Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Morimichi Nishigaki

Masakazu Saka

Hiromitsu Yuhara

Tomoyoshi Aoki

Nobuharu Nagaoka

Yoichi Sugimoto

Takayuki Tsuji

Kenichi Sawada

Sven Rebhan

Yuji Yokochi

Marcus Kleinehagenbrock

Robert Kastner

Masaki Negoro

Yoshitaka Mimura

Nils Einecke

Naoki Mori

Shunsuke Iwao

Fuminori Taniguchi

Atsuhiro Eguchi

Hiroyuki Kamiya

Jens Schmudderich

Naoto Akutsu

Shunsuke Kusuhara

Yiannis Aloimonos

Nobuhiko Fujii

Justin Domke

The present invention provides a notification apparatus that is mounted on a vehicle and notifies surroundings of the vehicle that the vehicle is starting, the notification apparatus comprising: a detector configured to detect a driver's intention to start the vehicle; and a lighting controller configured to cause, when the detector detects the driver's intention to start the vehicle, a lighting device in the vehicle to light in a predetermined lighting mode.

Notification apparatus, vehicle, notification method, and storage medium

In an intelligent forward collision warning system that takes into account not only a first preceding vehicle traveling immediately ahead of the ego vehicle but also a second preceding vehicle traveling immediately ahead of the first preceding vehicle, a warning signal is produced upon detecting a critical state of the first or second preceding vehicle or an external condition that is predicted to cause the first preceding vehicle and the ego vehicle to be in a same lane with the first time to collision (TTC) below a prescribed value.

Intelligent forward collision warning system

A vehicle travel control apparatus includes a utility function determination unit, which determines a utility function fu representing a relationship between the manipulated variable for vehicle speed control of an own vehicle and an effectiveness degree, a travel inhibition degree function determination unit, which determines a travel inhibition degree function fr representing a relationship between the manipulated variable for vehicle speed control and an estimated travel inhibition degree of the own vehicle, and an appropriateness function determination unit, which determines an appropriateness function fap combining both functions fu and fr. A driving/braking force of the own vehicle is manipulated according to the value of the manipulated variable for vehicle speed control corresponding to a highest appropriateness in the appropriateness function fap.

Vehicle travel control apparatus

A method for detecting the position of a target object in the environment of a host vehicle. The method may include receiving a first position of the target object as detected by an object position sensor which emits waves and receives the waves that are reflected back by the target object, and receiving an image containing the target object as detected by an image sensor. The method may also include projecting the first position on the image, and refining the first position by computing a second refined position of the target object on the basis of a symmetry search within the image.

Vehicle with improved traffic-object position detection using symmetric search

A surrounding area monitoring apparatus for vehicle includes an infrared camera mounted on a vehicle for capturing images of surrounding area around the vehicle, a unit for generating and displaying images based on image data captured by the camera, and a controller for calibrating output of the camera with respect to a relation between pixels, based on image data produced by imaging a surface of a shutter that opens and closes an aperture introducing a light to the camera, The controller estimates whether a temperature of the camera is stable, based on an operation state of the vehicle, and determines a possibility that a driver is looking at the unit, based on a behavior of the vehicle. When the temperature of the camera is estimated stable and the possibility that the driver is looking at the unit is determined to be low, the means for calibrating executes the calibration.

Surrounding area monitoring apparatus for vehicle

A vehicle surroundings monitoring device includes a moving direction determining unitwhich determines whether a physical body is moving in a traveling direction of a self vehicle or a transverse direction orthogonal to the traveling direction, from a change in a detection position of the physical body by a laser radar, wherein a classification determining unitexecutes a first classification determining process of determining the physical body determined to be moving in the traveling direction as a four-wheel vehicle when dimensions of the physical body obtained from the detected position by the laser radaris within a range of A, and a second classification determining process of determining the physical body determined to be moving in the transverse direction as the four-wheel vehicle when the dimensions of the physical body obtained from the detected position by the laser radaris within a range of B

Vehicle surroundings monitoring device

A moving image capture device captures a first image at a first location along a motion path and captures a second image at a second location along the motion path. The optic center of the first image and the optic center of the second image are determined and a line intersecting the optic centers of the first image and the second image is determined. An imaging plane perpendicular to the line intersecting the optic centers of the first image and the second image is then determined and used to generate a first rotation-cancelled image and a second rotation-cancelled image. The first image is warped onto the generated imaging plane to create the first rotation-cancelled image and the second image is warped onto the generated imaging plane to generate the second rotation-cancelled image. Translational motion is preserved by the first rotation-cancelled image and the second rotation-cancelled image.

Rotation cancellation for moving obstacle detection

A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus capable of distinguishing and determining an object type with high reliability, particularly a vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus capable of determining an object by distinguishing between a pedestrian and other objects among the objects with high reliability. The vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus detects an object existing around a vehicle () from images obtained by camerasR andL mounted on the vehicle () and includes an object extraction process unit (stepsto) which extracts an object from the image, a width calculation process unit (stepsto) which calculates widths of the object in a plurality of height positions spaced at vertical intervals of the object extracted by the object extraction process unit, and an object type determination process unit (step) which determines the type of the object based on the widths calculated by the width calculation process unit.

Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus

A system and method are disclosed for fast sub-pixel optical flow estimation in a two-dimensional or a three-dimensional space. The system includes a pixel-level optical flow estimation module, a matching score map module, and a sub-pixel optical flow estimation module. The pixel-level optical flow estimation module is configured to estimate pixel-level optical flow for each pixel of an input image using a reference image. The matching score map module is configured to generate a matching score map for each pixel being estimated based on pixel-level optical flow estimation. The sub-pixel optical flow estimation module is configured to select the best pixel-level optical flow from multiple pixel-level optical flow candidates, and use the selected pixel-level optical flow, its four neighboring optical flow vectors and matching scores associated with the pixel-level optical flows to estimate the sub-pixel optical flow for the pixel of the input image.

Fast sub-pixel optical flow estimation

Systems and methods for identifying moving objects from received images are disclosed. Images are received from a stereo image capture device and from a moving image capture device. Distances from the stereo image capture device to points in a captured image are stored in a stereo distance map and distances from the moving image capture device are determined from pairs of images captured by the moving image capture device and stored in a moving distance map. Stereo disparities are determined from distances in the stereo distance map and motion disparities are determined from distances in the moving distance map. A scale is generated from the stereo disparities and the motion disparities. The scale is applied to the motion disparities and the scaled motion disparities and the stereo disparities are used to identify pixels in an image associated with a moving object.

Moving obstacle detection using images

Distance from a moving image capture device to one or more points is determined. An optical flow is calculated from a first image and a second image captured by the moving image capture device. The horizontal component of the optical flow is used to generate a horizontal distance map including horizontal distances and the vertical component of the optical flow is used to generate a vertical distance map including vertical distances. Horizontal weights are applied to the horizontal distance map to generate a modified horizontal distance map where horizontal distances proximate to a vertical line intersecting a focus of expansion are attenuated. Vertical weights are applied to the vertical distance map to generate a modified vertical distance map where vertical distances proximate to a horizontal line intersecting the focus of expansion are attenuated. The modified vertical distance map and the modified horizontal distance map are then summed.

Distance estimation from image motion for moving obstacle detection

An object detection apparatus and method for accurately detecting a movable object in a region around a vehicle from a time series of images obtained through a camera mounted on the vehicle by eliminating the influence of the movement of the camera through simple processing, and a program for making a computer execute processing in the apparatus. The object detection apparatus has a feature point extraction unit which extracts a feature point contained in a feature region of each image in the time series of images obtained through a camera mounted on the vehicle, a correspondence degree computation unit which computes the degree of correspondence for each pair of the feature points, wherein one of the feature points in the each pair is each of one or more of the feature points extracted by the feature point extraction unit from one of two images taken by the camera at different times, and another of the feature points in the each pair is each of a plurality of the feature points extracted by the feature point extraction unit from another of the two images, and a detection unit which detects the movable object on the basis of the degree of correspondence computed by the correspondence degree computation unit.

Object detection apparatus, object detection method and object detection program

A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus, a vehicle surroundings monitoring method, and a vehicle surroundings monitoring program which can rapidly determine an object such as a pedestrian to be avoided which must be avoided from coming into contact with the vehicle from an image of the surroundings of the vehicle and can provide information to a driver or control the vehicle behaviors. The vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus includes an object extraction process unit () which extracts objects existing around a vehicle () from images taken by infrared cameras (R,L), a pedestrian extraction process unit () which extracts a pedestrian from the extracted objects, a posture determination process unit () which determines the posture of the extracted pedestrian, an object-to-be-avoided determination process unit () which determines whether the extracted object is an object to be avoided which must be avoided from coming into contact with the vehicle () by executing a determination algorithm including at least a first determination process on the posture of the pedestrian determined by the posture determination process unit (), and a vehicle equipment control process unit () which controls equipment of the vehicle () at least according to the determination result of the object-to-be-avoided determination process unit ().

Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus, vehicle surroundings monitoring method, and vehicle surroundings monitoring program

An object detection system comprises a physical object recognition unit which recognizes physical objects outside the vehicle, and a physical object memory which stores information concerning the physical objects. A controller recognizes presence of a physical object when the physical object is sensed by one or more sensors a predetermined number of times, which is larger for a central portion of the detecting area than for a peripheral portion of the detecting area. The system includes a memory for storing information about the physical objects. The controller holds the physical object stored in the memory indicating that the physical object is existent until the controller fails to recognize presence of the corresponding physical object a predetermined number of recognition cycles.

Object detection system

An object recognition system mounted on a vehicle comprises a camera and a controller. The camera captures an image in front of the vehicle. The controller divides the image into a plurality of windows. The controller measures distance to the road surface for each of the plurality of windows and thereby obtains a plurality of distances. The controller estimates a relative inclination of the road surface against the vehicle based on the plurality of distances. The controller judges, for each of the plurality of windows, based on the estimated inclination, whether the object is an obstacle or the road surface and thereby obtains a judgment result. The controller recognizes the object based on the judgment result. The system recognizes objects in front of the vehicle even when the vehicle is lopsided by pitching, rolling or else.

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Wako, Japan

Morimichi Nishigaki