DEVICE AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE DIRECTION, SPEED AND/OR DISTANCE OF VEHICLES

• US 20110080306A1
• Filed: 10/01/2010
• Published: 04/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Original Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Inventors: Schechora, Andreas, Nagy, Oliver, Leopold, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 8,497,783 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/935
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 13/045 with speed indication
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 3/38 using photographic means
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 3/68 using optical means, i.e. using infrared, visible, or ultraviolet light G01P3/80 takes precedence ; by reflection of waves G01S17/58
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/58 Velocity or trajectory determination systems; Sense-of-movement determination systems
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/04 using optical or ultrasonic detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/052 with provision for determining speed or overspeed speed measuring in general G01P
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/056 with provision for distinguishing direction of travel

Abstract

The invention relates to the determination of direction, speed and/or distance of vehicles on a roadway by means of a sensor, which operates according to the light-section procedure and is directed onto the roadway, for recording the surface contour of a vehicle, and an evaluation unit, which is connected to the sensor and determines the direction, speed and/or distance of the vehicles therefrom.

Claims

1. A device for determining a direction and/or speed of a vehicle on a roadway comprising:

a sensor, which operates according to a light-section procedure and is directed onto the roadway, for recording a surface contour of a vehicle; and

an evaluation unit, which is coupled to the sensor and determines the direction and/or speed of the vehicle from a displacement in the surface contour in two time-consecutive recordings.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the sensor comprises at least one light pattern projector, which projects a pattern of light onto the roadway from a first location;

and a camera, which records a projected pattern of light from a second location and records the surface contour of the vehicle from distortions thereof.

6. The device according to claim 3, wherein the light pattern projector is a laser or light-emitting diode emitter.

8. The device according to claim 3, wherein the camera is a traffic monitoring camera.

10. The device according to claim 1, wherein multiple adjacent devices are configured to work together in combination to follow the course of movements of vehicles.

2. A device for determining a distance between vehicles on a roadway comprising:

a sensor, which operates according to a light-section procedure and is directed onto a section of the roadway, for recording a surface contours of vehicles in the section of the roadway; and

an evaluation unit, which is coupled to the sensor and determines the distance between vehicles following one another from surface contours of the vehicles.

4. The device according to claim 2, wherein the sensor comprises at least one light pattern projector, which projects a pattern of light onto the roadway from a first location;

and a camera, which records a projected pattern of light from a second location and records the surface contour of the vehicle from distortions thereof.

5. The device according to claim 4, wherein a plurality of light pattern projectors are mounted consecutively on a ceiling of a tunnel, which project a grid of light recorded by a joint camera onto the roadway.

7. The device according to claim 4, wherein the light pattern projector is a laser or light-emitting diode emitter.

9. The device according to claim 4, wherein the camera is a traffic monitoring camera.

11. The device according to claims 2, wherein multiple adjacent sensors are actuated and scanned by the evaluation unit to follow the course of movements of the vehicle.

12. A method for determining a direction and/or speed of a vehicle on a roadway comprising:

a) projecting a pattern of light onto the roadway from a first location and recording a projected pattern of light from a second location to create a first recording of a surface contour of the vehicle from distortions of the pattern of light,

b) repeating step a) at a later time to create a second recording of the surface contour of the vehicle,

c) determining the direction and speed of the vehicle from the shift of its surface contour in the first and second recordings.

15. The method according to claim 12, wherein the projected pattern of light is recorded with a traffic monitoring camera.

13. A method for determining a distance between vehicles on a roadway comprising:

projecting a pattern of light onto a section of the roadway from at least one first location;

recording the projected pattern of light from a second location in order to detect a surface contour of a vehicle in the section of the roadway from distortions of the pattern of light; and

determining the distance between vehicles following one another in the section of the roadway from detected surface contours of the vehicles.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the pattern of light is a grid of light, which is projected onto the roadway by multiple consecutive light pattern projectors in the section of the roadway.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the projected pattern of light is recorded with a traffic monitoring camera.