LANE DEPARTURE WARNING SYSTEM AND LANE DEPARTURE WARNING METHOD

• US 20140002655A1
• Filed: 07/01/2013
• Published: 01/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: LG Innotek Company Limited (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Innotek Company Limited (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: WOO, Jeong Woo, KIM, Ki Dae, MANOHAR, Babu, GUPTA, Raghubansh B.
• Application Number:
  US13/932,139
• Publication Number:
  US 20140002655A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/148
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/588 Recognition of the road, e.g. of lane markings; Recognition of the vehicle driving pattern in relation to the road
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/167 Driving aids for lane monitoring, lane changing, e.g. blind spot detection

Abstract

Disclosed are a lane departure warning system and a lane departure warning method. The lane departure warning system includes an image photographing unit attached to a front of a vehicle to photograph an object in a forward direction of the vehicle; a driving unit that receives image data from the image photographing unit to search for a lane pair by filtering the image data using a predetermined mask, and calculates a time of lane change from the lane pair to the vehicle to generate a warning generating signal; and a warning unit receiving the warning generating signal to generate a lane departure warning signal.

Claims

1. A lane departure warning system comprising:

an image photographing unit attached to a front of a vehicle to photograph an object in a forward direction of the vehicle;

a driving unit that receives image data from the image photographing unit to search for a lane pair by filtering the image data using a predetermined mask, and calculates a time of lane change from the lane pair to the vehicle to generate a warning generating signal; and

a warning unit receiving the warning generating signal to generate a lane departure warning signal.

2. The lane departure warning system of claim 1, wherein the driving unit comprises:

a preprocessing unit filtering the image data to extract candidate lane regions, and grouping the candidate lane regions based on features of the extracted candidate lane regions;

a lane searching unit searching for a lane pair from the grouped candidate lane regions from the preprocessing unit; and

a warning generating unit to calculate the time of lane change between the lane and the vehicle based on the lane pair in order to generate the warning generating signal.

3. The lane departure warning system of claim 2, wherein the driving unit further includes a lane tracking unit to track a current lane pair based on the lane pair of previous image data.

4. The lane departure warning system of claim 3, wherein the preprocessing unit selects a region of interest having a predetermined size from the image data to process data of the selected region of interest.

5. The lane departure warning system of claim 4, wherein the preprocessing unit places the mask to a left and a right of a corresponding pixel of pixels in the region of interest to extract pixels in the mask as the candidate lane region when the pixels have an average data value greater than a threshold value.

6. The lane departure warning system of claim 5, wherein a size of the mask is variable.

7. The lane departure warning system of claim 6, wherein the size of the mask is increased along a vertical axis of the region of interest.

8. The lane departure warning system of claim 2, wherein the preprocessing unit compares a gradient, a bottom intersection point and a top intersection point of the candidate lane region with each other to group a plurality of candidate lane regions.

9. The lane departure warning system of claim 4, wherein the preprocessing unit enhances the image data in the region of interest to emphasize the feature.

10. The lane departure warning system of claim 9, wherein the enhancement of the image data is performed by applying a CLAHE algorithm.

11. The lane departure warning system of claim 2, wherein the lane searching unit acquires the lane pair by searching for the lane pair, and calculates a curvature of the lane pair to store curve data.

12. The lane departure warning system of claim 2, wherein the lane tracking unit acquires the lane pair by estimating the lane pair when the lane region group does not exist.

13. A lane departure warning method comprising:

photographing an object in a forward direction of a vehicle to generate image data;

selecting a lane region group by dividing the image data using a predetermined mask and filtering the divided image data;

searching for a lane pair in the lane region group;

tracking the lane pair in a current frame based on the lane pair when the lane pair exists in the lane region group; and

generating a warning signal according to a time of lane change by calculating the time of lane change from the lane pair to the vehicle.

14. The lane departure warning method of claim 13, wherein the selecting of the lane region group includes:

selecting a region of interest having a predetermined size from the image data;

extracting pixels having an average data value greater than a threshold value in the mask as the candidate lane region by placing the mask to a left and a right of a corresponding pixel of pixels in the region of interest; and

generating the lane region group by grouping the candidate lane region based on a feature of the candidate lane region.

15. The lane departure warning method of claim 14, wherein the feature of the candidate lane region includes a gradient, a bottom intersection point and a top intersection point.

16. The lane departure warning method of claim 13, wherein the candidate lane region is generated by varying a size of the mask.

17. The lane departure warning method of claim 13, wherein the extracting of the candidate lane region further includes enhancing the image data of the region of interest.

18. The lane departure warning method of claim 13, wherein the searching of the lane pair includes:

selecting the lane pair by comparing information about features of the lane region group with each other;

acquiring the lane pair by comparing the selected lane pairs with lane pairs of previous frames; and

storing curve data by calculating a curvature of the lane pair.

19. The lane departure warning method of claim 13, wherein the tracking of the lane pair includes acquiring the lane pair by estimating the lane pair when the lane region group does not exist.

20. The lane departure warning method of claim 13, where the region of interest in the tracking of the lane pair has a size less than a size of the region of interest in the searching of the lane pair.