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Environment monitoring system

  • US 6,466,684 B1
  • Filed: 09/13/1999
  • Issued: 10/15/2002
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/14/1998
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An environment monitoring system for monitoring a relative relation between one'"'"'s own vehicle and another surrounding vehicle comprising:

  • image pick-up means for picking up two early and later successive images which are located at a front, rear or diagonal-rear position from one'"'"'s own vehicle at two early and later timings and on the basis of the images thus picked-up, detecting white lines of one'"'"'s own vehicle lane on which one'"'"'s own vehicle runs;

    monitoring region setting means for setting a monitoring region in one'"'"'s own vehicle lane or an adjacent lane on the basis of the white lines thus detected; and

    optical-flow detecting means for detecting an optical flow generated from another surrounding vehicle within the monitoring region, wherein the monitoring setting means includes;

    a small region dividing means for diving the early image into a plurality of small regions, an edge extracting means for extracting an edge which is an candidate of each the white lines for each the small regions using a virtual FOE for each the small regions acquired previously of the early image, a white line determining means for determining each the white lines on the basis of the edge extracted by the edge extracting means, and a virtual FOE estimating means for extending segments of white lines for each small region determined by the white line determining means to acquire a coordinate of a crossing point thereof and storing that of the virtual FOE for each the small regions whereby the virtual FOE is used to extract the edge for each the small regions of the later image.

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