Parking assist device

• US 7,706,944 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2005
• Issued: 04/27/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. (Aisin Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. (Aisin Corp.)
• Inventors: Kakinami, Toshiaki, Tanaka, Yu
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran; Khoi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Peche; Jorge O
• Application Number:
  US11/312,454
• Publication Number:
  US 20060136109A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,588 Days
• Field of Search: 701/41, 701/36, 180/199, 280/199, 340/932.2, 340/988, 382/103, 382/106
• US Class Current: 701/41
• CPC Class Codes: B60T 2201/10 Automatic or semi-automatic parking aid systems
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 10/20 including control of steering systems
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/04 Traffic conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/0275 by overlaying a vehicle path based on present steering angle over an image without processing that image
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/028 Guided parking by providing commands to the driver, e.g. acoustically or optically

Abstract

A parking assist device detecting a parking stall line from an image, which is captured by a capturing portion; setting a parking target position on the basis of the parking stall line; and assisting the vehicle to travel to the parking target position; the parking assist device includes a vehicle detecting portion for detecting a movement of the vehicle, a memorizing portion for memorizing the movement detected by the vehicle detecting portion, as a vehicle moving trajectory, a temporary parking target position estimating portion for assuming a temporary parking target position on the basis of variations of the vehicle moving trajectory, which has been memorized by the memorizing portion, and a parking stall line searching area setting portion for setting a parking stall line searching area, within which a parking stall line is searched on the basis of the temporary parking target position.

Claims

1. A parking assist device for assisting a vehicle to travel to a parking target position comprising:

a vehicle movement detector which detects movement of the vehicle;

a storage device which stores the movement detected by the vehicle movement detector as a vehicle moving trajectory stored at the storage device;

a temporary parking target position estimator which estimates a temporary parking target position based on variations of the vehicle moving trajectory; and

a parking stall line searching area setting device which sets a parking stall line searching area within which the parking stall line is searched on the basis of the temporary parking target position which is estimated;

a parking stall line detecting device which detects the parking stall line within the parking stall line searching area by an image recognition from an image captured by an imaging device; and

a parking target position setting device which sets the parking target position on the basis of the parking stall line;

wherein the parking stall line searching area setting device sets the parking stall line searching area so as to include a right parking stall line searching area in which a right parking stall line is detected, and a left parking stall line searching area in which a left parking stall line is detected;

the left parking stall line searching area and the right parking stall line searching area are set so as to be wider than a size of the parking stall line and so as not to include three parking stall lines or more.

2. The parking assist device according to claim 1, wherein the temporary parking target position estimator calculates a deflection angle of the vehicle based on the vehicle moving trajectory and sets the temporary parking target position based on the deflection angle.

3. The parking assist device according to claim 1, wherein the temporary parking target position estimator calculates a temporary stopping position, a vehicle deflection angle relative to the temporary stopping position and a vehicle moving distance, and sets a temporary parking target position based on the vehicle temporary stopping position, the vehicle deflection angle and the vehicle moving distance.

4. The parking assist device according to claim 1, further comprising a parking assist instruction switch which outputs a parking assist instruction, and when the parking assist instruction is input into the temporary parking target position estimator, the temporary parking target position estimator estimates the temporary parking target position.

5. The parking assist device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a guide route calculator which calculates a guide route by which the vehicle is guided to the parking target position;

an steering wheel operation amount calculator which calculates a steering wheel operation amount of the vehicle on the basis of the calculated guide route; and

a steering wheel controller, which automatically controls the steering wheel operation of the vehicle on the basis of the steering wheel operation amount which is calculated.

6. The parking assist device according to claim 3, further comprising a parking target position estimator which sets the parking target position when a shift lever is positioned to a reversed mode.

7. The parking assist device according to claim 1, wherein the right parking stall line searching area and the left parking stall line searching area are set to be larger respectively than an area of the right parking stall line and the left parking stall line.

8. The parking assist device according to claim 1, wherein the parking stall line searching area setting device sets a single parking stall line searching area so as to include the left parking stall line and the right parking stall line.

9. The parking assist device according to claim 8, wherein the parking stall line searching area setting device sets the parking stall line searching area so as to be larger than an area of the parking stall.

10. The parking assist device according to claim 1, wherein the parking stall line searching area setting device sets a portion of the image captured by the imaging device as the parking stall line searching area.