Disclosure of Invention
An object of the present invention relates to a vehicle radar system and a method for removing non-interesting objects, such as snow, hail, rain, which can be detected and removed by a radar when a vehicle having a Smart Cruise Control (SCC) system is driving.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be understood by the following description, and become apparent with reference to the embodiments of the present invention. Further, it is obvious to those skilled in the art to which the present invention relates that the objects and advantages of the present invention are achieved by the means as claimed and combinations thereof.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle radar system including: the camera shooting unit is used for shooting the front of a vehicle so as to detect a road; a radar unit for emitting a radar signal to the front of the vehicle, detecting an object (object) based on a reflected radar signal, and calculating a position, a speed, and a distance of the detected object; a sensor unit for detecting weather conditions around the vehicle; a control unit for identifying a road by using the image pickup unit and identifying whether the detected target is a vehicle or a non-vehicle, performing a control to remove the target when it is determined that the detected target is a non-vehicle, and displaying the identified road and vehicle; and a display unit for displaying the identified roads and objects.
The control unit may include: a weather condition recognition unit for recognizing whether a weather condition around the vehicle is rainfall or snowfall by using the sensor unit; a road identifying unit for identifying a driving road or an adjacent road based on the image data photographed by the photographing unit; a radar processing unit for performing a pre-processing procedure and a post-processing procedure on the reflected radar signal to generate a target; a track processing unit (tracking processing unit) for generating a track (track) based on the generated target and executing a track management process to select a control target; a vehicle control unit for controlling a vehicle speed and a vehicle state according to the selected control target; and an alarm unit for generating an alarm when the vehicle approaches a control target within a predetermined distance.
When the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function (specific function) is applied, a preceding vehicle is present on a self-lane of the vehicle and a distance from the preceding vehicle to the vehicle is less than a critical distance (critical distance), and a new target is detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle, the control unit may determine whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is not a previously untracked target, identify the target as a non-vehicle for removing and excluding the target from the tracked target.
When the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied, a preceding vehicle is present on a road of the vehicle and a distance from the preceding vehicle to the vehicle is less than a critical distance, and a new target is detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle, the control unit may determine whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is a previously tracked target, recognize the target as a vehicle for controlling and warning the vehicle speed.
When the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied and a new target is detected in a case where a preceding vehicle is not present on the own road of the vehicle, the control unit may determine whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is not a previously untracked target, identify the target as a non-vehicle to remove and exclude the target from the tracked target.
When the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied and a new target is detected in a case where a preceding vehicle is not present on the own road of the vehicle, the control unit may determine whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is a previously tracked target, recognize the target as the vehicle to perform a control operation for controlling and warning the vehicle speed.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for removing non-objects of interest, comprising: detecting a weather condition around the vehicle; photographing a front of the vehicle to detect a road; detecting a target based on a reflected signal generated from a radar signal transmitted to the front of the vehicle; and determining whether the detected target is a vehicle or a non-vehicle to identify the target as a non-vehicle of interest and remove it when it is determined that the detected target is a non-vehicle.
The method further comprises: and displaying an object and the identified road, wherein the object is an object reserved by the vehicle after the object which is not the vehicle is removed.
In the step of detecting the target, the reflected radar signal may be processed through a pre-processing process and a post-processing process to generate a target, and a trajectory may be generated based on the generated target, and a control target may be selected through a trajectory management process.
In the removing step, when the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied, a preceding vehicle is present on a road of the vehicle and a distance from the preceding vehicle to the vehicle is less than a critical distance, and a new target is detected between the preceding vehicle and the vehicle, it may be determined whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is not a previously untracked target, the target may be identified as a non-vehicle for removing and excluding the target from the tracked target.
In the removing step, when the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied, a preceding vehicle is present on a road of the vehicle and a distance from the preceding vehicle to the vehicle is less than a critical distance, and a new target is detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle, it may be determined whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is a previously tracked target, the target is recognized as a vehicle for controlling and warning a vehicle speed.
In the removing step, when the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied and a new target is detected in a case where a preceding vehicle is not present on the own road of the vehicle, it may be determined whether the new target is a previously tracked target, and if it is determined that the new target is not a previously untracked target, the target may be identified as a non-vehicle for removing and excluding the target from the tracked target.
In the removing step, when the weather condition around the vehicle is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied and a new object is detected in a case where a preceding vehicle is not present on the own road of the vehicle, it may be determined whether the new object is a previously tracked object, and if it is determined that the new object is a previously tracked object, the object is recognized as a vehicle for controlling and warning the vehicle speed.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description of the present invention are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
Detailed Description
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art can more easily practice the invention. This invention may, however, be embodied in different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein.
Parts that are not related to the description will be omitted to more clearly describe the present invention, and the same or similar elements will be denoted by the same reference numerals throughout the specification.
All terms including technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs, unless otherwise defined. Terms defined in commonly used dictionaries may be additionally interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with that of a related art document and the present disclosure, but will not be interpreted in an idealized or formal sense unless expressly so defined.
Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art related to the present invention can more easily implement the present invention. This invention may, however, be embodied in different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein.
Fig. 1 is a configuration diagram schematically showing a radar system for a vehicle according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
Referring to fig. 1, a vehicle radar system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes: a camera unit 100 for photographing the front of a vehicle to detect a road; a radar unit 200 for detecting the position, speed, and distance of a target in front of the vehicle based on a reflected radar signal transmitted to the front of the vehicle and then reflected from the target; a control unit 300 for identifying a road by using the camera unit 100 and identifying whether the detected object is a vehicle or a non-vehicle, performing a control to remove the object when it is determined that the detected object is a non-vehicle, and displaying the identified road and vehicle; a display unit 400 for displaying the position, speed and distance of the identified road or the detected object; and a sensor unit 500 for detecting weather conditions around the vehicle.
Here, the sensor unit 500 detects rain when the surroundings of the vehicle rain, or the sensor unit 500 detects snow or the temperature of the melted snow when snowing, and thus it can be recognized that the weather condition is rain or snowing.
Further, the sensor unit 500 may access a weather center or weather-related devices through a wireless network to acquire weather information around the vehicle and transmit the weather information to the control unit 300.
Fig. 2 is a configuration diagram showing a control unit in the vehicle radar system according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
Referring to fig. 2, a control unit 300 in the radar system for a vehicle according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes: an weather condition recognition unit 310, a road recognition unit 320, a radar processing unit 330, a trajectory processing unit 340, a vehicle control unit 350, and an alert unit 360.
The weather condition recognition unit 310 recognizes weather conditions, such as whether it is raining or snowing, by using the sensor unit 500.
The road recognition unit 320 recognizes a traveling road or an adjacent road based on image data captured by the image capturing unit 100.
The radar processing unit 330 processes a reflected radar signal received by the radar unit 200 through a pre-processing process and a post-processing process to generate a target, and calculates a position, a speed, a distance, etc. of the target based on the reflected radar signal. To this end, the radar processing unit 330 generates a target by performing a pre-processing process and a post-processing process on the received reflected radar signal. The pre-processing is to convert the time domain of the reflected radar signal into the frequency domain, and the post-processing is to select a target candidate set in the frequency domain. Here, the preprocessing process and the post-processing process of the radar signal are well-known techniques in the same technical field, and thus, a detailed description thereof is omitted hereinafter.
The trajectory processing unit 340 generates a trajectory based on the generated target and executes a trajectory management process to select a control target.
Based on the selected control target, the vehicle control unit 350 controls the vehicle state in addition to the vehicle speed.
The warning unit 360 warns the driver that a dangerous state will be present when an own vehicle approaches a control target within a predetermined distance.
Fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a control operation process of the vehicle radar system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
Referring to fig. 3, the vehicle radar system according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention first captures a front of the vehicle through the camera unit 100 to acquire a front image (step S310).
Then, the road recognition unit 320 analyzes the front image to recognize a traveling road or an adjacent road (step S320).
Next, the radar unit 200 transmits a radar signal to the front of the vehicle, and receives a reflected radar signal reflected from a target in front of the vehicle (step S330).
Next, the radar processing unit 330 generates a target in front of the vehicle based on the received reflected radar signal, as shown in fig. 4 (step S340).
Next, the trajectory processing unit 340 generates a trajectory based on the generated target, and executes a trajectory management process to select a control target (step S350).
In this embodiment, the track processing unit 340 keeps track information obtained in the track management process in a storage unit (not shown) for a predetermined time.
Next, the vehicle control unit 350 displays the situation around the vehicle through the display unit 400 shown in fig. 3 (step S360). Fig. 4 is an exemplary graph showing a result of a conventional control of the vehicular radar system according to the exemplary embodiment of the invention.
That is, as shown in fig. 4, the vehicle control unit 350 displays a road 460 on which an own vehicle 410 travels, a control object 420 located in front of the own vehicle 410, and objects (objects) 430 to 450 located on adjacent roads on a screen through the display unit 400 so that a driver can recognize the surroundings of the vehicle. Here, the control target 420 refers to a preceding vehicle on a road on which the own vehicle 410 travels, and the targets 430 to 450 located on adjacent roads refer to other vehicles traveling on the adjacent roads.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of a method for removing non-objects of interest in a vehicle radar system, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
When a vehicle is running on snow or rain, the present invention identifies a phantom non-vehicle as a non-vehicle of interest by determining whether the target detected by the radar is a vehicle or a non-vehicle, and removes the identified non-vehicle.
Referring to fig. 5, if it is determined by the weather condition recognition unit 310 that the weather condition detected by the sensor unit 500 is a weather condition such as a snowfall condition and a rainy condition, which is a weather condition to which a specific function is applied according to the present invention (step S510 — yes), the vehicle radar system according to the present invention determines whether a preceding vehicle is present on its own road through the radar unit 330 (step S520).
Here, the vehicle radar system according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention may detect that the preceding vehicle is present on the own road and the surrounding vehicles are present on the adjacent roads through the radar processing unit 330, and display the target detected through the trajectory management process of the trajectory processing unit 340, as shown in fig. 6.
The trajectory processing unit 340 performs a process of repeatedly selecting the control target 420 by a predetermined frequency (e.g., three times) to generate a trajectory. For example, the trajectory processing unit 340 generates a trajectory three times every 5 milliseconds (ms) based on the reflected radar signal received by the radar unit 200, and acquires a trajectory detected only by the control target at the first time, a target 430 appearing on the right road at the second time, and trajectories detected by the targets 440 and 450 appearing on the left road at the third time.
As shown in fig. 6, when the preceding vehicle as the control target 420 is present on the own road (step S520-yes), it is determined by the radar processing unit 330 whether the distance from the preceding vehicle to the own vehicle is smaller than the critical distance (step S530), and if it is determined that the distance from the preceding vehicle to the own vehicle is smaller than the critical distance (step S530-yes), it is determined that a new target is detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle (step S540). Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram showing detection of a new object between a preceding vehicle and an own vehicle in an exemplary embodiment according to the present invention. In this embodiment, when the distance from the front vehicle to the own vehicle is greater than the threshold distance (step S530 — no), the flow returns to step S520, and the tracking operation is continued (step S532). In this embodiment, the critical distance from the own vehicle 410 to the control target 420 may be set to 30 meters and the width of the road is 2 meters.
Next, as shown in fig. 6, when a new target is detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle as the control target 420 (step S540 — yes), it is determined whether the new target is a tracked target (step S550). Here, the continuous travel of the previously tracked target on the adjacent road refers to the vehicles 430 to 450 continuously tracked by the radar unit 200.
However, when the new target 610 detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle is not a previously tracked target (step S550-no), the target is recognized as a non-vehicle like transient-in object, and the target is removed from the tracked target to exclude the target (step S570).
Meanwhile, when the preceding vehicle is not present on the own road (step S520 — no), as shown in fig. 7, in the case where a new target 710 is suddenly detected in front of the own vehicle and the new target 710 is not a previously tracked target, the new target 710 is not a vehicle that changes roads from an adjacent lane, and thus, the new target 710 may be recognized as a non-vehicle like a transient target, so that the new target 710 is recognized as a non-vehicle and excluded from the tracked target. Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating detection of a new object when no vehicle is present in front of a self-road according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
However, the new target 610 detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle as the control target 420 is a previously tracked target, as shown in fig. 8 (step S550 — yes), the vehicle control unit 350 controls the vehicle speed and warns of an unexpected collision through the warning unit 360 (step S560). Fig. 8 is a schematic view showing that a previously tracked target between a preceding vehicle and an own vehicle is detected as a new target in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
That is, the targets 430 to 450 correspond to the vehicles 430 to 450 previously tracked by the radar unit 200, and the targets 430 to 450 continue to travel on the adjacent lane, and therefore, a new target 430 detected between the preceding vehicle and the own vehicle is recognized as being cut into the own lane by the previously tracked vehicle 430 changing lanes, thereby giving a warning to the driver to reduce the vehicle speed, and warning the driver of a collision accident.
Meanwhile, the control unit 300 may be horizontally extended within a predetermined distance based on the current position of the own vehicle 410. That is, in the case of 2 meters based on the width of the own road, the control unit 300 may be extended between-1.6 meters and +1.6 meters of the lateral distance.
Further, when the control target 420 does not appear in front of the own vehicle 410, the control unit 300 may identify a newly generated new target within a certain distance, which is equal to or less than 200 meters (maximum value), for example, 150 meters, as a non-target of interest according to the traveling speed of the own vehicle 410, and then remove the new target.
Further, when the control target 420 does not appear in front of the own vehicle 410, the control unit 300 may determine whether a new target is selected as the control target according to a separate logic, wherein the new target is newly generated at a maximum distance of 200 meters (or less) according to the traveling speed of the own vehicle 410.
As described above, a radar system for a vehicle and a method for removing a non-interested target, by which a non-interested target, such as snow, hail, rain, can be detected and removed when a vehicle having a smart cruise control system travels, may be implemented according to exemplary embodiments of the present invention.
It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications and changes may be made in the above-described embodiments without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics of the present invention, and the above-described embodiments are not limitative but illustrative in all aspects. It should be construed that the scope of the present invention is defined not by the above detailed description and all modifications or alterations inferred from the meaning, range and equivalents of the claims included in the scope of the present invention but by the claims.
According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, when a vehicle having a Smart Cruise Control (SCC) system travels on snow, hail, and rain, and when the vehicle travels along a control target in front of a controlled vehicle, even if ghosting occurs due to radar, ghosting may be immediately removed by transient tracking decision logic, and thus, a jerking motion performed by the vehicle due to the target being recognized as ghosting does not occur, and thus, occurrence of a traffic accident may be prevented.
The present invention can apply a vehicle radar system and a method for removing a non-interesting object to a vehicle having a smart cruise control system by using a transient object filtering method to remove a ghost image of rainfall when a front window of the vehicle is ghosted due to rainwater in a severe weather condition of rainstorm.