Systems And Arrangements For Providing Situational Awareness To An Operator Of A Vehicle

• US 20080042812A1
• Filed: 08/16/2006
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dunsmoir, John W., Walton, Carol S., Jambunathan, Sivakumar, Kinstler, Sheryl S., Barnes, Thomas H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,633,383 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/435
• 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: G08G 1/165 for passive traffic, e.g. including static obstacles, trees
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes

Abstract

Vehicular situational awareness systems, method and arrangements are disclosed herein. In one embodiment digitized video can be acquired by a camera on a vehicle, and utilizing pixel differentiation at least one area of interest in the digitized video can be identified. The area of interest could be, for example, a group of pixels that represent another vehicle, a sign etc. Attribute information for the area of interest, such as size, movement etc of an object, can be acquired and then it can be determined if the attribute information is significant enough or important enough to set an alarm condition and notify the driver.

Claims

1. A method for providing situational awareness comprising:

acquiring digitized video proximate to a vehicle;

utilizing pixel differentiation to locate at least one area of interest in at least one frame of the digitized video;

determining attribute information of the at least one area of interest; and

determining if the attribute information is sufficient enough to set an alarm condition.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining whether the at least one area of interest represents an edge of an object.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising determining whether the area of interest comprises a moving object

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining whether the area of interest is a perceived threat and activating an alarm condition when it is determined that the area of interest is a perceived safety threat.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the alarm condition comprise a verbal warning.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining whether the attribute information can provide situational awareness information and activating a speaker to provide audio of the attribute information.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising locating a point at infinity and determining if the pixel differentiation is moving in relation to the point.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising determining pixel differentiations to a left of the point at infinity are moving in a similar manner to pixel differentiations on a right side of the point at infinity.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising locating an intersection of two edges utilizing pixel differentiation.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising determining if the intersection is an edge of a tire.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising determining if the intersection of the edge comprises an edge of a spot of light created by a headlight on pavement ahead of an oncoming car.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing optical character recognition on the attribute to convert the attribute to text and converting the text to speech to provide a verbal expression of the attribute.

13. A situational awareness system comprising:

a camera;

a pixel differentiation module to identify an area of interest in a video frame having pixel differentiation;

a pixel group tracking module to track movement of the area of interest in successive video frames and to acquire situational awareness information; and

an alarm system to determine if the situational awareness information meets a usefulness threshold and when the situational awareness information meets the usefulness threshold to create situational awareness information.

14. The system of claim 13 further comprising a pixel group movement predictor to predict movement of the area of interest and to predict an impact of an object represented by the area of interest.

15. The system of claim 13 further comprising an alarm system to provide a warning signal in response to the based on the predicted impending danger.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the pixel differentiation module comprises one of a point detector, an edge detector and an edge intersection detector.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the pixel group tracking module determines a point at infinity and utilizes the point at infinity to determine moving edges.

18. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

acquire digitized video;

utilize pixel differentiation to locate at least one area of interest in at least one frame of the digitized video;

determine attribute information of the at least one area of interest; and

determine if the attribute information warrants an alarm condition.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, further comprising a computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to determine if the attribute information represents a moving object.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, further comprising a computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to determine whether the moving object is a collision threat and to create an alarm condition when there is a perceived collision threat.

21. A method for providing situational awareness comprising:

acquiring digitized video representing at least one attribute of an object;

utilizing a point at infinity to determine if the at least one attribute is moving in relation to the earth;

determining if at least a portion of the object attribute represents a threat; and

triggering an alarm if the at least a portion of the object presents a threat.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising determining a velocity of the object.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising projecting a path of the object.

24. The method of claim 21, further comprising using pixel differentiation to locate an edge attribute.

25. The method of claim 21, further comprising scanning at least one edge of the object to locate a point of interest.

27. The method of claim 21 wherein the at least one attribute is an edge of a headlight beam reflecting off of pavement.

28. The method of claim 21 wherein the at least one attribute is an edge of a tire.

26. The method of 21, wherein the threat is a collision threat.