JPH0877487A - On-road obstacle detecting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To detect an obstacle on a road early and securely. CONSTITUTION: This device is equipped with an ITV camera 13 which photographes an on-road obstacle detection area, an analog-digital converter 20 which digitizes the image obtained by the ITV camera 13, an image storage part 21 which processes and stores the image digitized by the analog-digital converter 20, a background storage part 23 which stores image information on only the background that is photographed right after the device is actuated and does not include the vehicle, a recognition processing part 22 which separates the image information in the image storage part 21 into vehicle information and a background image, an obstacle detection part 25 which detects the on-road obstacle from the background image separated by the recognition processing part 22, an alarm processing part 27 which outputs an alarm with the obstacle detection signal outputted by the obstacle detection part 25, and a display plate 16 which displays the alarm information outputted by this alarm processing part 27.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a road obstacle detecting device, and more particularly to a road obstacle detecting device capable of early and surely detecting a road obstacle.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in order to detect an obstacle on the road, as shown in FIG.
An ITV camera 13 for photographing the road 11 is provided on the roadside 12 of the vehicle 1. The ITV camera 13 shows the road 11 as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, and the obstacle 14 such as a rock fall or a dropped luggage is artificially detected by the road management office 15 (hereinafter referred to as “management office”). Is going.

When the management office 15 finds the obstacle 14, it notifies the following vehicle 17 via the display board 16 of the fact.

In order to detect road obstacles in this way, IT
Since the staff of the management office 15 artificially confirms the presence or absence of the obstacle 14 based on the image obtained from the V camera 13 and displays this information on the display board 16, it takes a lot of effort to detect it. There was a problem that the discovery was delayed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a road obstacle detecting device which solves the above problems by detecting the road obstacle early and surely and notifying the succeeding vehicle of the detection. It is a thing.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides an ITV camera for photographing a road obstacle detection area, an analog / digital converter for digitizing an image signal obtained by the ITV camera, and the analog / digital conversion. Processing unit that separates the vehicle information and the background image from the image information digitized by the detector, an obstacle detection unit that detects a road obstacle from the background image that is separated by the recognition processing unit, and the obstacle The road obstacle detection device is configured by including an alarm processing unit that outputs information according to the obstacle detection signal sent by the detection unit and a display plate that displays the alarm information output by the alarm processing unit.

[0007] Further, the road obstacle detecting means for accumulating the recognized running states of the vehicle and limiting the area where the road obstacle is considered to exist depending on the situation, and the road on the road after the recognition processing unit detects the passage end of the vehicle. (EN) A road obstacle detection device characterized by having road obstacle detection means for detecting a road obstacle when a vehicle does not exist in the obstacle detection area.

[0008]

According to the above construction, the image of the obstacle detection area on the road is displayed, and this image is separated into the vehicle information and the background image. Vehicle recognition is performed based on the separated vehicle information,
If the vehicle exists, the running state of the vehicle is accumulated. As a result of accumulating for a unit time, if there is an area where the vehicle does not pass,
The area is defined as an obstacle detection area. If there is no vehicle, all the separated background images are set as obstacle detection areas,
The obstacle is searched for, and when the obstacle is detected, the fact is displayed on the display board as alarm information.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A road obstacle detecting device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. A road obstacle detection device according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG.
The ITV camera 13 photographs the road 11 and obtains an image of the road obstacle detection area A. The image signal obtained by the ITV camera 13 is sent to the analog / digital converter 20 and converted from the analog image signal into digital image information. The converted digital image information is written in, for example, the image storage unit 21 configured by a semiconductor memory or the like.

Immediately after starting the apparatus, the background image information to be used as a reference when an image of only the background without a vehicle as shown in FIG. Is stored in the background storage unit 23.

The digital image information stored in the image storage unit 21 is read out by the recognition processing unit 22, and an image separation process is performed to separate the vehicle information extracted from only the traveling vehicle and the background image.

Further, the recognition processing section 22 performs vehicle recognition and vehicle tracking using the extracted vehicle information, and determines the timing of sending the separated background image to the obstacle detection section 25.

Further, the recognition processing section 22 determines whether the obstacle 14 such as a rock fall or a falling object is detected from the running state of the vehicle obtained by the vehicle recognition.
Of the background image is limited, and a part of the background image (limited area) is sent to the obstacle detection unit 25.

The digital / analog converter 24 reads out the digital image information stored in the additional storage unit 21, converts it into an analog image signal, and displays it on the display monitor 26.

On the other hand, the obstacle detecting section 25 is composed of the recognition processing section 2
Part of the background image separated by 2 (limited area)
Alternatively, when the entire background image is received, the background image information stored in the background storage unit 23 is used immediately after the apparatus is activated to search for obstacles 14 such as a falling rock or a falling baggage in the road obstacle detection area A, and the obstacle is detected. When the object 14 is detected, an obstacle detection signal is sent to the alarm processing unit 27.

The alarm processing unit 27 displays an alarm corresponding to the obstacle detection signal received from the obstacle detection unit 25 on the display board 16.

Next, the operation of the recognition processing section 22 for performing the image separation processing will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG. 2 and FIGS.
This will be described with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.

The digital image information stored in the image storage unit 21 is read into the recognition processing unit 22, and binarization processing, that is, image separation processing is performed on the vehicle information such as the vehicle and the background image such as the background (S1). The characteristics of the vehicle are extracted from the vehicle information after this binarization processing (S2). It is determined whether the characteristic point of the vehicle being tracked (S3), and if the vehicle is being tracked, the running state is obtained using the extracted characteristic points (S4). The obtained traveling states (dotted arrows in FIGS. 8 and 9) are accumulated (S5), and when the number of vehicles traveling exceeds a predetermined number within a unit time, the accumulated traveling states, lane boundaries, and shoulders Using the intersection of the boundary lines, it is determined whether there is a region 19 in which the vehicle does not travel in FIG. 10 (S6). If there is a region 19 in which the vehicle does not travel, the background image of that region is sent to the obstacle detection unit 25 as an obstacle detection region (S7). If the extracted feature point is not the vehicle being tracked, the feature point is recognized as a newly appearing vehicle (S8).

As shown in FIG. 6, when the traveling vehicle 18 passes through the road shoulder obstacle detection area A and no vehicle exists in the road obstacle detection area A, the entire background image separated by the image separation processing is obstructed. The obstacle is sent to the object detection unit 25 (S).
9).

The operation of the obstacle detecting section 25 for detecting an obstacle from the background image is shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3 and FIGS.
Will be described with reference to FIG.

When the obstacle detection unit 25 receives a part of the background image or the entire background image from the recognition processing unit 22, the background image (FIG. 6) and the background storage unit 23 stored immediately after the apparatus is activated. The background difference image is compared with the background image information (FIG. 4) and the background difference process is performed (S11). The background difference image obtained by performing the background difference process is binarized (S12). The obstacle 14 is searched from the image signal subjected to the binarization processing (S
13), it is determined whether there is an obstacle 14 in the area (S14). If there is, an obstacle detection signal is sent to the alarm processing unit 27, and if not, the processing ends.

When the alarm processing unit 27 receives the obstacle detection signal from the obstacle detection unit 25, it sends the alarm information to the display board 16 to notify the following vehicle 17.

Thus, the road obstacle detection device 1 of the present invention
According to 0, in the situation where the traveling vehicle is frequent, the recognition processing unit 2
2 accumulates the traveling states (dotted line arrows) of the traveling vehicle 18 that avoids the obstacle 14 as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, and limits the region 19 in which the vehicle does not travel from the situation to determine the obstacle detection unit 2
5 detects the obstacle 14, and when the traveling vehicle is sparse, the obstacle detection unit 25 uses the image information shown in FIGS. 4 and 6 to detect the obstacle. And the like can be immediately detected and alarm information can be notified to the following vehicle 17 via the display plate 16.

[0024]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention provides an ITV camera for photographing an obstacle detection area on a road, an analog / digital converter for digitizing an image signal obtained by the ITV camera, and a digitization by the analog / digital converter. The recognition processing unit that separates the vehicle information and the background image from the obtained image information, the obstacle detection unit that detects a road obstacle from the background image that is separated by this recognition processing unit, and the obstacle detection unit. It is equipped with an alarm processing unit that outputs an alarm in response to the transmitted obstacle detection signal, and a display plate that displays the alarm information output by this alarm processing unit. There is no vehicle in the road obstacle detection area after the road obstacle detection means that limits the area that seems to exist and the recognition processing unit detects the end of passage of the vehicle If, because the following combination of the road obstacle detecting means for detecting an on-road obstacle, in early road obstacle, and can be reliably detected.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of a road obstacle detection device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart diagram for explaining a recognition processing unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart diagram for explaining an obstacle detection unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining obstacle detection according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram for explaining obstacle detection according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram for explaining obstacle detection according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing an outline of a commonly used road obstacle detection device.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram for explaining obstacle detection according to a traveling state of the vehicle.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram for explaining obstacle detection depending on the traveling state of the vehicle.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram illustrating obstacle detection according to a traveling state of a vehicle.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Road Obstacle Detecting Device 11 Road 12 Roadside 13 ITV Camera 14 Obstacle 15 Management Office 16 Display Board 17 Follower Vehicle 18 Traveling Vehicle 19 Non-Traveling Area of Vehicle 20 Analog / Digital Converter 21 Image Storage Unit 22 Recognition Processing Unit 23 Background storage unit 24 Digital / analog converter 25 Obstacle detection unit 26 Display monitor 27 Alarm processing unit

Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI Technical display location G08B 21/00 E G08G 1/16 C H04N 7/18 K

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An ITV camera for photographing an obstacle detection area on a road, an analog-decidal converter for digitalizing an image obtained by the ITV camera, and an image processing digitized by the analog-digital converter. A recognition processing unit that separates the vehicle information and the background image, an alarm processing unit that outputs an alarm based on the obstacle detection signal output by the obstacle detection unit, and a display that displays the alarm information output by the alarm processing unit. A road obstacle detection device characterized by comprising a board and a bet. 2. The road obstacle detection device according to claim 1, wherein the recognition processing unit accumulates the recognized running states of the vehicle and limits an area where a road obstacle is likely to exist depending on the situation. . 3. The obstacle detection unit detects a road obstacle when the vehicle does not exist in the road obstacle detection area after the recognition processing unit detects the passage end of the vehicle. Or the road obstacle detection device described in 2.