pickup device attached to the vehicle;
means for presetting course information as to which way of a cross or branch in a road travelled by the vehicle that the vehicle shall take;
means responsive to detection of a crossing or branch appearing ahead of the vehicle for outputting relevant course information;
means for identifying the crossing or branch appearing ahead of the vehicle on the basis of images taken by the image pickup device and showing the sight of the area extending ahead of the vehicle; and
means for reading the relevant course information outputted and controlling the vehicle with reference to the information of the identified crossing or branch so as to permit the vehicle to take the preset course of the crossing or branch in the road.
- an image pickup device attached to the vehicle;
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2. An automatic travelling apparatus for a vehicle, comprising:
- an image pickup device attached to the vehicle for taking images of the area extending ahead of the vehicle;
means for identifying the road with reference to the images taken by the image pickup device;
means for steering the vehicle so as to permit the running vehicle to follow the identified road;
means for setting information indicating particulars of roads to follow;
means responsive to detection of a particular road for outputting relevant information; and
means for selecting an image-taking characteristic of the image pickup device with reference to the information outputted. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4)
- an image pickup device attached to the vehicle for taking images of the area extending ahead of the vehicle;
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5. A method for automatically controlling the travel of a vehicle along a road comprising the steps of:
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detecting images of an area extending ahead of the vehicle; presetting course information as to a desired direction of a crossing or branch in the road travelled by the vehicle that the vehicle is desired to take; detecting a crossing or branch appearing ahead of the vehicle; identifying the crossing or branch in the road appearing ahead of the vehicle on a basis of images detected and showing the sight of the area extending ahead of the vehicle; and reading the relevant course information outputted and controlling the vehicle with reference to the information of the identifying crossing or branch so as to permit the vehicle to take the desired direction of the crossing or branch in the road.
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Specification