JPH02299944A - Rear confirming device mounted on car - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate grasping of a feeling of a distance to a rear object by a method wherein, in a device which displays the picture of the rear object of a vehicle by means of a picture photographing device, a relative distance between the vehicle and the rear object is discriminated, and the color of a picture is changed according to the discriminating result. CONSTITUTION:When a vehicle 6 is reversed, the picture of a rear object 3 photographed by a camera 2 mounted to the rear of the interior of the vehicle 6 is displayed on a monitor screen. In this case, a relative distance between the vehicle 6 and a rear object 3 and responding to movement of a vehicle is discriminated by a discriminating means 10. A color signal classified by the magnitude of a displacement amount of the relative distance is inputted from a gate circuit 20b to a modulator 13. A color difference signal is modulated by the modulator 13 and synthesized with a luminance signal to output it from an output terminal. The color of the picture on a monitor screen is varied so that when the relative distance is 10m or more, the picture is colored green, when 5 - 10m, it is colored yellow, and when 5m or less, it is colored red.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a vehicle-mounted rear confirmation device, and in particular, even when there is a restriction on the rear mounting position of a rear confirmation camera such as in a regular passenger car, it is possible to monitor the relative relationship between the vehicle and a rear object. This invention relates to improvements that allow distance to be easily recognized.

[Summary of the invention] Displaying an image of an object behind a vehicle using a rear confirmation camera,
This in-vehicle rear confirmation device changes the color of the image depending on the relative distance between the vehicle and the object behind it.

[Prior art] Some large vehicles such as trucks and buses are equipped with a back-eye camera (in-vehicle rear confirmation camera) for checking the rear, and images taken by the camera are displayed on a monitor screen. . In this case, the relative distance between the vehicle and the object behind it is determined based on the bumper that is simultaneously displayed on the monitor screen.

For example, a back-eye camera 2 is attached to the rear of the bus 1 as shown in FIG. 8(a), and an image of the rear object 3 taken by the camera is displayed on the monitor screen shown in FIG. 8(b). The reference position Om from the vehicle, which is the reference for measuring the distance to the rear object 1' when the vehicle is reversing, is located above the bumper 4 on the monitor screen in FIG. 8(b). So for example.

By inserting and displaying a distance measuring scale 9 as shown in FIG. 8(c) on the monitor screen, the relative distance between the vehicle 1 and the object 3 behind it can be recognized.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] However, in the case of regular passenger cars, there are restrictions on the mounting position of the camera, and furthermore, the vehicle height is considerably lower than that of large cars, so it is difficult to secure a field of view from several meters to several tens of meters behind the vehicle. Moreover, the bumper, which is the standard for distance measurement, cannot be displayed on the monitor screen.

For example, in a regular passenger car 6 as shown in FIG. 9(a), it is not preferable to install the camera 2 at the rear of the upper part of the vehicle or at the top of the trunk 7, so it is preferable to install it inside the vehicle as shown in FIG. 9(a). Good.

However, when the rear object 3 is photographed by the camera 2 at the illustrated mounting position, the image shown in FIG. 9(b) is displayed on the monitor screen. Therefore, if the standard for distance measurement is a of the trunk 7, the position will be b of Fig. 9(a) on the road, so if there is a rear object 3 between the vehicles when the vehicle is reversing, it will be in the position b of Fig. 9(a). You will not be able to get a sense of distance, making it difficult to safely check behind you and back up.

[Objective of the Invention 1 Therefore, the object of the present invention is to easily recognize the relative distance and safely, even when images of bumpers, etc., which serve as a criterion for determining the relative distance between a vehicle and an object behind it, cannot be displayed on the monitor screen. To provide an on-vehicle rearward confirmation device which is capable of backing up.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention includes distance determining means for determining a relative distance between a vehicle and a rear object corresponding to the movement of the vehicle, and a rear object according to the determined relative distance. The gist is that a color changing means for changing the color of an image of an object is provided.

[Function] Now, if the camera 2 is installed at the rear inside the ordinary passenger car 6 as shown in Fig. 1(a), the image of the rear object 3 will be displayed on the monitor screen as shown in Fig. 1(b). Is displayed. From this state, if the vehicle 6 moves backward in the direction of the arrow 8 as shown in FIGS. 2(a) and 3(a), the images on the monitor screen will change as shown in FIGS. 2(b) and 3(a). It changes as shown in (b). In this case, the image of the rear object 3 is colored in different colors, for example, green when the relative distance between the vehicle 6 and the rear object 3 is 10 m or more, yellow when it is 5 m to 10 m,
The color changes depending on the relative distance, so that it becomes red when the distance is less than 5 meters. Therefore, the relative distance between the vehicle and the object behind can be easily and intuitively recognized just by looking at the monitor screen, and the driver can safely retreat.

[Examples] The present invention will be described below with reference to examples shown in the drawings. FIG. 4 shows an embodiment of a vehicle-mounted rear confirmation device according to the present invention.

In the figure, 10 is a distance determining means, 11 is a color changing means, 12 is a signal processing circuit, 13 is a modulator, 14 is a subcarrier input terminal, and 15 is a video signal output terminal.

The distance determining means 10 includes a vertical contour signal detection circuit 16, a field memory 18, first and second gate pulse generation circuits 19a, 19b, pulse width detection circuits 21a, 21b,
It consists of a subtraction circuit 25 and a microcomputer 22.

The color changing means 11 includes a horizontal contour signal detection circuit 17, a third gate pulse generation circuit 19c, and first and second gate circuits 20.
a, 20b, color difference signal generation circuit 23, switch 24a,
It consists of 24b and 24c.

For example, as shown in FIG. 1(a), a video signal from an image pickup device 2' of a rear confirmation camera 2 installed inside an ordinary passenger car is input to a signal processing circuit 12.

Now, assuming that the vehicle 6 is moving backward as shown in Figure 1 → Figure 2 → Figure 3, the relative distance between the vehicle 6 and the object 3 behind it (hereinafter expressed as X) for the 11 hour change is Fifth
The result will be as shown in Figure (a). If we pay attention to the contours of the rear object 3 photographed here, the width between the contours (indicated by h' in FIG. 6) also changes over time. Further, let h be the width of the contour at a certain time t, and let Δ be the width of the contour seconds before h'
Then, when X is long, the amount of change in the width of the contour (hh-h'
) is smaller, and the shorter X is, the larger (hh') is.

FIG. 5(b) shows this relationship.

As can be seen from Fig. 5(a) and (b), Δ is h− in seconds.
If h' changes by Δ(hh - h'), then Δ(
hh') is larger as X becomes shorter.

That is, depending on the amount of change in the contour Δ(hh'),
Information on the relative distance between the vehicle and the object behind can be obtained.

As the vertical and horizontal contour signal detection circuits 16 and 17 in FIG. 4, a circuit used for contour correction of a general video camera may be used. The detection circuit 16 detects a vertical contour signal from the output of the signal processing circuit 12, and the vertical contour signal is stored in the field memory 18 as data △ seconds before the time (seconds) at which hh' will be calculated later. The data is captured and output after △ seconds. 1st. The second gate pulse generating circuits 19a and 19b generate gate pulses synchronized with the width of the axial signal, h', as shown in FIG.

1st. The gate pulses from the second gate pulse generation circuits 19a and 19b are processed by the pulse width detection circuit 21 to determine the pulse width (sixth pulse width).
In the figure, the period during which the gate pulse is at a high level) is counted.
The subtraction circuit 25 subtracts each count value to obtain the contour displacement amount (
hh') is detected.

Next, the amount of contour displacement (hh') is determined by the microcomputer 2.
2, and the amount of displacement is determined. The operation for determining the amount of displacement is shown in the flowchart of FIG. The microcomputer 22 further controls the 0N10FF of the switches 24a to 24c, and by using the control method shown in Table 1, the second gate circuit 20b receives an R color difference signal when X is far away, and a G color difference signal when it is close. A signal is input.

Table 1 On the other hand, from the horizontal contour signal from the horizontal contour signal detection circuit 17, only the pulse portion synchronized with the width of the vertical axis contour signal is extracted by the first gate circuit 20a, and then the horizontal contour signal is extracted by the third gate pulse generation circuit 19c. A gate pulse synchronized with the width of the contour signal is created.

This gate pulse is input to the second gate circuit 20b,
Of the color difference signals passed through the switches 24a to 24c, only a portion having the width of the horizontal contour signal is extracted.

In this way, the color difference signals distinguished according to the magnitude of the displacement amount of the relative distance X are inputted to the modulator 13 from the second gate circuit 20b. The color difference signal is modulated by the modulator 13, combined with the luminance signal Y, and output from the output terminal.

The example of the circuit that colors only the approaching object behind the vehicle has been shown above, but in addition to this, a signal used for autofocus of a video camera, for example, may be used as the X information.

Moreover, the number of colors to be colored does not need to be three.

Further, the distance may be displayed numerically in conjunction with the above-mentioned color change, or the distance determining means may of course use various methods.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above explanation, according to the present invention,
Even in the case where a rear confirmation camera is installed inside a normal passenger car, danger can be easily detected because the sense of distance to objects behind can be grasped using visual information when the vehicle is backing up.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 to 3 are respectively explanatory diagrams of the operation of the present invention, FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 5 and 6 are explanatory diagrams of the operation of the above embodiment, and FIG. Flowchart for explaining the operation of the microcomputer in the above embodiment, No. 8
9 and 9 are explanatory diagrams of the prior art. 10... Distance determination means, 11...
...Color changing means, 12... Signal processing circuit, 13...Modulator, 14...
...Subcarrier input terminal, 15...
・Video signal output terminal, 16... Vertical contour signal detection circuit, 17... Horizontal contour signal detection circuit, 18... Field memory ,
19a, 19b, 19c... 1st. Second
．． Third gate pulse generation circuit, 20a, 20b...
...First. Second gate circuit, 21a, 21b...
・・・・・・・First. Second pulse width detection circuit, 22...
・・・・・・Microcomputer, 23・・・・・・
. . . Color difference signal generation circuit, 24 . . . Switch, 25 . . . Subtraction circuit. Patent Applicant Talalion Co., Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney Nagai 1) Takeshi Part Figure 1 (a) (b) Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 (b) Figure 6 (a) (b) Gate I (Rusu- L Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a device configured to display an image of an object behind a vehicle using an imaging device attached to the vehicle, a distance determining means for determining a relative distance between the vehicle and the rear object corresponding to the movement of the vehicle; A vehicle-mounted rear confirmation device comprising: color changing means for changing the color of the image according to the relative distance determined. (2) The distance determining means includes first means for detecting the amount of change in the contour of the image signal output from the imaging device, and second means for detecting that the amount of change exceeds a predetermined value. and wherein the color changing means comprises third means for changing the color of the image corresponding to the amount of change in response to the detection of the amount of change by the second means. ) vehicle-mounted rear confirmation device.