Driving Assistance System And Vehicle

• US 20090268027A1
• Filed: 04/23/2009
• Published: 10/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sanyo Electric Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sanyo Electric Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Yang, Changhui
• Application Number:
  US12/428,726
• Publication Number:
  US 20090268027A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/148
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/00 Optical viewing arrangements; Real-time viewing arrangements for drivers or passengers using optical image capturing systems, e.g. cameras or video systems specially adapted for use in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/26 to the rear of the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/304 using merged images, e.g. merging camera image with stored images
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/607 from a bird's eye viewpoint
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/806 for aiding parking
• 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: G08G 1/167 Driving aids for lane monitoring, lane changing, e.g. blind spot detection

Abstract

A driving assistance system has: a bird'"'"'s eye conversion portion that projects mutually different first and second camera images from a camera portion onto a bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane parallel to the ground to convert them into first and second bird'"'"'s eye view images; a candidate region setting portion that compares the first and second bird'"'"'s eye view images to set a solid object candidate region on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane; and a solid object region estimation portion that detects, within the solid object candidate region, an unnecessary region to be excluded from a solid object region to estimate the solid object region from a remaining region obtained by excluding the unnecessary region from the solid object candidate region. The solid object region estimation portion detects the unnecessary region based on the positional relationship between a camera position, which is the position of the camera portion as projected on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane, and the positions of candidate pixels, which are pixels belonging to the solid object candidate region.

Claims

1. A driving assistance system that includes a camera portion fitted to a mobile object to shoot surroundings of the mobile object and that estimates, based on a camera image on a camera coordinate plane obtained from the camera portion, a solid object region, where image data of a solid object appears, in an image based on the camera image,

the driving assistance system comprising:

a bird'"'"'s eye conversion portion that projects mutually different first and second camera images from the camera portion onto a bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane parallel to the ground to convert the first and second camera images into first and second bird'"'"'s eye view images;

a candidate region setting portion that compares the first and second bird'"'"'s eye view images to set a solid object candidate region on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane; and

a solid object region estimation portion that detects, within the solid object candidate region, an unnecessary region to be excluded from the solid object region to estimate the solid object region from a remaining region obtained by excluding the unnecessary region from the solid object candidate region,

wherein the solid object region estimation portion detects the unnecessary region based on a positional relationship between a camera position, which is a position of the camera portion as projected on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane, and positions of candidate pixels, which are pixels belonging to the solid object candidate region.

2. The driving assistance system according to claim 1,

wherein the solid object region estimation portion detects the unnecessary region based on results of checking, for each candidate pixel, whether or not the candidate pixel belongs to the unnecessary region based on a difference between a direction linking the camera position to the position of the candidate pixel and a distribution direction of the solid object on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane.

3. The driving assistance system according to claim 2, wherein

the candidate pixels belonging to the solid object candidate region include first to Nth candidate pixels (where N is an integer of 2 or more),

when linking lines linking, on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane, the camera position to the first to Nth candidate pixels, respectively, are called first to Nth linking lines, directions of the first to Nth linking lines differ from one another, and

the solid object region estimation portion detects the distribution direction based on a length of the solid object candidate region along each linking line.

4. The driving assistance system according to claim 3,

wherein the solid object region estimation portion determines the length with respect to each linking line, and includes, in the distribution direction to be detected, a direction of a linking line corresponding to a greatest length.

5. The driving assistance system according to claim 1, wherein

the candidate pixels belonging to the solid object candidate region include first to Nth candidate pixels (where N is an integer of 2 or more),

when linking lines linking, on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane, the camera position to the first to Nth candidate pixels, respectively, are called first to Nth linking lines, directions of the first to Nth linking lines differ from one another, and

the solid object region estimation portion detects the unnecessary region based on a length of the solid object candidate region along each linking line.

6. The driving assistance system according to claim 5,

wherein the solid object region estimation portion determines the length with respect to each linking line, identifies a linking line with respect to which the length determined is smaller than a predetermined lower limit length, and detects the unnecessary region by recognizing that candidate pixels located on the identified linking line belong to the unnecessary region.

7. The driving assistance system according to claim 5, wherein

an object with a height equal to or greater than a predetermined reference height is dealt with as the solid object, and

the solid object region estimation portion detects the unnecessary region by checking, for each candidate pixel, whether or not the candidate pixel belongs to the unnecessary region by comparing a length of the solid object candidate region along the corresponding linking line and a smallest length of the solid object on the bird'"'"'s eye view coordinate plane based on the positional relationship and the reference height.

8. The driving assistance system according to claim 7, wherein

the smallest length is set one for each candidate pixel,

the smallest length for an ith candidate pixel (where i is a natural number equal to or less than N) is set based on a positional relationship between the position of the ith candidate pixel and the camera position, the reference height, and an installation height of the camera portion, and

the solid object region estimation portion compares a length of the solid object candidate region along an ith linking line corresponding to the ith candidate pixel with the smallest length set for the ith candidate pixel, and, if the former is smaller than the latter, judges that the ith candidate pixel belongs to the unnecessary region.

9. The driving assistance system according to claim 7, wherein

when the solid object candidate region is formed out of a plurality of candidate regions separate from one another,

the solid object region estimation portion determines, as the length of the solid object candidate region, a length of each candidate region, and, for each candidate region, compares the determined length with the smallest length to judge whether or not candidate pixels belonging to the candidate region belong to the unnecessary region.

10. A vehicle as a mobile object comprising the driving assistance system according to claim 1.