JP2003111071A - On-vehicle monitoring camera apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an on-vehicle monitoring camera apparatus capable of recording a state of accidents of a vehicle so as to accurately investigate the accident. SOLUTION: The operating flowchart of the on-vehicle monitoring camera apparatus includes a step S112 for capturing image data from respective cameras being components of an on-vehicle monitoring camera 10; a step S114 of storing image data to each memory in a memory 20; a step S116; of judging whether or not an accident takes place; and a step S120 of transmitting a freeze signal to the memory 20 when the judgment indicates that an accident takes place.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is installed in a vehicle and, when an accident occurs or the risk of an accident occurring is high, a situation related to this is photographed so that the situation can be determined later. The present invention relates to a vehicle-mounted surveillance camera device that can be recognized.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the past, when an accident occurred, the investigation of the cause of the accident often relied on the live opinions of the parties.

[0003]

However, the conventional method has a problem in that even if the parties have different opinions, they cannot be objectively judged.

There is also a demand for investigating the cause of an accident and applying it to the infrastructure such as roads thereafter, so there is also a need to investigate the cause of the accident more accurately.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an in-vehicle surveillance camera device capable of accurately recording the cause of an accident by recording the situation of an accident in a vehicle. And

[0006]

According to the invention as set forth in claim 1 for achieving the above object, an in-vehicle surveillance camera for photographing a situation around a vehicle, and an image photographed by the in-vehicle surveillance camera. It is equipped with a recording means for recording data and an accident occurrence judging means for judging whether or not an accident of the own vehicle has occurred, and when the accident occurrence judging means judges that an accident of the own vehicle has occurred, the data is recorded. The image data recorded in the means is brought into a frozen state. The freeze state is a state in which the recording of the image data is not erased even when the power is not supplied to the recording unit (the same applies below).

Thus, the situation around the vehicle is photographed by the vehicle-mounted surveillance camera, and the image data recorded in the recording means when the accident occurs is surely saved. As a result, it is possible to reliably record the situation of the vehicle accident and investigate the cause of the accident.

When the recording means records new image data at the stage of recording a predetermined amount of image data, the recording means may record the image data among the recorded image data. Delete the oldest image data. That is, since the capacity for recording image data in the recording means is limited,
It is possible to always obtain the latest image data by sequentially updating to new image data at the stage of recording a predetermined amount of image data which is less than or equal to the capacity of the recording means.

Further, according to the invention as set forth in claim 3 which has been made to achieve the above object, an in-vehicle surveillance camera for photographing a situation around the vehicle, and image data photographed by the in-vehicle surveillance camera are recorded. It is equipped with a recording means and an accident risk judging means for judging whether or not there is a risk of an accident of the own vehicle, and the accident risk judging means judges that there is a risk of an accident of the own vehicle. In such a case, the situation around the vehicle is photographed by the vehicle-mounted surveillance camera, and the photographed image data is recorded in the recording means.

That is, when there is a risk of an accident in the vehicle, such as when the driver suddenly brakes, the vehicle surroundings are photographed by the vehicle-mounted surveillance camera, and the photographed image data is displayed. Keep a record.

As a result, it becomes possible to record the process in which the accident occurs, and it is possible to accurately investigate the cause of the accident. Further, as in the invention described in claim 1, since it is not necessary to constantly monitor the surroundings by the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera to rewrite the image data, it is possible to cope with the limitation of the number of times of rewriting of the recording means.

The vehicle-mounted surveillance camera may not only monitor the surroundings of the vehicle but may also photograph the driver's seat of the vehicle as in the invention of claim 4. As a result, it becomes possible to detect the driver's drowsiness, looking aside, etc., and more accurately investigate the cause of the accident.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [First Embodiment] A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing the overall configuration of this embodiment. The vehicle-mounted monitoring camera device of this embodiment includes an image controller 1, a vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10, a memory unit 20, and a flash memory 30.

The vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10 includes a front monitoring camera 11 for photographing a predetermined area in front of the vehicle and recognizing a white line as shown in FIG. 2, and a driver's seat side for detecting a driver's drowsiness. A driver monitoring camera 12 that captures a predetermined range, a blind monitor camera 13 that captures the side of the vehicle that is the driver's blind spot, and a back monitor camera 14 that captures the rear of the vehicle are provided. It should be noted that it is not necessary to include all of these cameras, and only existing cameras may be used for general purpose, for example, in the case of a vehicle including only the front monitoring camera 11, only the front monitoring camera 11 may be used. However, a dedicated camera may be newly provided.

The image controller 1 turns on the ignition (IG) 2 and transmits an activation signal to the vehicle monitoring camera 10 to cause the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10 to photograph the surroundings of the vehicle or the interior of the vehicle. Then, when the image data of the vehicle surroundings or the vehicle interior is transmitted from the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10, the image data is transmitted to the memory 20. In addition, when the image controller 1 receives a signal from the airbag controller 3 that the airbag is activated, or receives a signal from the impact sensor 4 that an impact upon collision of the vehicle is detected, The freeze signal is transmitted to the memory 20. The freeze signal is a signal for putting the image data recorded in the memory 20 into the freeze state.

The memory 20 includes a memory 1 for recording image data taken by the front monitoring camera 11, a memory 2 for recording image data taken by the driver monitoring camera 12, and a blind monitoring camera 13. Memory 3 for recording captured image data, and back monitor camera 1
And a memory 4 for recording the image data photographed in 4. The memory 20 is a writable RAM.
The image data transmitted from the image controller 1 is appropriately updated and stored. When the freeze signal is transmitted from the image controller 1 to the memory 20, the image data is stored in the memory 20.
To the flash memory 30 via the image controller 1. The reason why the image data is transmitted to the flash memory 30 in this way is that if the image data is stored in the flash memory 30, the image data can be brought into a frozen state. The flash memory 30 may be an electrically rewritable ROM, and may be an EEPROM. Further, the flash memory 30 has a removable structure.

The image controller 1 corresponds to the accident occurrence determining means of the present invention. The memory 20 and the flash memory 30 correspond to the recording means of the present invention.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the image controller.

In the first step S100, it is determined whether or not the ignition (IG) is turned on. If it is determined that it is turned on, a counter (not shown) is set to an initial value (N = 0) in step S102. To do. And
In step S104, image data is loaded from each camera that constitutes the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10, and step S106
Each image data is recorded in each memory in the memory 20. Then, in step S108, the counter value of the counter is incremented by one (N = N + 1).

Subsequently, in step S110, it is determined whether or not the counter value N is a predetermined value X1 or more. If it is determined that the counter value N is smaller than the predetermined value X1, the process proceeds to step S104. On the other hand, if it is determined that the value is not less than the predetermined value X1, the process proceeds to step S112. It should be noted that the predetermined value X1 is set as a value with which the situation of a vehicle accident can be confirmed and the capacity of the memory 20 is not exceeded, for example, 60 still images can be recorded at 0.5 second intervals. To do. Further, this image data may not be a still image but may be recorded in real time as a moving image of 30 seconds.

In step S112, the vehicle-mounted surveillance camera 1
Image data is taken in from each camera constituting 0, and each image data is recorded in each memory in the memory 20 in step S114. Succeedingly, in a step S116, it is determined whether or not an accident has occurred. Whether or not this accident has occurred is determined by, for example, receiving a signal from the airbag controller 3 that the airbag has been activated, or a signal from the impact sensor 4 that an impact upon collision of the vehicle has been detected. If it receives, it is determined that an accident has occurred.

When it is determined that an accident has occurred, a freeze signal is transmitted to the memory 20 in step S120. On the other hand, if it is determined that no accident has occurred, the oldest image data among the image data recorded in the memory 20 is deleted, and the image data is newly photographed.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10 photographs the situation around the vehicle, and when the image controller 10 determines that an accident has occurred, a freeze signal is sent to the memory 20. Send. Then, the image data is transmitted from the memory 20 to the image controller 1, and the image data is transmitted from the image controller 1 to the flash memory 30. In this way, by transmitting the image data to the flash memory 30,
Even when the memory 20 is not supplied with power due to an accident and the image data disappears, it is possible to record the image data around the vehicle or inside the vehicle until the accident occurs in the flash memory 30. As a result, the accident situation of the vehicle can be recorded surely, and the cause of the accident can be investigated.

In this embodiment, the image data is transmitted from the memory 20 to the flash memory 30 in order to freeze the image data, but this is because the number of times of rewriting the memory is increased. Is. That is, if the durability of the memory can be ensured, the memory 20 may be configured as a flash memory instead of the RAM. With such a configuration, as in the present embodiment, during transmission of image data from the memory 20 to the flash memory 30, or before transmission, image data cannot be stored because the power is not supplied from the battery due to an accident or the like. The image data can be surely saved. Further, the freeze state when the memory 20 is configured as a flash memory means that rewriting of image data is stopped when it is determined that an accident has occurred.

[Second Embodiment] Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of this embodiment. The vehicle-mounted surveillance camera device of the present embodiment has substantially the same configuration as that of the first embodiment, except that a steering lock controller 5, an ABS controller 6, and a front monitoring controller 7 are newly provided, and a memory for recording image data is an electric memory. Rewritable flash memory 40
It is different in that it is configured as.

The image controller 1 corresponds to the accident risk judging means of the present invention.

A feature of the present embodiment is that, when there is a risk of an accident, each vehicle of the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10 captures an image of the surroundings of the vehicle or the interior of the vehicle and stores it in the memory 40. . Further, in the present embodiment, since the image data is recorded in the memory 40 (electrically rewritable flash memory), the image data is frozen as in the first embodiment, that is, the memory 20 (RA
There is no need to send image data from M) to the flash memory 30. In the first embodiment, the image data is stored in the memory 20 (RAM) in consideration of the fact that the number of times of rewriting of the memory is large, but in the present embodiment, there is a risk that an accident will occur. In some cases, since the surroundings of the vehicle or the interior of the vehicle is photographed and stored, the number of times of rewriting the memory is small, so the memory (flash memory) 4
0 is recorded directly.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the image controller 1.

In the first step S200, it is determined whether or not the ignition (IG) is turned on, and if it is determined to be on, it is determined in step S202 whether or not there is a risk of an accident. Here, the steering lock controller 5 determines whether or not there is a risk of an accident.
From the ABS controller 6 or from the ABS controller 6, or from the front monitoring controller 7 that the vehicle has deviated from its own lane or is likely to collide. It is determined that there is a risk of an accident when a signal indicating that there is a vehicle ahead ahead is present. When it is determined that there is a risk of accident, the process proceeds to step S204.

In step S204, a counter (not shown) is set to an initial value (N = 0). And step S
At 206, image data is taken in from each camera constituting the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10, and at step S208, each image data is recorded in each memory in the memory 40. The flash memory 40 is an electrically rewritable ROM.
Therefore, even if the power is not supplied, the recorded image data is not erased. After the image data is recorded in the flash memory 40, the counter value of the counter is incremented by 1 in step S210 (N =
N + 1).

Then, in step S212, it is determined whether or not the counter value N is greater than or equal to the predetermined value X2. If it is determined that the counter value N is less than the predetermined value X2, the process proceeds to step S214. Note that this predetermined value X2 may be the same value as X1 in the first embodiment, or may be set to a value longer than that, so that it is possible to shoot for a long time.

Then, in step S214, it is determined whether or not an accident has occurred, and if it is determined that an accident has occurred, this flowchart is ended. On the other hand, if it is determined that no accident has occurred, step S200
Return to and repeat the same process. If it is determined that no accident has occurred, the image data may be erased and the process may return to step S200 to erase the same process.

As described above, according to this embodiment, when there is a risk of an accident, the vehicle monitoring camera 10 photographs the surroundings of the vehicle or the interior of the vehicle, and the photographed image data is recorded in the flash memory 40. To do. As a result, it becomes possible to record the process in which the accident occurs, and it is possible to accurately investigate the cause of the accident. Further, unlike the first embodiment, it is not necessary to constantly monitor the surrounding situation by the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera 10 and record the image data, so that the life of the flash memory 40 can be extended.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a mounting position and a shooting area of each camera of the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an overall configuration diagram showing a second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Image controller 10 In-vehicle surveillance camera 20 memory 30 ROM 40 memory

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An in-vehicle surveillance camera for photographing a situation around a vehicle, a recording means for recording image data photographed by the in-vehicle surveillance camera, and an accident occurrence judgment for judging whether or not an accident of the own vehicle has occurred. A vehicle-mounted monitoring camera device, characterized in that the image data recorded in the recording means is brought into a freeze state when the accident occurrence judging means judges that an accident of the own vehicle has occurred. . 2. The in-vehicle surveillance camera device according to claim 1, wherein when the recording means records new image data at the stage of recording a predetermined amount of image data, the recorded image data is recorded. An in-vehicle surveillance camera device that deletes the oldest image data among the above. 3. An in-vehicle surveillance camera for photographing a situation around a vehicle, a recording means for recording image data photographed by the in-vehicle surveillance camera, and a judgment as to whether or not there is a risk of an accident of the own vehicle. When the accident risk determining unit determines that there is a risk of an accident, the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera captures an image of the surroundings of the vehicle, and the image is taken. An in-vehicle surveillance camera device characterized by recording image data in the recording means. 4. The vehicle-mounted monitoring camera device according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle-mounted monitoring camera captures an image of a driver's seat of the vehicle.