Clarion Co

Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd.

Nissan Motor Company Limited

Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Astemo Ltd.

Masayuki Takemura

Shoji Muramatsu

Kota Irie

Yasuhisa Hayakawa

Osamu Fukata

Masahiro Kiyohara

Takeshi Shima

Akira Utagawa

Yuji Otsuka

Takeshi Nagasaki

Tatsuhiko Monji

Isao Furusawa

Felipe Gomezcaballero

Shinya Ohtsuji

Takuma Osato

Katsuyuki Nakamura

Haruki Matono

Shouji Muramatsu

Keiichi Betsui

Masato Imai

Masao Sakata

Seiji Murata

Takehito Ogata

Yoshitaka Uchida

Yasuhiro Akiyama

Toshiyuki Aoki

Shinichi Nonaka

Yuuji Otsuka

Satoshi Ito

Kiyohara Masahiro

Erroneous detection due to erroneous parallax measurement is suppressed to accurately detect a step present on a road. An in-vehicle environment recognition deviceincludes a processing device that processes a pair of images acquired by a stereo camera unitmounted on a vehicle. The processing device includes a stereo matching unitthat measures a parallax of the pair of images and generates a parallax image, a step candidate extraction unitthat extracts a step candidate of a road on which the vehicle travels from the parallax image generated by the stereo matching unit, a line segment candidate extraction unitthat extracts a line segment candidate from the images acquired by the stereo camera unit, an analysis unitthat performs collation between the step candidate extracted by the step candidate extraction unitand the line segment candidate extracted by the line segment candidate extraction unitand analyzes validity of the step candidate based on the collation result and an inclination of the line segment candidate, and a three-dimensional object detection unitthat detects a step present on the road based on the analysis result of the analysis unit

Processing device

The purpose of the present invention is to provide an onboard environment recognition device exhibiting high accuracy of measurement in a wider range of view fields. The present invention pertains to an onboard environment recognition device () that utilizes two cameras () for sensing, wherein the onboard environment recognition device () is characterized in that: two camera view fields include a stereo-vision area and a monocular-vision area; and the device laterally searches for parallax images that are output results of the stereo-vision area, estimates a road surface distance in the stereo-vision area, and measures the distance of the monocular-vision area by using the estimated road surface distance after extending the same to the monocular-vision area in the lateral direction.

Onboard environment recognition device

The purpose of the present invention is to provide an object detection device which is capable of accurately estimating the height of a road surface and is capable of reliably detecting an object present on the road surface. This object detection devicedetects objects upon a road surface, and is equipped with: a stereo camerafor capturing images of the road surfaceand the road shoulderand generating image data; a three-dimensional data generation unitfor calculating disparity data for the pixels in the image data; a shoulder structure detection unitfor using the disparity data and/or the image data to detect shoulder structures; a structure ground-contact position derivation unitfor deriving the ground-contact position of a shoulder structure; a road surface position estimation unitfor estimating the height of the road surfacefrom the ground-contact position of the shoulder structure; and an object detection unitfor detecting an objectupon the road surfaceby using the disparity data and the road surface height to separate disparity data corresponding to the road surfaceand disparity data for the object.

Object detection device

Provided is a periphery recognition device that makes it possible to: minimize the load from object recognition processing for recognizing an object moving between one region covered by a long-distance sensor and/or a wide-angle short-distance sensor to another such region; the periphery recognition device being able to reduce the proportion of non-recognition or erroneous recognition of objects moving from a region covered by the long-distance sensor or the wide-angle short-distance sensor to a boundary region. There is provided a first sensor, a second sensor, a long-distance object recognition unitfor recognizing an object present in a long-distance area on the basis of three-dimensional long-distance data calculated on the basis of situation data acquired using the first sensor, a short-distance object recognition unitfor recognizing an object present in a wide-angle and short-distance area on the basis of three-dimensional wide-angle short-distance data calculated on the basis of situation data acquired using the second sensor, and a feedback unitfor transferring information relating to the objects between the long-distance object recognition unitand the short-distance object recognition unit

Periphery recognition device

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a surrounding environment recognition device such that even in a situation where a certain moving three-dimensional object is apparently overlapped with another three-dimensional object, early detection of the certain moving three-dimensional object is enabled. To this end, a surrounding environment recognition device for a moving body is equipped with: imaging units for photographing multiple images in a time series; a three-dimensional object detection unit for detecting three-dimensional objects on the basis of distances of the objects from the imaging units; a vector detection unit for tracking feature points within predetermined areas of the multiple images containing the three-dimensional objects, thereby detecting motion vectors of the feature points; and a moving three-dimensional object detection unit for detecting three-dimensional objects which are present in the areas on the basis of detection results of the vector detection unit.

Surrounding environment recognition device for moving body

An image processing device processes an image captured by at least one image-capturing device including a lens which has characteristics of including an inflection point of a change rate of an incidence angle per image height with respect to the incidence angle at a predetermined inflection point incidence angle. The image processing device includes a resolution adjustment unit that adjusts resolution of an inflection point correspondence image area corresponding to the predetermined inflection point incidence angle and resolution of at least one of an inside image area positioned more inside than the inflection point correspondence image area and an outside image area positioned outside of the inflection point correspondence image area.

Image processing device

A lane departure judgment apparatus is configured to detect a lane-dividing line based on image information output from an image-capturing device that acquires an image of an area outside a vehicle, and to judge whether or not departure of the vehicle from the lane-dividing line occurs based on a distance between the vehicle and the lane-dividing line, wherein when an angle of the vehicle with respect to the lane-dividing line thus detected is constant, the distance between the vehicle and the lane-dividing line to be used to judge whether or not departure of the vehicle occurs is changed according to whether the vehicle is being driven on a road having a lane-dividing width that is greater than a predetermined width or on a road having a lane-dividing width that is smaller than a predetermined width.

Lane departure judgment apparatus, lane departure warning apparatus and vehicle control system using the same

The purpose of the present invention is to provide an object detection device conducive to carrying out control in an appropriate manner according to the surrounding environment, with consideration to the accuracy of locations of detected objects. The device is characterized by being provided with: a parallax information generation unit for generating parallax information from a plurality of parallax images acquired from a plurality of imaging units; an object detection unit for detecting objects contained in the parallax images; a location information generation unit for generating location information about the objects, on the basis of the parallax information; and a location accuracy information generation unit for generating location accuracy information pertaining to the accuracy of the location information, on the basis of the condition of generation of the parallax information.

An onboard environment recognition device is obtained with which it is possible to improve recognition performance within the headlight illumination range and outside the headlight illumination range of a vehicle with an onboard camera. This onboard environment recognition device has: an imaging unitfor imaging, using a camera installed in the vehicle, at a wider-angle range than the headlight illumination range; an in-illumination/out-of-illumination exposure adjustment unit for setting appropriate exposure conditions separately within the headlight illumination range and outside the headlight illumination range; and a recognition unitfor recognizing images on the basis of the acquired images. Therefore, it is possible to maintain high recognition performance in the boundary regions of the headlight illumination range, and outside the range, and the present invention can also be used for wide-angle sensing at night.

Provided is an object detection device capable of reliably recognizing a vehicle. This object detection device detects multiple three-dimensional objects from a left image and a right image captured with a left imaging unit and a right imaging unit (S), extracts, as combination candidates from among the multiple three-dimensional objects, two three-dimensional objects which exist with an interval to the left/right, and determines whether a sparse parallax region, which is a region having a smaller parallax density than left/right regions, exists in an intermediate region between the two three-dimensional objects extracted as combination candidates. Then, the regions of two three-dimensional objects (for which it has been determined that a sparse parallax region exists in the intermediate region, and which have tentatively been identified as a single three-dimensional object) are extracted respectively from the left and right images and compared to each other, a determination is made regarding whether the perspective is the same, and when it is determined that the perspective is the same, the two three-dimensional objects are determined to be a single three-dimensional object.

The present invention addresses the problem of attaining an object recognition device that can change control of a vehicle in accordance with the reliability of detection of a target object. The object recognition device according to the present invention recognizes a target object around a vehicle and includes: a distance-information-based target object determination unitthat determines whether or not an objectis a target object by using distance information from the vehicleto the object; an image-information-based target object determination unitthat determines whether or not the objectis a target object by using image information obtained by capturing an image of the objectfrom the vehicle; and a target object detection reliability calculation unitthat calculates the reliability of detection of a target object by using the distance information and the image information.

Object recognition device and vehicle control system

An in-vehicle device includes: an image acquisition unit that obtains a captured image from a camera that captures, via a camera lens, an image of a surrounding environment around a vehicle; an accumulation detection unit that individually detects a plurality of types of accumulation settled at the camera lens based upon the captured image; an image recognition unit that recognizes an object image, expressing a specific object present in the surrounding environment, in the captured image; a detection results integrating unit that calculates integrated detection results by integrating a plurality of sets of detection results based upon various sets of detection results pertaining to detection of the plurality of types of accumulation provided by the accumulation detection unit; and an operation control unit that controls operation executed by the image recognition unit based upon the integrated detection results.

In-vehicle device

A water droplet detection device has an image capturing unit and a water droplet detection unit. The image capturing unit has a photographic optical system that an area captures an image of a predetermined area. The water droplet detection unit sets an arbitrary attention point in the captured image, a plurality of first reference points inside an imaginary circle of a predetermined radius having the attention point as a center the imaginary circle, and a plurality of second reference points corresponding to the first reference points outside the imaginary circle. The water droplet detection unit detects edge information between the first reference points and second reference points, and assesses a circularity strength of the edge information to detect a water droplet attached to the photographic optical system. The water droplet detection device can be used with an image conversion unit to form a three-dimensional object detection device.

Water droplet detection device, and three-dimensional object detection device using water droplet detection device

An on-vehicle control device includes: an image acquiring unit that acquires a captured image from an image-capturing device, the image-capturing device capturing an image of surroundings of a vehicle; a judged range dividing unit that divides a predetermined judged range of an image-capturing range of the image-capturing device into a plurality of regions; a feature point extracting unit that extracts a feature point having predetermined characteristics in the surroundings of the vehicle from the image acquired by the image acquiring unit; a point accumulating unit that accumulate points for a region where there is the feature point extracted by the feature point extracting unit, among the plurality of regions, for a plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring unit in time series; and a judging unit that judges whether a foreign matter is adhered to the image-capturing device based on scores resulting from accumulating points of the plurality of regions.

On-vehicle control device

An on-board device, that outputs a control signal to a cleaning control unit that controls accumulation removing units used to remove accumulations settled on a photographic lens in an on-board camera by adopting a plurality of methods, includes: an accumulation detection unit that detects an accumulation settled on the photographic lens from a photographic image output from the on-board camera when a vehicle speed input thereto is equal to or higher than a predetermined vehicle speed; a selection unit that selects an accumulation removing unit adopting a first method among the accumulation removing units adopting the plurality of methods; and a removal decision unit that makes a decision, based upon the photographic image, as to whether or not the accumulation has been removed from the photographic lens through a removal operation performed by the accumulation removing unit adopting the first method, which has been selected by the selection unit, wherein: if the removal decision unit decides that the accumulation has not been removed from the photographic lens, the selection unit selects an accumulation removing unit adopting a second method, different from the accumulation removing unit adopting the first method, based upon a number of times that the removal operation has been performed by engaging the accumulation removing unit adopting the first method.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Masayuki Takemura