Object location system for a road vehicle
First Claim
1. An object location system for identifying the location of objects positioned in front of a host road vehicle, the system comprising:
- a first sensing means including a transmitter adapted to transmit a signal in front of the host vehicle and a detector adapted to detect a portion of the transmitted signal reflected from a target;
an obstacle detection means adapted to identify the location of at least one obstacle or target using information obtained by the first sensing means;
an image acquisition means adapted to capture a digital image of at least a part of the road in front of the host vehicle;
an image processing means adapted to process a search portion of the digital image captured by the image acquisition means which includes the location of the target determined by the obstacle detection means, the area of the search portion being smaller than the area of the captures digital image; and
an obstacle processing means adapted to determine one or more characteristics of the identified target within the search portion of the image from the information contained in the search portion of the image.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An object location system for identifying the location of objects positioned in front of a host road vehicle (100), comprising: a first sensing means (101) such as a radar or lidar system which transmits a signal and receives reflected portions of the transmitted signal, obstacle detection means (103) adapted to identify the location of obstacles from information from the first sensing means (101); image acquisition means (102) such as a video camera adapted to capture a digital image of at least part of the road ahead of the host vehicle (100); image processing means (103) which processes a search portion of the captured digital image, the search portion including the location of obstacles indicated by the obstacle detection means (103) and being smaller than the captured digital image; and obstacle processing means which determine characteristics of detected obstacles. A method or using such a system is also disclosed.
87 Citations
24 Claims
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1. An object location system for identifying the location of objects positioned in front of a host road vehicle, the system comprising:
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a first sensing means including a transmitter adapted to transmit a signal in front of the host vehicle and a detector adapted to detect a portion of the transmitted signal reflected from a target;
an obstacle detection means adapted to identify the location of at least one obstacle or target using information obtained by the first sensing means;
an image acquisition means adapted to capture a digital image of at least a part of the road in front of the host vehicle;
an image processing means adapted to process a search portion of the digital image captured by the image acquisition means which includes the location of the target determined by the obstacle detection means, the area of the search portion being smaller than the area of the captures digital image; and
an obstacle processing means adapted to determine one or more characteristics of the identified target within the search portion of the image from the information contained in the search portion of the image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23)
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16. A method of determining one or more characteristics of an object located ahead of a host vehicle, the method comprising:
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transmitting a signal in front of the host vehicle and detecting a portion of the transmitted signal reflected from a target;
identifying the location of at least one obstacle ahead of the host vehicle from the reflected signal;
capturing a digital image of at least a part of the road ahead of the host vehicle;
processing a search area of the captured digital image which includes the location of the obstacle identified from the reflected signal, the area processed being smaller than the area of the captured digital image; and
determining one or more characteristics of the identified obstacle from the information contained in the processed image area. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24)
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Specification