Nissan Motor Company Limited

Hidekazu Nishiuchi

Jun Matsumoto

Hiroshi Satoh

Ichiro Yamaguchi

Takahiko Oki

Yosuke Matsuno

Haruo Matsuo

Daiki Yamanoi

Toshiyuki Andou

Mitsunori Nakamura

Norihisa Hiraizumi

Shinichi Nishioka

Kouki Mitsuishi

A self-position calculating apparatus includes: a light projectorconfigured to project a patterned light beamonto a road surfacearound a vehicle; and a cameraconfigured to capture an imageof the road surfacearound the vehicle including an area onto which the patterned light beamis projected. The self-position calculating apparatus calculates an orientation angle of the vehiclerelative to the road surfacefrom a position of the patterned light beamon the imageobtained by the camera, and calculates an amount of change in the orientation of the vehicle based on temporal changes in multiple feature points on the road surface which are detected from the image. The self-position calculating apparatus calculates current position and orientation angle of the vehicle by adding the amount of change in the orientation to initial position and orientation angle of the vehicle. If a condition under which the multiple feature points are detected does not satisfy a first criterion, the self-position calculating apparatus projects the patterned light beam

Self-position calculating apparatus and self-position calculating method

A self-position calculating apparatus includes: a light projector projecting a patterned light beam onto a road surface around a vehicle; and a camera capturing an image of the road surface including an area onto which the patterned light beam is projected. The apparatus calculates an orientation angle of the vehicle from a position of the patterned light beam, and calculate an amount of change in orientation based on temporal changes in multiple feature points on the road surface. The apparatus calculates current position and orientation angle by adding the amount of change to initial position and orientation angle. If a condition under which the multiple feature points are detected does not satisfy a first criterion, the apparatus sets the current position at that time and the orientation angle at the initial position and orientation, and starts adding the amount of change to the initial position and orientation angle.

Apparatuses and methods for self-position calculation of a vehicle using a light projector and a camera

An image taking unit takes an image by exposing three color light receivers and an invisible light receiver. The three color light receivers are sensitive to light in an invisible region emitted by an invisible light projector, and concurrently sensitive to the respective three primary colors of light. The invisible light receiver is sensitive to the light in the invisible region emitted by the invisible light projector. A marker pulse generator generates an exposure timing pulse for the image taking unit, and an emission timing pulse for the invisible light projector on the basis of a reference signal. A color image creator creates a color image from outputs from the respective color light receivers. A synchronous detection processor creates a detection image by performing a synchronous detection process on the outputs from the color light receivers and the invisible light receiver by use of the reference signal.

Camera apparatus and image processing method

The self-position calculating apparatus includes: a patterned light beam extractor extracting a position of the patterned light beam an image of an area onto which the patterned light beam is projected. The apparatus calculates an orientation angle of the vehicle relative to the road surface from the position of calculates an amount of change in orientation of the vehicle based on temporal changes in multiple feature points on the road surface; and calculates a current position and a current orientation angle of the vehicle by adding the amount of change in the orientation to an initial position and an initial orientation angle of the vehicle. If a detected condition of the patterned light beam is equal to or greater than a threshold value, the patterned light beam extractor extracts the position from a superimposed image by superimposing images.

An antenna device includes a plurality of antenna elements respectively configured to receive incident waves coming from an object, a modulating unit respectively configured to modulates a first received signal of the incident waves output from the antenna elements into a second received signal, the second received signals having a plurality of different frequencies and phases corresponding to polarization directions of the received incident waves, a synthesizing unit configured to synthesize the plurality of second received signals and generates a synthetic signal, a signal processing unit, configured to perform predetermined signal processing on the synthetic signal, and an extracting unit configured to extract third received signals for each frequency and each phase from the synthetic signal on which has been performed the predetermined signal processing.

Antenna device and signal processing method

A traffic light detecting device includes a camera capturing an image in the travelling direction of a vehicle, and a traffic light detecting unit detecting a traffic light from the image. The unit sets reference signals the number of which is a multiple of three, and phases of which are shifted each other by a time obtained by dividing a cycle of an alternating current power supplied to the traffic light by the multiple of three, and adjusts a phase of the reference signal which is closest to the phase of the alternating current power, to the phase thereof. The unit extracts from the image a synchronized pixel with a luminance which varies in synchronization with the reference signal having the phase adjusted to the phase thereof, and judges that a traffic light is present at a position of the synchronized pixel.

Traffic light detecting device and traffic light detecting method

A self-position calculating apparatus includes: a light projector configured to project a patterned light beam onto a road surface around a vehicle; an image capturing unit configured to capture and obtain an image of the road surface around the vehicle covering an area of the projected patterned light beam; an orientation angle calculator configured to calculate an orientation angle of the vehicle relative to the road surface from; a feature point detector configured to detect multiple feature points on the road surface; an orientation change amount calculator configured to calculate an amount of change in the orientation of the vehicle; and a self-position calculator configured to calculate a current position and a current orientation angle of the vehicle. The light projector selectively projects the patterned light beam onto a specific patterned light beam-projected region out of the multiple patterned light beam-projected regions.

A traffic signal recognition apparatus acquires image data by imaging the surroundings of a vehicle, detects a self-position of the vehicle, and detects, in the image, a traffic signal around the vehicle. The traffic signal recognition apparatus identifies two or more of the traffic signal predicted to be captured in the image, based on information on the self-position and map information containing positional information on the traffic signals, and assigns a priority level to each of the two or more traffic signals thus identified, based on a possibility of the traffic signal being blocked out of sight. When the two or more traffic signals are identified, the traffic signal detected in the image is a traffic signal with a highest priority level among the two or more traffic signals.

Traffic signal recognition apparatus and traffic signal recognition method

A self-position calculating apparatus includes: a light projector configured to project a patterned light beam onto a road surface around a vehicle; an image capturing unit configured to capture and obtain an image of the road surface around the vehicle covering an area of the projected patterned light beam; an orientation angle calculator configured to calculate an orientation angle of the vehicle relative to the road surface from a position of the patterned light beam on the image obtained by the image capturing unit; a feature point detector configured to detect multiple feature points on the road surface within the feature-point detection region; an orientation change amount calculator configured to calculate an amount of change in the orientation of the vehicle; and a self-position calculator configured to calculate a current position and a current orientation angle of the vehicle.

A target detection apparatus acquires an image by imaging the surroundings of a vehicle, detects a self-position of the vehicle based on an amount of movement of the vehicle from an initial position thereof, and estimates a relative position of a target, located around the vehicle, with respect to the vehicle based on the self-position and information on a position of the target on a map. The target detection apparatus sets a detection area for the target within the image based on the relative position of the target with respect to the vehicle, and detects the target from the detection area. The target detection apparatus estimates error contained in the self-position based on the amount of movement of the vehicle from the initial position, and adjusts the size of the detection area for the target according to the error.

Target detection apparatus and target detection method

A self-location calculating device projects a patterned light onto a road surface around a vehicle, captures and obtains an image of the road surface around the vehicle. When determining that a condition of the road surface around the vehicle changes as much as or more than a threshold value, the self-location calculating device calculates a current position and a current attitude angle of the vehicle in present by adding an amount of change in the attitude to a current position and a current attitude angle of the vehicle which are calculated in a previous information process cycle.

Self-location calculating device and self-location calculating method

A self-location calculating device projects a patterned light onto a road surface around a vehicle, as well as thereby captures and obtains an image of the road surface around the vehicle. Furthermore, the self-location calculating device detects a running condition of the vehicle. When it is determined that the vehicle is a running stable state, the self-location calculating device calculates a current position and a current attitude angle of the vehicle by adding an amount of change in an attitude to a predetermined initial attitude angle of the vehicle.

A traffic light detecting device includes an image capturing unit configured to capture an image of surroundings of a vehicle and a traffic light detecting unit configured to detect a traffic light from the image. The traffic light detecting unit extracts a synchronized pixel with a luminance which varies in synchronization with an alternating current cycle of electric power supplied to the traffic light, and sets a predetermined range including the synchronized pixel as a pixel group. The traffic light detecting unit, then, judges from the synchronized pixel whether or not the traffic light is present when the synchronized pixel is continuously extracted from the pixel group for a predetermined determination period.

A traffic light detecting device includes an image capturing unit configured to repeatedly capture images in a travelling direction of a vehicle to obtain a series of multiple images and a traffic light detecting unit configured to detect traffic lights from the images. The traffic light detecting unit detects phase information of an electric power system used in an area around the vehicle including the traffic lights from a cycle of a luminance variation in the series of multiple images and extracts from the images a synchronized pixel with a luminance which varies in synchronization with an alternating current cycle of electric power supplied to the traffic light by using the phase information of the electric power system. The traffic light detecting device judges from the synchronized pixel whether or not the traffic light is present.

An image capture apparatus generates synchronous detection images under different exposure conditions in such a way that each synchronous detection image is obtained by subtracting the output values of an image captured with no light projected from the output values of an image captured with light projected, selects one or more pixels from the rest of the pixels at each position of the two or more synchronous detection images under the different exposure conditions excluding the pixel having the lowest output value, and generates a synchronous detection image by using the selected pixels.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Hidekazu Nishiuchi