Object detection apparatus, object detection method, and program

Abstract

A vehicle detection apparatus detects an object based on an image captured from a vehicle. In the vehicle detection apparatus, a camera is mounted in the vehicle. A search region determining unit determines a region including a road surface in the image to be a search region. A cost minimizing unit divides the search region into two, an upper region and a lower region, by a boundary line, determines corresponding points in a plurality of images captured by the camera at different time points by applying an optical flow model having a fixed magnification factor to the upper region and an optical flow model having a planar constraint condition to the lower region, and determines a boundary line that minimizes cost related to a difference between pixel values of the corresponding points. A vehicle presence determining unit determines presence of a forward vehicle based on the boundary line.