Obstacle detection method and system, particularly for systems for assisting the parking of vehicles

• US 7,358,850 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2005
• Issued: 04/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: META Systems (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: META Systems (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Simonazzi, Giuseppe
• Primary Examiner(s): Swarthout; Brent A.
• Application Number:
  US11/226,257
• Publication Number:
  US 20060087415A1
• Time in Patent Office: 943 Days
• Field of Search: 340/903, 340/904, 340/436, 340/933, 340/943, 340/932.2, 367/99, 342/118
• US Class Current: 340/435
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/931 of land vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2015/932 for parking operations

Abstract

An obstacle detection method and system, particularly for car parking systems comprising emitting ultrasound signals at a plurality of sensors, receiving echo signals returned by at least one obstacle, performing a parametric evaluation of the received signals, determining, for each sensor, the distance between the sensor and an obstacle detected by it, associating with each sensor a value of the distance from the obstacle detected by it; determining a value corresponding to the minimum detected distance and replacing it with the sum value between a minimum distance and a priority threshold value; assigning to the sensor that detected the minimum distance a priority status; and defining a sensor polling cycle that polls more frequently a priority status sensor than non-prioritized sensors.

Claims

1. An obstacle detection method, comprising the steps of:

a) providing emission of ultrasound signals at a plurality of sensors;

b) providing reception of echo signals returned by at least one obstacle and performing a parametric evaluation of received signals, and determining, for each sensor, a distance from the sensor to an obstacle detected by the sensor;

c) associating with each sensor a value of the distance from the obstacle detected by the sensor;

d) determining a value that corresponds to a minimum detected distance and replacing the value with a further value equal to a sum of said minimum distance value and a priority threshold value;

e) assigning to a sensor that detected said minimum distance a priority status; and

f) defining a cycle for polling the sensors, which polls more frequently a sensor that has a priority status with respect to sensors that do not have a priority status.

2. The obstacle detection method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

g) updating, at each polling cycle, distances from the obstacles detected by the sensor;

h) determining whether at least one of the detected distances is shorter than the sum of the minimum distance value and the priority threshold value;

i) assigning to respective sensor a priority status in addition to sensors that already have priority status; and

j) redefining a polling cycle so as to poll more frequently sensors that have a priority status with respect to the sensors that do not have a priority status.

3. The obstacle detection method of claim 2, wherein during the polling cycle the sensors that failed to detect an echo signal are excluded for a preset number of cycles greater than zero.