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Method and system for three-dimensional obstacle mapping for navigation of autonomous vehicles

  • US 7,974,460 B2
  • Filed: 02/06/2007
  • Issued: 07/05/2011
  • Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2007
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of obstacle mapping for navigation of an autonomous vehicle, the method comprising:

  • providing an autonomous vehicle with an image capturing device;

    focusing the image capturing device at a predetermined number of different specified distances to capture an image at each of the specified distances;

    identifying which regions in each captured image are in focus;

    assigning a corresponding lens-focus distance to each of the regions that are in focus;

    forming a composite image based on each captured image, with each of the regions labeled with the corresponding lens-focus distance; and

    producing a three-dimensional obstacle map from the composite image, wherein the three-dimensional obstacle map has an x, y, z coordinate system, with x being proportional to pixel horizontal position, y being proportional to pixel vertical position, and z being the lens-focus distance.

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