DRIVING ASSISTANCE DEVICE, DRIVING ASSISTANCE METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20090265061A1
• Filed: 11/09/2007
• Published: 10/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. (Aisin Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. (Aisin Corp.)
• Inventors: Sato, Kosuke, Kuboyama, Tsuyoshi, Otokawa, Masaya, Kadowaki, Jun, Watanabe, Kazuya, Tanaka, Yu
• Application Number:
  US12/441,281
• Publication Number:
  US 20090265061A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/36
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/167 Driving aids for lane monitoring, lane changing, e.g. blind spot detection

Abstract

Driving assistance is provided to a vehicle driver in a manner that is easy to understand and at a low cost. At a driving assistance device (100), an image processing unit (103) sets a cut-out region within image data photographed by a camera (121) and extracts cut-out image data. A control unit (107) generates information indicating risk to the rear of the vehicle based on the position and speed of other vehicle measured by a distance measuring unit. The image processing unit (103) then outputs information indicating the cut-out image data and the risk to a monitor (123). The image processing unit (103) then moves the cut-out region to a direction in which a vehicle route has changed when a receiving unit (105) receives notification to the effect that the route of the vehicle has changed.

Claims

1. A driving assistance device comprising:

a photographing unit that photographs an image to the rear of a vehicle;

a driving information acquiring unit that acquires driving information indicating driving conditions of the vehicle;

a route determining unit that determines the presence or absence of a change of a vehicle route and a direction of the change of the vehicle route based on the driving information acquired by the driving information acquiring unit;

an extracting unit that extracts a prescribed region from an image taken by the photographing unit based on the direction of the change of the vehicle route determined by the route determining unit when the vehicle route is determined to have changed by the route determining unit; and

a display unit that displays the image extracted by the extracting unit.

2. The driving assistance device according to claim 1, further comprising an assistance information generating unit that generates assistance information for assisting a driver based on the driving information acquired by the driving information acquiring unit and the image taken by the photographing unit,

wherein the display unit displays the image extracted by the extracting unit and the assistance information generated by the assistance information generating unit.

3. The driving assistance device according to claim 1, wherein the driving information acquiring unit acquires information indicating whether the vehicle is within a prescribed distance range from road markings and information indicating a direction the vehicle approaches the road markings in as driving information, and the route determining unit determines whether the vehicle is changing route by determining whether or not the vehicle is within a prescribed distance range from the road markings, and determines the direction of the change of the vehicle route based on the direction the vehicle approaches the road markings in.

4. The driving assistance device according to claim 2, further comprising:

a storage unit that stores;

vehicle type information indicating a type of a vehicle; and

notification information for giving notification to a driver;

in a correlated manner, and

a vehicle type determining unit that determines the type of other vehicle to the rear of the vehicle based on the image taken by the photographing unit,

wherein the assistance information generating unit reads out the notification information corresponding to the type of the other vehicle determined by the vehicle type determining unit and generates the assistance information including the notification information.

5. The driving assistance device according to claim 2, wherein the assistance information generating unit generates guidelines that provide a guide of distance from the vehicle and information indicating a position of arrangement of the guidelines on the image extracted by the extracting unit as the assistance information.

6. The driving assistance device according to claim 5, further comprising a measuring unit that measures an inter-vehicular distance or a relative speed between the vehicle and the other vehicle,

wherein the assistance information generating unit generates information indicating the number, shape, size, color, and a position of arrangement of the guidelines based on the inter-vehicular distance or the relative speed measured by the measuring unit as the assistance information.

7. The driving assistance device according to claim 1, wherein the driving information acquiring unit acquires direction indication information that indicates which direction is being indicated by a direction indicator of the vehicle as the driving information, and

the route determining unit determines the direction of the change of the vehicle route based on the direction indication information.

8. The driving assistance device according to claim 1, wherein the driving information includes at least one of information indicating vehicle speed, information indicating acceleration, information indicating engine speed, information indicating that brakes are being applied, road guidance information, position information, traffic information, weather information, and road information.

9. A driving assistance method comprising:

a photographing step of photographing an image to the rear of a vehicle;

a driving information acquiring step of acquiring driving information indicating driving conditions of the vehicle;

a route determining step of determining the presence or absence of a change of a vehicle route and determining a direction of the change of the vehicle route based on the driving information acquired in the driving information acquiring step;

an extracting step of extracting a prescribed region from the image taken in the photographing step based on the direction of the change of the vehicle route determined in the route determining step when it is determined that the vehicle route has changed in the route determining step; and

a displaying step of displaying the image extracted in the extracting step.

10. A program enabling a computer to function as:

a photographing unit that photographs an image to the rear of a vehicle;

a driving information acquiring unit that acquires driving information indicating driving conditions of the vehicle;

a route determining unit that determines the presence or absence of a change of a vehicle route and a direction of the change of the vehicle route based on the driving information acquired by the driving information acquiring unit;

an extracting unit that extracts a prescribed region from an image taken by the photographing unit based on the direction of the change of the vehicle route determined by the route determining unit when the vehicle route is determined to have changed by the route determining unit; and

a display unit that displays the image extracted by the extracting unit.