System for determining kind of vehicle and method therefor

• US 6,897,789 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2003
• Issued: 05/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Jin Tay Industries Co.
• Original Assignee: LG Industrial Systems Co., Ltd (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Lim, Dae-Woon
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Daniel J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Walk, Samuel J.
• Application Number:
  US10/391,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20030189500A1
• Time in Patent Office: 796 Days
• Field of Search: 340/928, 340/933, 340/937, 701/117, 348/148, 348/149
• US Class Current: 340/937
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0175 by photographing vehicles, e.g. when violating traffic rules
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/04 using optical or ultrasonic detectors

Abstract

A system for determining a kind of vehicle and a method therefore, including a vehicle detection unit for detecting a vehicle which reaches to a vehicle detection region on a roadway, a wheel shaft number counting unit for counting a number of wheel shafts of the detected vehicle, an image photographing unit for photographing a front or rear image of the detected vehicle and a vehicle kind determination unit for yielding distances and widths of the tires of the detected vehicle on the basis of the photographed image from the image photographing unit and determining the kind of the vehicle on the basis of the number of wheel shafts detected from the wheel shaft counting unit and the yielded distance and width values can precisely determine the kind of vehicle traveling the roadway.

Claims

1. A system for determining a kind of vehicle, comprising:

a vehicle detector that detects a vehicle in a vehicle detection region on a roadway;

a wheel shaft number counter that counts a number of wheel shafts of the detected vehicle;

an image photographing unit that photographs one of a front and a rear image of the detected vehicle; and

a vehicle kind determiner that determines distances and widths of tires of the detected vehicle based on the photographed image from the image photographing unit and determines the kind of the vehicle based on the number of wheel shafts detected by the wheel shaft number counter and the determined distance and width values.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an image acquirer that operates the image photographing unit when a vehicle reaching the vehicle detection region is detected and outputs the image photographed from the image photographing unit.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle detector comprises one of optical sensors and laser sensors.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the wheel shaft number counter comprises laser sensors.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle kind determiner comprises:

a vehicle borderline detector that detects a borderline of the vehicle from one of the front and the rear image of the vehicle photographed by the image photographing unit;

an image binarizing unit that binarizes an image of the detected borderline;

a tire region detector that detects at least one tire region of the vehicle based on the binary-coded image; and

a tire distance/width determiner that determines the distances and the widths of the tires from the at least one detected tire region;

the vehicle kind determiner determining the kind of the vehicle by comparing the determined distance and width and the number of the counted wheel shafts with a stored vehicle kind classification table.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the tire distance/width determiner determines distances between inner and outer sides of two tires of the vehicle and a width of each tire.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle kind determiner comprises:

a communication port that receives the number of wheel shafts counted by the wheel shaft number counting counter;

an image acquisition device that operates the image photographing unit when the vehicle is detected by the vehicle detector and outputting one of the front and the rear image of the vehicle photographed by the image photographing unit;

a memory for storing one of the front and the rear image of the vehicle output from the image acquisition device;

a central processing unit that determines the distances and widths of the tires of the detected vehicle based on one of the front and the rear image of the vehicle stored in the memory and determines the kind of vehicle in the vehicle detection region by comparing the number of counted wheel shafts received from the wheel shaft number counter through the communication port and the determined distance and width with a pre-stored vehicle kind classification table.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein, the image acquisition device comprises:

a trigger board that operates the image photographing unit when the vehicle is detected by the vehicle detector; and

a frame grabber that stores an image photographed by the image photographing unit in the memory.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the central processing unit comprises:

a vehicle borderline detector that detects a borderline of the vehicle from one of the front and the rear image of the vehicle stored in the memory;

an image binarizing unit for binarizing a borderline image detected from the vehicle borderline detector;

a tire region detector that detects at least one tire region of the vehicle based on the image binary-coded from the image binarizing unit;

a tire distance/width determiner that determines inner and outer distances of the tires of the vehicle based on the tire region detected by the tire region detector and determines the widths of the tires; and

a communicator that receives the number of wheel shafts counted by the wheel shaft number counter;

the vehicle kind determiner determining the kind of the vehicle by comparing the distance and width values output from the tire distance/width determiner and the number of wheel shafts received through the communicator with the vehicle kind classification table.

10. A method for determining a kind of vehicle, comprising:

counting a number of wheel shafts of a vehicle on a roadway using an optical sensor;

determining a distance between tires and a width of at least one tire of the vehicle based on a photographed image; and

determining the kind of vehicle by comparing the counted number of wheel shafts of the vehicle and the determined distance and width values with a vehicle kind classification table.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the distance and width comprises:

detecting a borderline image of the vehicle from the photographed image;

binarizing the borderline image;

detecting at least one tire region of the vehicle based on the binary coded image; and

determining the distance and width based on at least one detected tire region.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the distance and width based on the at least one detected tire region comprise determining a distance between an inner side of a first tire and an outer side of a second tire of the vehicle and determining a width of the tires based on the determined distance.