Safety system for a vehicle to detect and warn of a potential collision

• US 10,699,138 B2
• Filed: 11/06/2018
• Issued: 06/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MobilEye Vision Technologies Ltd. (Intel Corporation)
• Original Assignee: MobilEye Vision Technologies Ltd. (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Elimalech, Yaniv, Stein, Gideon
• Primary Examiner(s): Adams, Eileen M
• Application Number:
  US16/182,461
• Publication Number:
  US 20190073544A1
• Time in Patent Office: 602 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 9/008 for anti-collision purposes
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/24 in front of the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/30 characterised by the type of image processing
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/8093 for obstacle warning
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/58 Recognition of moving objects or obstacles, e.g. vehicles or pedestrians; Recognition of traffic objects, e.g. traffic signs, traffic lights or roads
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/582 of traffic signs
• 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: G08G 1/0112 from the vehicle, e.g. floating car data [FCD]
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0133 for classifying traffic situation
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0141 for traffic information dissemination
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0969 having a display in the form of a map
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/161 Decentralised systems, e.g. inter-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/163 involving continuous checking
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/167 Driving aids for lane monitoring, lane changing, e.g. blind spot detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/69 Control of means for changing angle of the field of view, e.g. optical zoom objectives or electronic zooming
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source

Abstract

A system mountable in a vehicle to provide object detection in the vicinity of the vehicle. The system includes a camera operatively attached to a processor. The camera is mounted externally at the rear of the vehicle. The field of view of the camera is substantially in the forward direction of travel of the vehicle along the side of the vehicle. Multiple image frames are captured from the camera. Yaw of the vehicle may be input or the yaw may be computed from the image frames. Respective portions of the image frames are selected responsive to the yaw of the vehicle. The image frames are processed to detect thereby an object in the selected portions of the image frames.

Claims

1. A method for processing reports received from vehicles,

receiving, from a first navigation system of a first vehicle, a first report, wherein the first report was generated by the first navigation system in response to an alert issued after detecting a first hazard in an environment of the first vehicle based on an analysis of image data collected by the first navigation system, and wherein the first report includes a first location of the first detected hazard and a first time associated with the first detected hazard, and the first location is determined by the first navigation system based at least in part on analysis of the image data collected by the first navigation system;

receiving, from a second navigation system of a second vehicle, a second report, wherein the second report was generated by the second navigation system in response to an alert issued after detecting a second hazard in an environment of the second vehicle based on an analysis of image data collected by the second navigation system, and wherein the second report includes a second location of the second detected hazard and a second time associated with the second detected hazard;

analyzing the first report and the second report to determine that the first report and the second report identify a related hazard;

aggregating the first report and the second report into a consolidated report; and

processing the consolidated report to identify a root cause and a contributing factor of the related hazard.

2. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

providing, based on the processing of the consolidated report, a structured signature to identify the root cause and the contributing factor of the related hazard.

3. The method of claim 2, the method further comprising:

storing, based on the processing of the consolidated report, a reaction report associated with the structured signature in a memory.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the related hazard includes at least one of a bicyclist, a motorcyclist, a vehicle, a pedestrian, a child riding on a toy vehicle, a wheelchair user, a structural barrier, a traffic sign, a tree, a wall, and a pole.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the contributing factor includes at least one of information and circumstances that contribute to the identification of the related hazard.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the root cause is identified to be associated with a specific cause or with a plurality of related causes.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the processed reports include information about the type of hazard that was detected.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the processed reports include one or more captured images that are associated with the detected hazards, the one or more captured images including images of an incident or a potential incident which triggered the alerts.

9. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

displaying an indication on a map at a location, the indication associated with a number or density of reported detected hazards or issued alerts, and the map being displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI).

10. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

updating a counter that displays a number of events or generated reports on a client device, based on a number of detected hazards or issued alerts of the same type that are associated with a certain location or area in a map.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first location is further based on a GPS signal associated with the location of the alert issued after detecting the first hazard.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

processing, based on an analysis of the image data collected by the first and the second navigation systems, a plurality of image frames to detect a first object depicted in at least a portion of a first image frame associated with the first detected hazard and to detect a second object depicted in at least a portion of a second image frame associated with the second detected hazard; and

analyzing the first report and the second report to determine that the first report and the second report identify a related hazard, based on a comparison of at least the portion of the first image depicting the first object and the portion of the second image frame depicting the second object.

13. A system for processing reports received from vehicles, the system including a server operable to:

receive, from a first navigation system of a first vehicle, a first report, wherein the first report was generated by the first navigation system in response to an alert issued after detecting a first hazard in an environment of the first vehicle based on an analysis of image data collected by the first navigation system, and wherein the first report includes a first location of the first detected hazard and a first time associated with the first detected hazard, and the first location is determined by the first navigation system based at least in part on analysis of the image data collected by the first navigation system;

receive, from a second navigation system of a second vehicle, a second report, wherein the second report was generated by the second navigation system in response to an alert issued after detecting a second hazard in an environment of the second vehicle based on an analysis of image data collected by the second navigation system, and wherein the second report includes a second location of the second detected hazard and a second time associated with the second detected hazard;

analyze the first report and the second report to determine that the first report and the second report identify a related hazard;

aggregate the first report and the second report into a consolidated report; and

process the consolidated report to identify a root cause and a contributing factor of the related hazard.

14. The system of claim 13, the system further operable to:

provide, based on the processing of the consolidated report, a structured signature to identify the root cause and the contributing factor of the related hazard.

15. The system of claim 14, the system further operable to:

store, based on the processing of the consolidated report, a reaction report associated with the structured signature in a memory.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the related hazard includes at least one of a bicyclist, a motorcyclist, a vehicle, a pedestrian, a child riding on a toy vehicle, a wheelchair user, a structural barrier, a traffic sign, a tree, a wall, and a pole.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the contributing factor includes at least one of information and circumstances that contribute to the identification of the related hazard.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the root cause is identified to be associated with a specific cause or with a plurality of related causes.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein the processed reports include information about the type of hazard that was detected.

20. The system of claim 13, wherein the processed reports include one or more captured images that are associated with the detected hazards, the one or more captured images including images of an incident or a potential incident which triggered the alerts.

21. The system of claim 13, the system further operable to:

display an indication on a map at a location, the indication associated with a number or density of reported detected hazards or issued alerts, and the map being displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI).

22. The system of claim 13, the system further operable to:

update a counter that displays a number of events or generated reports on a client device, based on a number of detected hazards or issued alerts of the same type that are associated with a certain location or area in a map.

23. The system of claim 13, wherein the first location is further based on a GPS signal associated with the location of the alert issued after detecting the first hazard.

24. The system of claim 13, wherein the server is further operable to:

process, based on an analysis of the image data collected by the first and the second navigation systems, a plurality of image frames to detect a first object depicted in at least a portion of a first image frame associated with the first detected hazard and to detect a second object depicted in at least a portion of a second image frame associated with the second detected hazard; and

analyze the first report and the second report to determine that the first report and the second report identify a related hazard, based on a comparison of at least the portion of the first image depicting the first object and the portion of the second image frame depicting the second object.