Road surface division mark recognition apparatus, and lane departure prevention apparatus

• US 8,265,872 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2009
• Issued: 09/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: Kataoka, Hiroaki, Kageyama, Shioya
• Primary Examiner(s): Chen, Shelley
• Application Number:
  US12/554,434
• Publication Number:
  US 20100060738A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,103 Days
• Field of Search: 701/514
• US Class Current: 701/514
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/147 Details of sensors, e.g. sensor lenses fingerprint or palmprint sensors G06V40/13; vascular sensors G06V40/145; eye sensors G06V40/19
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/586 of parking space
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/588 Recognition of the road, e.g. of lane markings; Recognition of the vehicle driving pattern in relation to the road

Abstract

A road surface division mark recognition apparatus includes: a vehicle-mounted camera that takes an image of a road surface ahead of a vehicle; an image processing portion which has a plurality of image processing modes that correspond respectively to a plurality of kinds of road surface division marks, and which recognizes a road surface division mark in a selected image processing mode; a temperature measurement portion that measures the temperature of the vehicle-mounted camera; and a restriction portion that restricts the action of the vehicle-mounted camera if the temperature measured by the temperature measurement portion is higher than or equal to a threshold value. The threshold value differs between the image processing modes.

Claims

1. A road surface division mark recognition apparatus that recognizes a division mark on a road surface, comprising:

a vehicle-mounted camera that takes an image of the road surface;

an image processing portion which has a plurality of image processing modes that correspond respectively to a plurality of kinds of road surface division marks, which discerns the kind of the road surface division mark contained in the road surface image taken by the vehicle-mounted camera, which makes it possible to select, from the plurality of image processing modes, one image processing mode that corresponds to the road surface division mark discerned, and which recognizes the road surface division mark in the selected image processing mode;

a temperature measurement portion that measures temperature of the vehicle-mounted camera; and

a restriction portion that restricts action of the vehicle-mounted camera if the temperature measured by the temperature measurement portion is higher than or equal to a threshold value,

wherein the threshold value differs among the image processing modes.

2. The road surface division mark recognition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the restriction portion restricts the action of the vehicle-mounted camera by restricting supply of electric power to the vehicle-mounted camera.

3. The road surface division mark recognition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the threshold value is set lower when the image processing mode is a Botts'"'"' dots recognition mode than when the image processing mode is a division line recognition mode.

4. The road surface division mark recognition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing portion, after discerning the kind of the road surface division mark, selects, from the plurality of image processing modes, the one image processing mode that corresponds to the road surface division mark discerned.