Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Hiroyuki Koike

Yoji Sasabuchi

Yoichi Sugimoto

Masakazu Saka

Yoshihiro Urai

Fuminori Taniguchi

Makoto Aimura

Ichiro Masaki

Kazuhiko Mochizuki

Hiroaki Tani

Nobuharu Nagaoka

Naotaka Kumakiri

Kenichi Sawada

Akira Iihoshi

Kiichiro Sawamoto

Akihito Kimata

Yusuke Nakamura

Shugo Kondo

Berthold K P Horn

Takashi Sugawara

Katsuya Mizutani

Izumi Kondo

Tetsuro Shirakata

Yajun Fang

Shingo Ogawa

Yuko Matsuo

An attention calling system for a vehicle, which is capable of performing an alarm by presenting tactile information while causing a driver to have a feeling of being convinced and a feeling of trust, thereby making it possible to effectively and appropriately call attention of the driver. In the attention calling system according to the present invention, the attention level of the driver is estimated, and an abnormal behavior (unstableness) of the vehicle is detected. Then, on condition that the estimated attention level of the driver is lower than a predetermined level and the abnormal behavior of the vehicle is detected, the tactile information is presented to the driver as an alarm for calling attention of the driver.

Attention calling system for vehicle

A railroad crossing barrier estimating apparatus and a vehicle that incorporates therein such a railroad crossing barrier estimating apparatus are provided. When at least one of an external object the transverse width of which increases over time and an external object having a given length at a certain height from the ground is detected, the vehicle or the railroad crossing barrier estimating apparatus estimates the detected external object as a railroad crossing barrier.

Railroad crossing barrier estimating apparatus and vehicle

A roadside object present at the side of a subject vehicle travel path and a preceding vehicle at a speed equal to or greater than a predetermined speed are detected based on points derived by transmitting an electromagnetic beam forward of the subject vehicle and projecting reflection points obtained onto a two-dimensional plane, a determination is made when the preceding vehicle passes near the roadside object as to whether it moved toward the travel path within a predetermined time before and after the passage, and the roadside object is not determined to be the obstacle when it is determined to have moved toward the travel path, thereby preventing the roadside object from being misidentified as the obstacle owing to erroneous recognition of it having intruded into the travel path of the subject vehicle when detecting the object using an electromagnetic beam.

Object detection apparatus for vehicle

When a pedestrian candidate and an animal candidate that are detected from an image imaged by an imaging device mounted in a vehicle are in a specified relationship in said image (such as existing nearby), the animal candidate is considered to be an item related to the pedestrian candidate, in other words, a pair object. Attention-arousing output directed at the animal candidate configuring the pair object is not generated. Therefore, a vehicle vicinity monitoring device is provided that reduces the frequency of attention-arousing directed at an animal (for ex-ample, a small animal such as a dog) being walked by a human.

Vehicle vicinity monitoring device

A light distribution controller includes a pedestrian detection unit, a determination unit, and an illumination controller. The pedestrian detection unit detects a pedestrian in a predetermined area ahead of a vehicle on the basis of an image captured by an infrared camera. The determination unit determines whether a driver notices the pedestrian when the pedestrian detection unit has detected the pedestrian in the predetermined area, on the basis of whether a predetermined condition is satisfied. The illumination controller causes the headlight to be lit with a light distribution pattern without a restriction on illumination of the pedestrian until the determination unit determines that the driver notices the pedestrian, and causes the headlight to be lit with a light distribution pattern having a restriction on illumination of a body member including at least the eyes of the pedestrian after the determination unit determines that the driver notices the pedestrian.

Light distribution controller

A failure-determination apparatus is provided with: a radar device (); a camera unit (); a moving target determination unit () that determines whether or not the object detected by the radar device () is a moving target; an object extraction unit () that extracts a specific object from the image captured by the camera unit (); and a failure-determination unit () that determines that the camera unit () is in an abnormal state when the object which has been determined to be the moving target by the moving target determination device (), cannot be determined to be the specific object by the object extraction unit ().

Failure-determination apparatus

In a vehicle obstacle detecting apparatus having a radar that transmits a laser beam in front of the vehicle to scan in different detection regions in a horizontal direction parallel to a road and receives reflection waves reflected from an object successively, it is determined whether a high reflection wave such as that reflected from delineator installed on the road at regular intervals exists in the received reflection waves in the detection regions, and if not, an obstacle such as a human being is detected from a low reflection wave. On the other hand, when the high reflection wave exists, the obstacle is detected from a second reflection wave.

Obstacle detection apparatus for vehicle

An object detection device for a vehicle includes a transmitting-receiving unit, a reflection point computation unit, an object width computation unit, a representative point setting unit, a lateral relative velocity computation unit, a memory unit, and a lateral relative velocity correction unit. The transmitting-receiving unit transmits an electromagnetic wave. The object width computation unit computes a width of the object. The lateral relative velocity computation unit computes a lateral relative velocity. The memory unit records the object as a width-widening static object when the object is a static object and an amount of increase in the width of the object is greater than a predetermined value, based on a detection history of the object detected at each of the predetermined cycle. The lateral relative velocity correction unit corrects the lateral relative velocity, when the object recorded as the width-widening static object is detected at a left end part or a right end part of a detection region.

Object detection device for vehicle and object detection method for vehicle

A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus capable of recognizing the type of object existing around a vehicle with accuracy. The vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus includes a process unit, which extracts a first image portion HPlikely to be the head of an object and sets a reference mask area MASK_C including HP, a left-hand mask area MASK_L near the left side of the reference mask area MASK_C, and a right-hand mask area MASK_R near the right side of the reference mask area MASK_C, and a process unit which searches for a second image portion presumed to be a leg image within a lower search area AREAwhen a difference between an average luminance AVE_C of the reference mask area MASK_C and an average luminance AVE_L of the left-hand mask area MASK_L or a difference between the average luminance AVE_C and an average luminance AVE_R of the right-hand mask area MASK_R is equal to or greater than a predetermined level and which recognizes that the object type is 'pedestrian' in the case where a plurality of second image portions are detected.

Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus

A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus is provided herein which is capable of determining an object type, particularly capable of determining an animal other than a human being among objects. The vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which monitors the surroundings of a vehicle by using an image captured by a camera (R,L) mounted on the vehicle, including an object extraction process unit which extracts an image area of the object from the captured image (stepsto) and an object type determination process unit which determines the object type according to whether the image area of the object extracted by the object extraction process unit includes a first object area of an inverse triangular shape and a second object area located below the first object area and within a predetermined range from the first object area (stepsto).

A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus is provided herein which is capable of determining an object type, particularly capable of determining an animal other than a human being among objects. The vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which monitors the surroundings of a vehicle by using an image captured by a camera (R,L) mounted on the vehicle, including an object extraction process unit which extracts an image area of the object from the captured image (stepsto) and an object type determination process unit which determines the object type according to whether the image area of the object extracted by the object extraction process unit includes a first object area in which the ratio of widths in different directions is within a predetermined range and a plurality of second object areas located below the first object area and smaller in area than the first object area (stepsto).

A travel safety apparatus for a vehicle, the apparatus includes: a first detector detecting an object in a first detection area; a second detector detecting the object in a second detection area; a braking device decelerating the vehicle; an alarm device which outputs an alarm to an occupant of the vehicle; a third detector measuring the traveling state of the vehicle; a collision determination device which determines a possibility of a collision between the vehicle and the object based on the traveling state; and a controller which operates at least one of the braking device and the alarm device when there is the possibility of collision, wherein the controller changes at least one of operation timing of the alarm device, operation timing of the braking device, and deceleration degree made by the braking device in accordance with whether or not the first detector and the second detector detect the object.

Travel safety apparatus for vehicle

A time-to-contact estimation device for estimating a time to contact of a moving body to an object in surroundings of the moving body, includes: an image sensor provided on the moving body, and continuously capturing time-varying images of the surroundings of the moving body; a brightness change calculation unit calculating brightness changes in pixels between the time-varying images captured one after another; and a time-to-contact calculation unit calculating optimized brightness gradients based on the brightness changes calculated by the brightness change calculation unit, and calculating the time to contact of the moving body to the object based on the optimized brightness gradients.

Time-to-contact estimation device and method for estimating time to contact

A support apparatus for sense of vision includes: a filter device that extracts low frequency components, and respective high frequency components in at least a horizontal direction and a vertical direction from original images obtained by image capture by a plurality of image pickup devices, a frequency component combining device that combines the low frequency components of each of the original images extracted by the filter device to generate a combined low frequency component, and combines the high frequency components of each of the original images extracted by the filter device in at least the horizontal direction and the vertical direction to generate a combined horizontal high frequency component and a combined vertical high frequency component; and a composite image formation device that combines the low combined frequency component, the combined horizontal high frequency component, and the combined vertical high frequency component, generated by the frequency component combining device, to generate a composite image.

System and method for creating composite images

The object-detection device for vehicle provides a transmission-and-reception device; a reflection point calculation device; a segment setting device; a median point calculation device; and a relative speed calculation device, wherein the relative speed calculation device eliminates a calculation result of the relative speed in the car width direction, with respect to the reflection points calculated based on the electromagnetic waves which are irradiated to the most downward direction in the specified angle in the vertical direction, in case that the number of difference between the reflection points in the current processing and the reflection points in the previous processing is equal to or greater than a predetermined number.

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Utsunomiya, Japan

Hiroyuki Koike