Periphery monitoring system

• US 6,636,148 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2001
• Issued: 10/21/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Ten Limited (DENSO Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Ten Limited (DENSO Corporation)
• Inventors: Higuchi, Takashi
• Primary Examiner(s): TRIEU, VAN THANH
• Application Number:
  US09/929,413
• Publication Number:
  US 20020027503A1
• Time in Patent Office: 799 Days
• Field of Search: 340/435, 340/436, 340/903, 340/904, 340/937, 180/167, 180/168, 180/169, 701/93, 701/96, 701/70, 701/300, 701/301
• US Class Current: 340/436
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0246 using a video camera in combination with image processing means
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0257 using a radar radar systems designed for anti-collision purposes between land vehicles or between land vehicle and fixed obstacles G01S13/931

Abstract

A periphery monitoring system of a first embodiment controlling the cruising of a mounted vehicle by judging which of a first region along a path of advance of the mounted vehicle, a second region near the outside of the first region, and a third region other than the first and second regions a target detected by a radar system is in; a periphery monitoring system of a second embodiment detecting an inspection plane based on an output of a television camera and radar system and judging a vehicle has cut in front when the time by which an inspection plane outside of the cruising lane reaches a boundary line is smaller than a certain threshold value; and a periphery monitoring system of a third embodiment detecting an inspection plane based on an output of a television camera and radar system and judging the range surrounded by inspection planes in which there is no target and the mounted vehicle can pass as an advance range.

Claims

1. A periphery monitoring system for use in a mounted vehicle having cruise control means, provided with:

target detecting means for detecting a target,

judging means for judging in which of a first region along a path of advance of said mounted vehicle, a second region comprised of a region near the outside of said first region, and a third region adjacent to the second region and outside of said first and second regions the target detected by said target detecting means is present, and

output means for outputting said target detection information output from said target detecting means to such cruise control means for controlling cruising of said mounted vehicle based on a result of judgement of said judging means.

2. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said output means outputs a relative speed and a relative distance of said target with respect to said mounted vehicle and does not output a lateral direction position of said target with respect to said mounted vehicle when it is judged that the target is in said first region by said judging means.

3. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said output means outputs a relative speed, a relative distance, and a lateral direction position of said target with respect to said mounted vehicle when it is judged that the target is in said second region by said judging means.

4. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1,

further provided with reliability calculating means for calculating a reliability of the target detection information output from said output means based on the result of judgement of said judging means, wherein

said output means outputs a relative speed, a relative distance, and a lateral direction position of said target with respect to said mounted vehicle and the reliability calculated by said reliability calculating means when it is judged that the target is in said third region by said judging means.

5. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1, further provided with hazard calculating means for calculating a degree of hazard of said target based on at least a relative speed, a relative distance, and a lateral direction position output from said output means.

6. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 5, wherein said output means outputs information on a highly hazardous target calculated by said hazard calculating means when a plurality of targets are detected by said target detecting means.

7. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1, further provided with width setting means for setting a width of said first region to be set in said judging means based on a predetermined parameter.

8. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 7, wherein said width setting means sets the width based on detection characteristics of said target detecting means.

9. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1,

wherein said target detecting means detects a presence of the target existing in front, a distance to the target, and a relative speed of movement of the target, and

said system being further provided with cut-in predicting means for predicting a cut-in of the target into a cruising lane of the mounted vehicle based on an output of said target detecting means.

10. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 9, wherein said target detecting means is provided with:

a milliwave radar for detecting a distance to the target existing in front and a relative speed of movement of said target; and

an image sensor for detecting the target existing in front.

11. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 10, wherein said cut-in predicting means is provided with:

edge extracting means for processing an output of said image sensor for extracting an edge of said target and

predicting means for predicting cut-in for an inspection plane generated by connecting edges having a mutual relationship among edges detected by said edge extracting means.

12. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 11, wherein said cut-in predicting means is provided with holding means for holding previous results of recognition when a previously recognized inspection plane is not currently recognized.

13. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 11, wherein said cut-in predicting means is further provided with:

boundary line detecting means for detecting a boundary line of a cruising lane of the mounted vehicle, and

predicted time calculating means for calculating a predicted time until the inspection plane existing outside the cruising lane of the mounted vehicle cuts into the cruising lane of the mounted vehicle whose boundary line has been detected, wherein

said output means further outputs cut-in information when said predicted time predicted by said predicted time calculating means is smaller than a predetermined threshold time.

14. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 13, wherein said output means is further provided with first threshold time setting means for setting the threshold time.

15. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 13, wherein said output means is further provided with second threshold time setting means for setting the threshold time as a decreasing function of the vehicle speed.

16. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 13, wherein said output means is further provided with third threshold time setting means for setting the threshold time as an increasing function of an inter-vehicle distance.

17. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1,

wherein said target detecting means detects an existence of the target existing in front, a distance to the target, and a relative speed of the target, and

said system being further provided with advance range determining means for determining a range to which the mounted vehicle may advance based on output of said target detecting means.

18. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 17, wherein said target detecting means is provided with:

a milliwave radar for detecting a distance to the target existing in front and a relative speed of movement of said target and

an image sensor for detecting the target existing in front.

19. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 18, wherein said advance range determining means is provided with:

edge extracting means for processing an output of said image sensor to extract an edge of the target; and

plane recognizing means for treating a plane as a no-advance plane when the target is detected by said milliwave radar on the plane generated by connecting edges extracted by said edge extracting means and when said target is not detected, but said plane cannot be passed through by the mounted vehicle and treating the plane as an advance plane when said plane can be passed through by said mounted vehicle.

20. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 19, wherein:

said edge extracting means is provided with reliability evaluating means for evaluating a reliability of an edge, and

outputs only the edge with the reliability evaluated by said reliability evaluating means higher than a predetermined threshold as an extracted edge.

21. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 19, wherein said advance range determining means is further provided with:

boundary line detecting means for detecting a boundary line of a cruising lane of the mounted vehicle, wherein

said output means further outputs a region surrounded by a line passing through an edge closest to the mounted vehicle and vertical to said boundary line detected by said boundary line detecting means and said boundary line as an advance range when said no-advance plane is in the cruising lane of the mounted vehicle, and further outputs another region surrounded by said edge or said no-advance plane and an intersection with the boundary line of the cruising lane of the mounted vehicle as the advance range when one edge of said no-advance plane is in the cruising lane of the mounted vehicle.

22. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 1, further provided with width setting means for setting a width of said first region to be set in said judging means based on a predetermined parameter.

23. A periphery monitoring system as set forth in claim 22, wherein said width setting means sets the width based on detection characteristics of said target detecting means.