JP2005135203A - Vehicle-driving support device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vehicle-driving support device which recognizes a lane position by using an image picked up by a camera, the camera picking up a left-and-right visual field which can not seen from the position of a driver at a low-visibility intersection or a T-shaped road. <P>SOLUTION: The vehicle-driving support device is provided with; a camera which picks up a left-and-right visual field, which can not be seen from the position of a driver at a low-visibility intersection or a T-shaped road, and is installed on the front part of a vehicle; a display device which displays the image picked up by the camera to a driver in a vehicle; and a lane position recognition part which recognizes a lane position in the image from the image picked up by the camera. Screens of adequate exposure, which conform to purposes in blind monitor and a lane-deviation warning, respectively, can be obtained by switching photometric areas in accordance with the vehicle's speeds even if the visibility of the camera is fixed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle driving support device that detects the possibility of a lane departure of a vehicle.

  In the prior art, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 06-321209, a method for confirming the left and right safety checks that are required with the minimum amount of cueing of the vehicle, using an image acquired by a camera attached to the bonnet tip of the vehicle, Further, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 09-007099, a method for issuing a warning by predicting the possibility of lane departure from an image obtained by a monitoring camera in front of the vehicle is disclosed. However, if these are to be realized with one vehicle, a large number of cameras are required, a complicated operation is required, and a complicated configuration is required, which in turn results in a very expensive system.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-321209 JP 09-007099 A

  An object of the present invention is to use a camera that captures left and right fields of view that cannot be seen from a driver's seat at an intersection with poor visibility or a T-junction to recognize the lane position, and is an inexpensive and convenient vehicle driving support device. Is to provide.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, a vehicle driving support device according to the present invention is a vehicle driving support device that switches a photometric area according to a vehicle speed and detects a lane departure.

  A camera attached to the front of the vehicle that captures the left and right fields of view that cannot be seen from the driver's seat at intersections with poor visibility or T-junction, and a display that displays the images captured by this camera to the driver in the passenger compartment A lane position recognizing unit that recognizes a lane position in an image from an apparatus and an image captured by a camera is provided.

  A warning unit is provided that detects the possibility of lane departure of the vehicle based on the lane position and vehicle behavior recognized by the lane position recognition unit, and issues a warning to the driver when it is determined that the vehicle will deviate from the lane.

  Also, based on the lane position recognized by the lane position recognition unit and the vehicle behavior, the possibility of lane departure of the vehicle is detected, and when it is judged that the vehicle will deviate from the lane, the actuator is steered to control the vehicle without departing from the lane. A vehicle control unit.

  According to the present invention, by switching the photometric area according to the vehicle speed, it is possible to obtain a screen with an appropriate exposure according to the purpose of each of the blind monitor and the lane departure warning even in a camera with a fixed field of view. Based on this, it is possible to issue an alarm and provide driving assistance.

  According to the present invention, the recognized lane position information can be effectively used for display by a display device, lane departure monitoring, departure prevention control, and the like. Further, by determining the possibility of lane departure based on the recognized lane information, it is possible to prompt the driver to perform an appropriate driving operation. It is possible to reduce the burden on the driving operation of the driver by issuing an alarm or performing vehicle control.

  The present invention is an image acquired by a camera arranged in the front part of the vehicle, based on monitoring the left and right fields of view that cannot be seen from the driver's seat at an intersection or T-junction with poor visibility, and based on the lane position and vehicle behavior. The present invention relates to a vehicle driving support device that detects, detects, or determines the possibility of lane departure of a vehicle.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows an example of a block diagram of a vehicle driving support device of the present invention. This device is installed at the front of the vehicle and uses a CCD camera (or CMOS camera) 1 that can shoot wide angles such as the front and left and right of the vehicle. This is a vehicle driving support device that provides information necessary for the driving operation of the driver using an image obtained by photographing the field of view. The CCD camera 1 is connected to a camera controller 2 that performs photometry and exposure adjustment, and performs image processing. The camera controller 2 receives an output signal of a vehicle speed sensor 3 that detects the speed of the vehicle, and also displays a display device 4 and a lane departure warning system 5 that are arranged at positions that are easily visible to the driver in the passenger compartment. A data signal such as a video signal or a signal including the data signal is output.

  The camera controller 2 includes a control unit 6, a photometric unit 7, and an image processing unit 8, and the photometric unit 7 includes a dividing unit 9 that divides an input image signal according to an area, and a dividing unit 9. An adder A10 and an adder B11 for adding the divided video signals are provided.

  The lane departure warning system 5 has a white line recognition ECU 12 that recognizes the lane markings on both sides of the lane in which the vehicle travels from the acquired image by image recognition, and uses the vehicle behavior information acquired from the sensor group 13 to deviate from the lane of the vehicle. It consists of a departure warning ECU 14 that detects or estimates the possibility and permits a warning if necessary, and an alarm 15 that issues a warning to the driver.

  FIG. 2 is an example showing an installation state of the vehicle driving support apparatus according to the present invention. The CCD camera 1 is disposed at the front portion of the vehicle body 16, for example, at the center of the front grill. Then, wide-angle images such as the front and left and right sides of the vehicle including the left and right white lines 17L and 17R of the lane 17 in which the vehicle is traveling are taken. The display device 4 is disposed at the front center part of the passenger compartment next to the driver's seat 18 and may be shared with other system display systems such as a car navigation system and an audio system.

  Hereinafter, the operation of the vehicle driving device according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of an acquired image, FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a photometric area, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating main operations.

  The operation flow shown in FIG. 5 is mainly performed by the control unit 6 of the camera controller 2, and is repeatedly executed at a predetermined timing from when the vehicle ignition key is turned on to when it is turned off. Is.

  In this device, the image acquired by the CCD camera 1 is displayed on the display device 4 so that the driver can be informed of or acquired information on the blind spot at an unforeseeable intersection or T-junction that cannot be seen from the driver's seat. By recognizing the white lines 17L and 17R that divide the lane 17 from the image and comparing it with the vehicle behavior by recognizing the image, the driver is warned and alerted when the vehicle deviates.

  First, an image acquired by the CCD camera 1 will be described. In the acquired image, as shown in FIG. 3, a thing that can be fixedly displayed in the lower part, for example, a bumper 19 is shown, a space, for example, the sky 20 is shown in the upper part, a lane 17 and its lane 17 in the central part. The white lines 17L and 17R on both sides are shown. When the vehicle speed is stopped or low, it is necessary to confirm the presence of a vehicle or a person existing above the road surface, so it is necessary to acquire information on the sky 20 side. The information on the white lines 17L and 17R may not necessarily be acquired accurately. On the other hand, at the time of lane departure monitoring in normal driving, it is necessary to acquire information on the lane 17, specifically, the white lines 17 </ b> L and 17 </ b> R, but information on the sky 20 side is not necessarily required. Therefore, the optimum photometric processing is performed in each case.

  First, vehicle speed information is read from the vehicle speed sensor 3 in step S1 of FIG.

  Next, in step S2, it is determined whether the vehicle speed is 20 km / h or less, for example. If it is 20 km / h or less, the process proceeds to step S3, and the photometric area is set to the entire screen. Specifically, the dividing unit 9 divides the acquired image into three regions, a region A corresponding to the sky 20 portion, a region B corresponding to the road surface portion, and a region C corresponding to the bumper portion as shown in FIG. The image data of the area A is output to the adder A10 and the image signal of the area B is output to the adder B11.

  In addition part A10 and addition part B11, the brightness | luminance of the whole area | region is calculated by adding an image signal, respectively, and it notifies to the control part 6. FIG. Actually, the entire effective screen area (area A and area B) is set as the photometric area by excluding the area C from the photometric area.

  In the case of the processing in step S3, the luminance of the entire regions A and B is obtained by further adding the addition results of the adding unit A10 and the adding unit B11.

  In step S4, the exposure of the CCD camera 1 is adjusted so that the luminance thus obtained matches the target luminance.

  In step S <b> 5, the adjusted exposure image is image-processed by the image processing unit 8, converted into a mirror image, and displayed on the display device 4.

  On the other hand, when the vehicle speed exceeds 20 km / h in step S2, the process proceeds to step S6, and the photometric area is set to the road surface portion. Specifically, the control unit 6 performs exposure adjustment of the CCD camera 1 in step S7 using only the addition result of the adding unit B11, that is, the luminance of the region B shown in FIG.

  Thereafter, in step S8, the white line recognition ECU 12 recognizes the white lines 17L and 17R by image recognition from the image, and the departure warning ECU 14 deviates from the lane 17 based on the white line information and the vehicle behavior information obtained from the sensor group 13. The estimated time until the vehicle is estimated, and when this estimated time is less than or equal to the threshold value, a lane departure warning is issued to issue a warning to the driver by the alarm device 15.

  Here, the camera controller 2 may be configured to send only the image signal of the region B to the lane departure warning system 5. By cutting a region unnecessary for white line recognition, it is possible to suppress misrecognition and improve the recognition system.

  In this way, by switching the photometric area depending on whether the vehicle speed is 20 km / h or less, for example, the vehicle or the person approaching the vehicle can be clearly seen when the vehicle speed is 0 to 20 km / h or less or when the vehicle speed is low. Appropriate exposure can be obtained. On the other hand, when the vehicle speed exceeds 20 km / h, the exposure is adjusted so that the white line recognition ECU 12 can accurately recognize the white line. In particular, even when the sky 20 in fine weather is bright or when the on-coming light is reflected in the area A at night, the exposure is not excessively reduced and an appropriate exposure according to the white line can be obtained. Therefore, it is possible to obtain an appropriate exposure for each processing, and there is an advantage that the drive mechanism of the CCD camera 1 is not required and the system can be configured at low cost.

  In the above description, the example in which the photometric area is divided into two has been described, but the divided area may be further subdivided. When the white line recognition ECU 12 uses a wide left and right image by the image displayed on the display device 4, the areas A and B shown in FIG. 4 are divided into the center and the left and right, and the area A is used when used as a blind monitor. , B may be the photometric area, and the entire area may be the photometric area when a lane departure warning is issued.

  Moreover, although the actual shape not used as the photometric area has been described for the region C corresponding to the bumper 19, it may be used as the photometric area including this part.

  Also, based on the lane position recognized by the lane position recognition unit and the vehicle behavior, the possibility of lane departure of the vehicle is judged, and when it is judged that the vehicle is going to deviate from the lane, the steering is moved by the actuator to control the vehicle. You may do it.

It is a block diagram which shows an example of schematic structure of the vehicle driving assistance device which concerns on this invention. It is a figure explaining an example of the installation state to the vehicle of the apparatus of FIG. It is a figure explaining the example of an acquired image of a CCD camera. It is a figure explaining a photometry area. It is a flowchart explaining operation | movement of the apparatus of FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... CCD camera (or CMOS camera), 2 ... Camera controller, 3 ... Vehicle speed sensor, 4 ... Display apparatus, 5 ... Lane departure warning system, 6 ... Control part, 7 ... Photometry part, 8 ... Image processing part, 9 ... Dividing unit, 10 ... adding unit A, 11 ... adding unit B, 12 ... white line recognition ECU, 13 ... sensor group, 14 ... deviation alarm ECU, 15 ... alarm, 16 ... vehicle body, 17 ... lane, 17L, 17R ... White line, 18 ... driver seat, 19 ... bumper, 20 ... empty.

Claims (8)

  A camera that captures an image; a display that displays an image captured by the camera; and a lane position recognition unit that recognizes a lane position in the image from the image captured by the camera. A vehicle driving support device that detects a lane departure by switching a photometric area according to the lane. In claim 1,
A vehicle driving support comprising a warning unit that detects the possibility of lane departure of a vehicle based on the lane position recognized by the lane position recognition unit and vehicle behavior, and issues an alarm when the vehicle departs from the lane. apparatus. In any one of Claims 1 thru | or 2,
A vehicle that detects the possibility of lane departure of a vehicle based on the lane position and vehicle behavior recognized by the lane position recognition unit, and controls the vehicle so as not to deviate from the lane if the vehicle departs from the lane. Driving assistance device. In any one of Claims 1 thru | or 3,
An image acquired by the camera is displayed on a display device when the vehicle is stopped or at a low speed, and lane position recognition control is not performed.   A camera attached to the front of the vehicle that captures the left and right fields of view that cannot be viewed from the driver's seat at an intersection or T-junction with poor visibility, and a display device that displays an image captured by the camera in the vehicle interior A vehicle driving support apparatus comprising a lane position recognition unit that recognizes a lane position in an image captured by the camera. In claim 5,
A vehicle driving support comprising a warning unit that detects the possibility of lane departure of a vehicle based on the lane position recognized by the lane position recognition unit and vehicle behavior, and issues an alarm when the vehicle departs from the lane. apparatus. In any one of Claims 5 thru | or 6,
A vehicle that detects the possibility of lane departure of a vehicle based on the lane position and vehicle behavior recognized by the lane position recognition unit, and controls the vehicle so as not to deviate from the lane if it is detected to deviate from the lane. Driving assistance device. In any one of Claims 5 thru | or 7,
An image acquired by the camera is displayed on a display device when the vehicle is stopped or at a low speed, and lane position recognition control is not performed.

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