The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 21, 1997
Filed:
May. 01, 1995
William L Whittaker, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Jay H West, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Sanjiv J Singh, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Norman K Lay, Peoria, IL (US);
Lonnie J Devier, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Caterpillar Inc., Peoria, IL (US);
Abstract
A system and method detects obstacles in a road being traveled by a vehicle. Edge points of the road are calculated from known road data. A series of scan lines are made of the road ahead of the vehicle to obtain an image plane of the road ahead of the vehicle. The calculated edge points are projected into the image plane to determine the left and right edge points of each scan line in the image plane. Each scan line is processed to locate any discontinuities between the left and right edge points, where the discontinuities correspond to objects in the road.