Vehicle headlight state monitoring methods, systems and processor-readable media
First Claim
1. A method for monitoring usage of headlights of a vehicle, said method comprising:
- converting an image of a vehicle into a grayscale age via a gray scale converting unit;
processing said grayscale image via an image-processing unit and a headlight region identifying unit to locate a front license plate of said vehicle to identify an area of said vehicle where said headlights are most likely to be located, said headlight region identifying unit comprising said gray scale converting unit; and
comparing an average digital count with respect to a brightness of said headlight region to an average digital count with respect to a brightness of a plurality of parts of said vehicle and a background region to determine an ON status and an OFF status of the headlights associated with said vehicle.
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Abstract
A video-based vehicle headlight state monitoring method and system. A vehicle image can be captured by an image-capturing unit and converted to a grayscale image. The grayscale image can be processed to locate a front license plate and identify a position of a headlight region in front of the vehicle utilizing an algorithm. An average digital count with respect to brightness of the headlight region can be compared with average digital count with respect to brightness of several parts of the vehicle and a background region to determine the vehicle headlights ON/OFF status. The headlights can be considered ON if the digital count level of the headlight region is higher than the digital count of the several parts of the vehicle and the background region. A warning signal can be initiated to turn the headlights on during a special situation utilizing a signal generator.
46 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for monitoring usage of headlights of a vehicle, said method comprising:
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converting an image of a vehicle into a grayscale age via a gray scale converting unit; processing said grayscale image via an image-processing unit and a headlight region identifying unit to locate a front license plate of said vehicle to identify an area of said vehicle where said headlights are most likely to be located, said headlight region identifying unit comprising said gray scale converting unit; and comparing an average digital count with respect to a brightness of said headlight region to an average digital count with respect to a brightness of a plurality of parts of said vehicle and a background region to determine an ON status and an OFF status of the headlights associated with said vehicle. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system for monitoring usage of headlights of a vehicle, said system comprising:
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a processor; a data bus coupled to said processor; and a non-transitory computer-usable medium embodying computer program code, said computer-usable medium being coupled to said data bus, said computer program code comprising instructions executable by said processor and configured for; converting an image of a vehicle into a grayscale image via a gray scale converting unit; processing said grayscale image via an image-processing unit and a headlight region identifying unit to locate a front license plate of said vehicle to identify an area of said vehicle where said headlights are most likely to be located, said headlight region identifying unit comprising said gray scale converting unit; and comparing an average digital count with respect to a brightness of said headlight region to an average digital count with respect to a brightness of a plurality of parts of said vehicle and a background region to determine an ON status and an OFF status of the headlights associated with said vehicle. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions to cause a process for monitoring usage of headlights of a vehicle, said code comprising code to:
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convert an image of a vehicle into a grayscale image via a gray scale converting unit; process said grayscale image via an image-processing unit and a headlight region identifying unit to locate a front license plate of said vehicle to identify an area of said vehicle where said headlights are most likely to be located, said headlight region identifying unit comprising said gray scale converting unit; and compare an average digital count with respect to a brightness of said headlight region to an average digital count with respect to a brightness of a plurality of parts of said vehicle and a background region to determine an ON status and an OFF status of the headlights associated with said vehicle. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification