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Image processing apparatus for vehicle
| Details |
Inventors: Iisaka, Atsushi; Yasui, Nobuhiko;
Assignee: Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co., Ltd. (Osaka, JP)
Primary Examiner: Mehta; Bhavesh M.
Assistant Examiner: Carter; Aaron
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Wenderoth, Lind & Ponack, L.L.P.
An image processing device for a vehicle according to the present invention has an edge extractor for emphasizing edges of a traffic lane in a front road image signal generated by a digital image pick-up device, a threshold setter for setting a threshold to extract the edges of the traffic lane based on the result detected by the edge extractor, an outline extractor for extracting an outline of the traffic lane to generate an outline data based on the result detected by the edge extractor and the threshold set by the threshold setter, a noise eliminator for eliminating noise components from the outline data, a white line detector for detecting lane-indicating lines based on the outline data from which the noise components have been eliminated, an attitude change detector for estimating the attitude of the vehicle based on the detected lane-indicating lines, and a target advance direction detector for detecting a target direction to advance the vehicle based on the result obtained by the white line detector and the estimated attitude of the vehicle. According to the image processing apparatus, the target direction to advance the vehicle can be exactly measured, even if the helix angle (i.e. pitch angle) changes. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention has been developed to solve the conventional problems described above, and has an object of providing an image processing apparatus for a vehicle, which can exactly measure the change of the helix angle (i.
e.
pitch angle) of the vehicle or movement of the vehicle in the upper-lower direction (change of the image pick-up height) so as to be able to exactly detect the position or attitude of the vehicle in the traffic lane, even if each of the lane markers is expressed as a curved line.
According to the present invention which is achieved to solve the above-mentioned problems, there is provided an image processing apparatus for a vehicle, which is carried on the vehicle, the apparatus including, (a) an image pick-up device for photographing a foreground (a road and a scene around the road) in a vehicle-moving direction to generate an original image data which corresponds to the foreground, (b) an outline extracting device for extracting an outline image data from the original image data generated by the image pick-up device, the outline image data corresponding to outlines of two lane-indicating lines (lane markers) formed at both end portions in a width direction of a traffic lane on a road, on which the vehicle is moving, (c) a coordinate transforming device for performing a coordinate-transforming processing to the outline image data generated by the outline extracting device to generate a coordinate-transforming image data which represents a plan view of the outlines of the lane-indicating lines in a predetermined plane coordinate system, and (d) an attitude change detecting device for detecting a change of a helix angle (i.
e.
pitch angle) of the vehicle based on such a matter that the two lane-indicating lines are parallel to each other, by using the coordinate-transforming image data generated by the coordinate transforming device.
According to the image processing apparatus, from the image of the lane-indicating lines, a plane view of the lane-indicating lines (outlines) is formed by the coordinate transforming device
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