Vehicle-applied rear-and-side monitoring system

Abstract

A vehicle-applied rear-and-side monitory system including an image taking means for taking an image of a rear-and-side view of the subject vehicle traveling in a lane; a characteristic point extracting device for extracting at least one point as a characteristic point from an image of a following vehicle contained in a first image, taken at a first time-point, of the rear-and-side view, the following vehicle traveling at the rear of the subject vehicle in the lane of the subject vehicle or in a neighboring lane; a corresponding point detecting device for detecting a corresponding point, corresponding to the characteristic point, in a second image taken at a second time-point following the first time-point; an optical flow forming device for forming an optical flow of the characteristic point of the following vehicle from a vector connecting the characteristic point and the corresponding point; and a dead angle area located vehicles-distance calculating device for calculating at least any one of a vehicles-distance between the subject vehicle and the following vehicle and a relative position therebetween after a time-point of disappearance of the optical flow outside an image plane of the image taking device on the basis of the optical flow formed just before the disappearance. Thus, a vehicle-applied rear-and-side monitoring system capable of monitoring an approaching degree of a following vehicle approaching from the rear of the subject vehicle in the lane of the subject vehicle in the neighboring lane can be realized.