On-vehicle control device

• US 9,965,690 B2
• Filed: 11/21/2013
• Issued: 05/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Clarion Co., Ltd. (Faurecia SA)
• Original Assignee: Clarion Co., Ltd. (Faurecia SA)
• Inventors: Takemura, Masayuki, Ogata, Takehito, Ito, Satoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Mistry, Oneal R
• Application Number:
  US14/647,282
• Publication Number:
  US 20150302257A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,629 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/22 for viewing an area outside the vehicle, e.g. the exterior of the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/028 Guided parking by providing commands to the driver, e.g. acoustically or optically
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/0285 Parking performed automatically
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/811 by dust removal, e.g. from surfaces of the image sensor or processing of the image signal output by the electronic image sensor

Abstract

An on-vehicle control device includes: an image acquiring unit that acquires a captured image from an image-capturing device, the image-capturing device capturing an image of surroundings of a vehicle; a judged range dividing unit that divides a predetermined judged range of an image-capturing range of the image-capturing device into a plurality of regions; a feature point extracting unit that extracts a feature point having predetermined characteristics in the surroundings of the vehicle from the image acquired by the image acquiring unit; a point accumulating unit that accumulate points for a region where there is the feature point extracted by the feature point extracting unit, among the plurality of regions, for a plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring unit in time series; and a judging unit that judges whether a foreign matter is adhered to the image-capturing device based on scores resulting from accumulating points of the plurality of regions.

Claims

1. An on-vehicle control device, comprising:

a CPU; and

a memory coupled to the CPU, the memory storing a program executed by the CPU to acquire a captured image from an image-capturing device, the image-capturing device capturing an image of surroundings of a vehicle,

divide a predetermined judged range of an image-capturing range of the image-capturing device into a plurality of regions,

extract a feature having predetermined characteristics in the surroundings of the vehicle by analyzing the acquired image,

add points for a region that is determined to have the extracted feature therein, among the plurality of regions, for each of a plurality of images acquired in time series, and accumulate the points to produce scores representing accumulations of points for regions that have the extracted feature, wherein the extracted feature is a driving traffic lane line on a road;

judge whether a foreign matter is adhered to the image-capturing device based on the scores resulting from accumulating points of the plurality of regions, by determining the scores in the plurality of regions consecutively in order of a vehicle traveling direction; and

output a graphical display of the scores of the plurality of regions in the judged range to a display device in the vehicle to indicate a location of the foreign matter adhered to the image-capturing device.

2. The on-vehicle control device according to claim 1, wherein:

the CPU performs processing of accumulating points if the vehicle travels on a road at a speed equal to or higher than a predetermined speed.

3. The on-vehicle control device according to claim 2, wherein:

the CPU subtracts points from the accumulated scores if the vehicle travels on the road at a speed lower than the predetermined speed; and

the CPU judges whether a foreign matter is adhered to the image-capturing device, based on scores resulting from accumulating and subtracting points for the plurality of regions.

4. The on-vehicle control device according to claim 3, wherein:

if the vehicle travels on the road at a speed lower than the predetermined speed, the CPU gradually subtracts points, a number of which is smaller than a number of points to be accumulated if the vehicle travels on the road at a speed equal to or higher than the predetermined speed, from the accumulated scores, so that the accumulated scores are reset if the vehicle continues to travel at the speed lower than the predetermined speed.

5. The on-vehicle control device according to claim 1, wherein:

the CPU determines a maximum value and a mean value of the accumulated scores of consecutive regions in a vehicle traveling direction, among the plurality of regions in the judged range, and judges a region having an accumulated score lower than the maximum value by a first predetermined value or more and lower than the average value by a second predetermined value or more, as a region where a foreign matter is adhered, among the consecutive regions in the vehicle traveling direction.

6. The on-vehicle control device according to claim 1, wherein:

the CPU divides the judged range into a plurality of regions with reference to distance on a screen or distance on a road surface in a vehicle traveling direction, and with reference to distance on the road surface in a direction orthogonal to the vehicle traveling direction.