JP3069999B2 - Method for detecting the distance from a contrast object in a vehicle contrast detection device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to the transmission of a signal to a control object located in front of a vehicle and the reception of a reflected signal from the control object along the longitudinal and lateral directions of the vehicle. The present invention relates to a vehicle object detection device that includes a distance sensor that detects and outputs the distance between an own vehicle and the object, and that identifies output data of the distance sensors that are close to each other as the same object.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, such an apparatus is disclosed in
It is already known from -180933 and the like.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned conventional apparatus, the distances in the front-rear direction of all of a plurality of data identified as the same control object are averaged, and the average value is calculated before and after the reference object from the own vehicle. It is defined as the directional distance. However, even if the same control object is used, if the reflection area is different, the signal reflection direction is different, or if the reception level of the reflected signal changes due to unevenness in the front-rear direction, the detection distance will change significantly. That is, when the reception level is high, the distance is short, and when the reception level is low, the distance is long. For this reason, in the conventional method in which the average value of all the data identified as the same control object is set as the distance to the control object, the reception level is affected by the low data, and the front-back direction to the control object is affected. The error in the distance detection value becomes relatively large.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has been made in consideration of the above-described problems. It is intended to provide a detection method.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is directed to transmitting a signal to a target located in front of a vehicle and receiving a reflected signal from the target. A distance sensor for detecting and outputting the distance between the vehicle and the control object along the front-rear direction and the lateral direction of the vehicle, and identifying output data of the distance sensor that are close to each other as the same control object; In the vehicle contrast object detection device, from the plurality of output data of the distance sensor output data identified as the same contrast object, the data having the shorter distance in the front-rear direction from the own vehicle is selected and selected by the set number. The longitudinal distance of the data is averaged, and the average value is determined as the longitudinal distance between the vehicle and the reference object.

[0006]

According to the above arrangement, of the plurality of data identified as the same control object, data having a low reception level and indicating a long-distance value is excluded, and the distance to the control object in the front-rear direction can be relatively accurately determined. It becomes detectable.

[0007]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1 to 5 show an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle object detecting device, and FIG. 2 shows an example of coordinate development by coordinate development means. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of cellization by the celling means, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of identification by the contrast object identification means,
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the motion determination of the control object by the motion determining means.

First, referring to FIG. 1, a front portion of a vehicle (not shown) transmits signals to a target located in front of the host vehicle and transmits and receives signals reflected from the target, and the front and rear of the host vehicle. A distance sensor 1 capable of detecting the distance between the vehicle and the object along the direction and the lateral direction is mounted. The distance sensor 1 can detect the distance between the vehicle and the object by transmitting and receiving, for example, a laser beam scanning method or a multi-beam method.

The output data of the distance sensor 1 is input to the coordinate developing means 2. The coordinate developing means 2 develops output data of the distance sensor 1 on XY coordinates with the front-rear direction with respect to the own vehicle as the Y axis and the lateral direction as the X axis, as shown in FIG. to, for example, when the seven data D ₁ to D ₇ is input from the distance sensor 1, these data D ₁ to D ₇ is to be deployed on the XY coordinates.

The output signal of the coordinate developing means 2 is
Is input to As shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of cells C _{0-0 to} C _nn are set in the cell _forming means 3 at predetermined intervals in the X-axis and Y-axis directions. Each data D _{1 to} D ₇ developed on XY coordinates
Is set by the celling means 3. For example, when the output data of the distance sensor 1 is developed on the XY coordinates as shown in FIG. 2, the data D ₁ is stored in the cell C _1-6 , the data D ₂ and D ₃ are stored in the cell C _1-1 , Data D in C _2-1
4 , the data D ₅ and D ₆ are located in the cell C _2-2 , and the data D ₇ is located in the cell C _{3-2. The celling} means 3 determines that the cells C _1-6 and C _{1- 1} , C _2-1 , C _2-2 , C _3-2
The number of output data of the distance sensor 1 located in the cell is counted and each cell C _1-6 , C _1-1 , C _2-1 , C _2-2 ,
The XY coordinates and the number of data for each C _3-2 are output as cell information. That is, when the cell information of each cell is expressed as (X coordinate, Y coordinate, number of data), the cell information of the cell C _1-6 is ( _{1, 6, 1} ), and the cell information of the cell C 1-1 is (1). 1,
2) Cell information of cell C _2-1 is (2, 1, 1)
The cell information of _2-2 is (2, 2, 2), and the cell information of cell C _3-2 is (3, 2, 1).

The cell information from the celling means 3 is input to the object identifying means 4. In the contrast object identification means 4, the cells adjacent to each other are given the same label based on the cell information from the cell forming means 3, and are identified as the same contrast object. That is, when the cell information shown in FIG. 3 is inputted, as shown in FIG. 4, the control object identifying means 4 _applies an independent label L ₁ to the cell C _1-6 where no cell having data exists in the vicinity. but are subjected, the cell C _1-1 adjacent to each other have data respectively, C _2-1, C _2-2, so that the same label L ₂ are attached to the C _{3- 2.} Moreover, the object identification means 4 determines the barycentric coordinates and the width in the X-axis direction of each label.
Coordinates, centroid position Y-coordinate, expressed as X axis direction width), the identification information of the label L ₁ is (X _1, Y _1, W _X1), also the identification information of the label L ₂ is (X _2, Y ₂ , W _X2 ).

[0013] Thus, the cell whose cell information is (1, 6, 1).
Le C_1-6Label L which is the same as₁For X₁=
1, Y₁= 6, but a plurality of cells C_1-1, C_2-1, C
_2-2, C_3-2Is identified as the same control
L_Two, The X coordinate X _TwoBut each cell C_1-1, C
_2-1, C_2-2, C_3-2Divide the sum of the X coordinate by the number of data
Thus, the coordinates of the position of the center of gravity are determined as follows.

X_Two= (1 × 2 + 2 × 3 + 3 × 1) /6=1.8 and the label L_TwoY coordinate of_TwoThat is, the label L_TwoAttached
For the distance in the front-rear direction from the vehicle to the contrasted object,
A plurality of output data D identified as the same control _Two~ D
₇From the vehicle, the data closer to the vehicle in the front-rear direction is set.
Select only constant N and forward / backward direction of selected data
It is obtained by averaging distances. Thus the setting
The number N depends on the distance from the vehicle in the front-rear direction and the number of data.
Are set as shown in the following table.

[0015]

[Table 1]

Here, the distance in the front-rear direction is in the range of 10 to 20 m and the number of data is 6 as shown in FIGS.
When the number is three, the set number N is three, and the three data whose distance from the own vehicle in the front-rear direction is short are D ₂ , D ₃ , and D ₄ in the example of FIG. Data D ₂ ,
D ₃ and D ₄ are formed into cells C _1-1 and C _2-1 .
Therefore, the Y coordinate Y ₂ of the label L ₂ is determined as follows.

Y ₂ = (1 × 2 + 1 × 1) / 3 = 1 That is, the distance Y ₂ from the vehicle to the control object labeled L _{2 in} the front-rear direction is represented by data D ₅ , D
_6, the D ₇ eliminated, will be obtained by averaging the longitudinal distance of the front and rear three data D ₂ towards direction distance is short, D _3, D ₄ from the vehicle.

The identification information from the object identification means 4 is input to the motion determination means 5. The motion determination means 5 determines the relative speed of the labeled control object with respect to the own vehicle by a time-series comparison of each label identified by the control object identification means 4. That is, as shown in FIG. 5, for each label, for example, L ₁ and L ₂ , the previously obtained barycentric position coordinates (X
_{1 ', Y 1'),} (X 2 ', Y 2') previously expected range of relative velocity vector of the arrow from (the range indicated by a chain line) and is defined, obtained this time within the expected range When the coordinates of the center of gravity (X ₁ , Y ₁ ) and (X ₂ , Y ₂ ) are present, it is determined that the object is the same object, and the X-axis direction and the Y-axis with respect to the own vehicle are determined by comparing the previous and current center of gravity coordinates The relative speed of the axial counterpart will be obtained.

In this way, for each label obtained by the object identification means 4 (X coordinate of center of gravity, Y coordinate of center of gravity,
X-axis direction width) and the relative speed of each label obtained by the motion judging means 5 can be obtained as information of a contrasting object in front of the vehicle, and a collision judgment or the like is made based on the information. Will be.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. Data output from the distance sensor 1 is compiled by the celling means 3 for each of a plurality of cells partitioned on XY coordinates, and these cells are compared with each other. Is performed to perform labeling. Therefore, the number of cells set by the celling means 3 is much smaller than the number of output data of the distance sensor 1 as compared with the conventional one in which the proximity determination is performed between the output data from the distance sensor 1. Therefore, the time required for the proximity determination processing is reduced. Moreover, the celling means 3 also outputs the number of data present in each cell as cell information, and can utilize the number of data to determine the coordinates of the center of gravity in the object identification means 4, thereby reducing the processing time. Despite the shortening, the coordinate accuracy of the control object does not decrease.

Further, when a plurality of data output from the distance sensor 1 are identified as the same control object, when detecting the front-back distance from the own vehicle to the control object, the front-back distance from the own vehicle is short. The selected data is selected by the set number N, and the longitudinal distance of the selected data is averaged. The average value is determined as the longitudinal distance between the vehicle and the reference object. The data shown can be excluded, and the influence of the data having a low reception level can be excluded, and the distance in the front-rear direction to the control object can be relatively accurately detected.

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various design changes can be made without departing from the present invention described in the appended claims. It is possible.

For example, a vehicle object detection device for directly comparing each data without discriminating a plurality of data output from the distance sensor 1 and identifying those which are close to each other as the same object. It is also possible to apply the present invention.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention, data having a shorter distance in the front-rear direction from the own vehicle is set from a plurality of output data of the output data of the distance sensor identified as the same object. The number is selected and the longitudinal distance of the selected data is averaged, and the average value is determined as the longitudinal distance between the vehicle and the reference object. The distance in the front-rear direction to the control object can be detected relatively accurately.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a vehicle object detection device.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of coordinate development by a coordinate development unit.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of cell conversion by a cell conversion unit.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of identification by a contrast object identification unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a motion determination of a control object by a motion determination unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Distance sensor

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-5-180933 (JP, A) JP-A-6-59033 (JP, A) JP-A-4-302063 (JP, A) (58) Field (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G01S 13/00-13/93 G01S 17/93

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method according to claim 1, further comprising: transmitting a signal to a control object located in front of the vehicle and receiving a reflected signal from the control object. Sensor that detects and outputs the distance of a vehicle (1)
Wherein the output data of the distance sensor (1) is the same object in the output data of the distance sensor (1). From the plurality of output data identified as above, select a set number of data having a shorter distance in the front-rear direction from the own vehicle and average the front-rear distance of the selected data, and calculate the average value between the own vehicle and the control object. A method for detecting a distance from a contrasting object in a vehicle contrasting object detection device, wherein the distance is determined as a distance in the front-rear direction of the vehicle.