KR100698946B1 - A device for recording the accident information of a vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a vehicle accident information recording apparatus, and more particularly, driving information, including lane recognition information and acceleration and vehicle speed, which are calculated in real time from image information photographed by a camera while driving, are temporarily stored together with image information. It saves and detects the occurrence of accidents according to the acceleration change during the unit time, and saves each recorded information before and after the accident as accident information. The present invention relates to a vehicle accident information recording apparatus that can be identified.

In the vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to the present invention, the vehicle accident information recording apparatus comprising a camera unit, an image acquisition unit (Frame Grabber), an accident detection sensor, a memory for storing data and a signal processing unit, The accident detection sensor is composed of only an acceleration sensor, the signal processor generates image information from the image signal output from the image acquisition unit, lane recognition information including the width of the lane and the position of the vehicle, An accident is detected by calculating an impact coefficient from an acceleration signal, and the memory includes a volatile data buffer temporarily storing image information and lane recognition information processed by the signal processor, and a cause of a vehicle accident when an accident is detected by the signal processor. Consists of nonvolatile data storage means for preserving data in the data buffer for analysis Characterized by a point.

Black box, vehicle accident, video information, lane recognition

Description

A device for recording the accident information of a vehicle}

1 is a graph showing a change in acceleration of a vehicle over time.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a flow chart showing a signal processing procedure of the vehicle accident information recording apparatus shown in FIG.

<Description of Signs of Major Parts of Drawings>

100: camera unit 200: image acquisition unit

300: acceleration sensor 400: vehicle speed detection means

500: RTC element 600: signal processor

610: interface management unit 620: main processing unit

630: lane recognition unit 640: data management unit

700: data buffer 800: data storage means

The present invention relates to a vehicle accident information recording apparatus, and more particularly, driving information, including lane recognition information and acceleration and vehicle speed, which are calculated in real time from image information photographed by a camera while driving, are temporarily stored together with image information. It saves and detects the occurrence of accidents according to the acceleration change during the unit time, and saves each recorded information before and after the accident as accident information. The present invention relates to a vehicle accident information recording apparatus that can be identified.

In general, the aircraft is equipped with a black box to record the flight status and aircraft status during operation, which is a great help in explaining the unknown accident.

Recently, in order to apply such a black box to a vehicle and to use it as a data for judging the situation at the time of an accident and the fault between the parties, research and development on a vehicle black box that records various driving information such as the speed of the vehicle has been actively conducted. have. In particular, the vehicle accident information recording device which has a camera in the vehicle and records the external situation at the time of the accident as image information, and can determine the cause of the accident by using the external image information before and after the accident as well as various driving information has recently been spotlighted. I am getting it. Here, the accident of the vehicle refers to an accident that may cause a loss of the body or the occupant's body, as well as large and small collisions between the vehicles, as well as pedestrian collisions, obstacle collisions during parking, and road vehicles in the road construction area driving This also includes damage.

Such a conventional vehicle accident information recording apparatus has been proposed in Korean Patent Publication No. 0199792 (name of the invention: a vehicle driving record apparatus and method). The document records the image information collected by the camera while driving the vehicle along with the vehicle speed and time information in the recording and playback unit of the annular queue structure, and detects the collision of the vehicle with a sensor to stop the recording and at the same time the moisture from the accident A vehicle accident information recording apparatus has been described in which previously recorded information is preserved so that the recorded information can be utilized as evidence of an accident.

However, since the conventional vehicle accident information recording apparatus records only the fragmentary driving information such as vehicle speed as well as the image information at the time of the accident, there is a limit in clearly identifying the cause of the accident and the situation at the time of the accident is limited. There is a problem that it is difficult to grasp the responsibility position by multiple judgments.

In addition, since the conventional vehicle accident information recording apparatus mainly uses absolute acceleration to detect an accident, there is a problem that it is difficult to clearly distinguish between an actual accident situation and a sudden acceleration or deceleration situation in normal driving. The explanation is as follows.

A typical airbag device is equipped with an accelerometer with a measuring range of approximately ± 50g. When an acceleration of 20g to 30g is detected, the airbag is operated as a dangerous collision situation that is expected to cause human injury. Since the device must also detect light contact accidents or pedestrian collisions, an acceleration sensor with a measuring range of ± 2g to ± 5g is used to determine that an accident has occurred when an acceleration of 0.4g to 1g or more is detected.

However, since the acceleration having a magnitude of about 0.5g may occur in a normal acceleration or deceleration even in normal driving, there is a limit in clearly determining the accident situation by simply the absolute value of the acceleration. Therefore, in order for the vehicle accident information recording apparatus to cope with various accident situations, a method for more accurately determining the accident situation is required.

An object of the present invention is to solve the problems of the conventional vehicle accident information recording apparatus described above. That is, lane recognition information (eg, left and right lane width, distance between the center of the vehicle and the lane) is calculated in real time from the image information in front of the vehicle while driving, and lane recognition information, acceleration, and speed obtained for a predetermined time before and after an accident occurs. By recording driving information, including driving information, along with video information, as accident information, vehicle accidents can be used to accurately identify driving conditions when accidents occur and to easily identify the responsibility for accidents by utilizing accident information including lane recognition information. The purpose is to provide an information recording apparatus.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle accident information recording apparatus that can be widely applied to various types of vehicle accidents by more accurately determining whether an accident occurs based on the acceleration change amount during a unit time rather than the absolute value of the acceleration. There is this.

As a technical idea for achieving the above object, the present invention, a vehicle accident information recording apparatus comprising a camera unit, an image acquisition unit (Frame Grabber), an accident detection sensor, a memory and a signal processing unit for storing data The accident detection sensor may be configured of only an acceleration sensor, and the signal processor may generate image information from the image signal output from the image acquisition unit, lane recognition information including the width of the lane and the position of the vehicle, An accident is detected by calculating an impact coefficient from an acceleration signal of an acceleration sensor, and the memory includes a volatile data buffer for temporarily storing image information and lane recognition information processed by the signal processor, and a vehicle upon detecting an accident of the signal processor. Non-volatile data storage that preserves data in the data buffer for cause analysis A vehicle accident information recording apparatus comprising a means is provided.

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

1 is a diagram illustrating a change in acceleration of a vehicle with time.

When the vehicle is gently braked under normal driving conditions, as shown in (a) of FIG. 1, the absolute acceleration of the maximum acceleration does not exceed the reference acceleration (A _ref ; about 0.5g) and shows a modest acceleration change. In this case, the absolute value of the maximum acceleration is further increased than when braking gently, especially in a strong braking situation, it may exceed the reference acceleration as in (b). Here, in both cases described above, there is only a difference in the magnitude of the maximum acceleration, and it can be seen that the change in the acceleration is gentle.

On the other hand, when there is an impact from the front, as shown in (c), the time interval in which the acceleration appears is very short, the rate of change is rapidly increased, and the opposite direction acceleration due to the repulsive force appears before the steady state. . Here, the absolute value of the maximum acceleration generally exceeds the reference acceleration, but may not exceed the reference acceleration as shown by the dotted line in the case of a minor collision or a pedestrian collision.

On the other hand, the change in acceleration during the gentle start, rapid start and impact from the rear of the vehicle differs only in the direction of acceleration, and shows acceleration changes similar to those of Figs. 1 (a), (b) and (c), respectively.

As described above, only the method of comparing the absolute value of the acceleration with the reference acceleration can not clearly distinguish the sudden braking or starting situation from the impact due to the accident, and thus represents the maximum amount of acceleration per unit time as shown in Equation 1 below. On the basis of the impact coefficients (Jerk, J), it is desirable to determine the case where the impact coefficient is equal to or greater than the reference value as the accident situation.

Where J (t) is the impact coefficient, A _max is the maximum acceleration in the section, A _min is the minimum acceleration in the section, Δt is the time interval, and J _ref is the reference value of the impact coefficient.

2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 2, the vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention obtains an image for acquiring digital image data from a camera unit 100, which is an image capturing means, and an image captured by the camera unit 100. Frame Grabber 200, an acceleration sensor 300 that detects and outputs acceleration in each axial direction as a three-axis acceleration sensor, a data buffer 700 for temporarily storing data, and accident related information when an accident occurs. And a signal processor 600 for processing the input signal including the data storage means 800 and the video signal to be stored and recording the accident information in the data storage means 800 when an accident occurs.

Camera unit 100 is a camera composed of a CMOS or CCD image sensor is provided to take an image of the front of the vehicle, preferably attached to the vehicle front glass, but not on the upper or lower portion of the windshield so as not to obstruct the driver's view To be positioned. In addition, the camera unit 100 may be additionally provided at the rear or both sides in addition to the front of the vehicle to capture an external image in each direction.

The image acquisition unit 200 receives an analog image signal photographed from the camera unit 100 and converts the analog image signal into a digital image signal having a preset frame per second and resolution. Here, the output digital video signal is sufficient to have a frame per second and resolution enough to analyze the accident situation, preferably 10 to 12 frames per second and 320 × 240 pixels resolution.

The signal processor 600 is connected to an external device such as the image acquisition unit 200 and the acceleration sensor 300, receives an image and an acceleration signal at regular intervals, and controls an interface manager 610 and an interface manager. A main processor 620 for processing an image and an acceleration signal input through the 610 and controlling the entire signal processor 600, and a lane recognition unit 630 for recognizing a lane from the image signal received from the main processor 620. And a data management unit 640 for storing the driving information transmitted from the main processing unit 620 in the data buffer 700 and the data storage unit 800. Each configuration will be described in detail as follows.

The main processor 620 generates the image information and the driving information by processing the image signal and the acceleration signal transmitted from the interface manager 610, and includes the lane recognition information transmitted from the lane recognition unit 630 in the driving information, The data manager 640 periodically stores the data in the data buffer 700. In addition, the impact coefficient of each axis is calculated from the three-axis acceleration signal transmitted from the interface manager 610, and when the impact coefficient rises above a predetermined reference value, it is determined that an accident has occurred, and all information stored in the data buffer 700 is determined. The data manager 640 is controlled to read and store the accident related information in the data storage means 800. Here, the main processing unit 620 may detect the accident occurrence only by the impact coefficient acting on the front and rear or left and right directions of the vehicle by calculating the impact coefficient of only two to one axis.

The lane recognizing unit 630 receives an image frame photographing the road situation in front of the vehicle from the main processor 620 to identify left and right driving lanes using a lane recognizing algorithm, and calculates a width between the two lanes from the lane. The relative position of both lanes and the center of the vehicle is obtained. In addition to the calculated lane information, geometric information such as the vehicle width and the body length can be used to determine whether the vehicle is leaving the driving lane, the width between the two lanes, the position of the center of the vehicle, and whether the vehicle is out of the lane. Lane recognition information including the transmission is transmitted to the main processor 620 corresponding to each image frame.

Such lane recognition information may be used as a data for in-depth analysis of a cause of a vehicle accident. For example, if a car driving in the side lane has forcibly interrupted a contact accident, or if a car coming from the other side invaded the center line and crashed due to the accident, the victim's lane was You can prove that you have legally traveled along. In addition, by calculating the route of the vehicle traveling along the lane from the lane recognition information it is possible to estimate whether drunk driving or violent driving. For more details on the lane recognition method, refer to Korean Patent Publication No. 0440387 registered by the applicant of the present invention.

The data manager 640 stores the image information and the operation information transmitted from the main processor 620 in the data buffer 700, of which the image information transmitted in the form of a digital image frame is used to efficiently use the storage space. It is recommended to compress and save according to the compression algorithm. In addition, as described above, the driving information is stored in a first-in, first-out manner, and in the event of an accident, all data stored in the data buffer 700 is read out according to the instruction of the main processor 620, and the data storing means 800 ) Will be stored permanently.

Here, the entire signal processor 600 may be implemented by using a digital signal processor (DSP), so that a digital signal including a large video signal may be processed at a high speed. In addition, a low pass filter may be further configured in the interface manager 610 to remove noise from the acceleration signal received from the acceleration sensor 300 and transmit the noise to the main processor 620.

On the other hand, the data buffer 700 is a volatile memory such as an SDRAM, and stores image information and driving information processed by the signal processor 600. Here, image information and driving information for a suitable time to sufficiently grasp the situation before and after the occurrence of the accident is stored in the data buffer 700, preferably, a total of 18 seconds from 12 seconds to 6 seconds after the accident time point It is a good idea to save your information. In addition, the data buffer 700 stores the input data in a first-in first-out (FIFO) method, and stores the newly input data in a memory area in which the first data among the stored data is stored so that the driving information is always kept for a predetermined time. To be stored.

The data storage means 800 is a nonvolatile memory such as a flash memory, and analyzes the cause of the future accident by permanently storing driving information for a predetermined time stored in the data buffer 700 at the time of an accident. Provide resources for

On the other hand, a vehicle speed detecting means 400 connected to the vehicle speed signal terminal for detecting a vehicle speed signal and a RTC (Real Time Clock) element 500 for outputting time information is further provided, and the interface manager 610 provides a digital video signal. It can also be configured to read the vehicle speed and time at the same period as frames per second. Such vehicle speed and time information is included in the driving information together with the acceleration and lane recognition information, and stored in the data buffer 700, so that the vehicle speed and time information may be used as reference data for identifying the cause of the accident.

In addition, by connecting the USB output terminal (not shown) to the data storage means 800, it is possible to reproduce the driving information before and after the accident stored in the data storage means 800 after the accident on the PC. That is, by connecting the USB output terminal and the PC with a USB cable, running the accident information reproducing program installed in the PC to reproduce the image information and driving information before and after the accident stored in the data storage means 800, to closely examine the cause of the accident Can be analyzed.

Hereinafter, a signal processing procedure of the vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 3.

First, the interface manager 610 acquires digital data by sampling signals for driving information related to a vehicle accident such as an image, an acceleration, a vehicle speed, and a time at the same period, and transmits the digital data to the main processor 620 (S100). In this embodiment, the sampling frequency is set to 10 Hz to 12 Hz in consideration of the data cycle suitable for identifying the cause of the accident and the performance of the DSP capable of processing a large amount of data including image data. Here, of course, the sampling frequency can be set to another appropriate value according to the performance of the DSP.

Thereafter, the main processor 620 determines whether the current time point is after the accident occurs by examining whether the timer is driven (S200). Here, the timer is driven in the timer driving step (S500) to be described later.

If it is determined in step S200 before the occurrence of the accident, the main processor 620 calculates a three-axis impact coefficient of the vehicle from the transmitted acceleration signal (S300), and examines whether the calculated impact coefficient is greater than a preset reference value. Determine whether an accident occurs (S400). Here, the impact coefficient is calculated according to Equation 1 described above, and sets Δt to 0.5 seconds, stores the acceleration signal sampled every cycle, and calculates the maximum and minimum acceleration values in the corresponding section after Δt elapses. can do.

If it is determined that the accident occurred in step S400, the main processor 620 drives a timer (S500).

Thereafter, the lane recognizing unit 630 receives the image data from the main processing unit 620, analyzes the image data, calculates lane recognition information, and transmits the information to the main processing unit 620 (S600).

The main processor 620 transmits driving information and image information including lane recognition information, acceleration, speed, and time to the data manager 640, and the data manager 640 transmits the command according to the command of the main processor 620. The received image and the driving information are stored in the data buffer (S700). Here, the data manager 640 may compress a large amount of image data in advance before storing the driving information to reduce the storage space and reduce the storage time.

When the step S700 is completed, the data sampling step S100 is performed again to continue signal processing according to the set sampling frequency.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S200 that the accident has occurred after the occurrence of the accident, it is determined whether a predetermined set time has elapsed from the occurrence of the accident (S800).

If it is determined in step S800 that the set time has not elapsed, the process branches to the lane recognizing step S600, and in the opposite case, the data manager 640 receives all the images and the driving information stored in the data buffer 700. The data is read and stored in the data storage means 800 as accident-related information (S900), thereby ending all signal processing.

The present invention described above is not limited to the above-described embodiments and the accompanying drawings, and various substitutions, modifications, and changes are possible in the art without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. It will be clear to those of ordinary knowledge.

As described above, the vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to the present invention provides lane recognition information before and after an accident along with information such as surrounding images, vehicle speed, and acceleration, to more clearly identify the driving situation when an accident occurs. It is effective in making it easy to identify the responsibility of the accident.

In addition, the vehicle accident information recording apparatus according to the present invention has an effect that can more accurately detect the time of the accident to provide accident information that can cope with various accident situations, including light contact accident or pedestrian collision accident.

Claims (3)

In a vehicle accident information recording apparatus comprising a camera unit, an image acquisition unit (Frame Grabber), an accident detection sensor, a memory for storing data, and a signal processing unit, The accident detection sensor is composed of only the acceleration sensor, The signal processor generates image information from the image signal output from the image acquisition unit, lane recognition information including the width of the lane and the position of the vehicle, and calculates an impact coefficient from the acceleration signal of the acceleration sensor to detect an accident. , The memory is a volatile data buffer for temporarily storing image information and lane recognition information processed by the signal processor, and the ratio of preserving data in the data buffer for analyzing the cause of a vehicle accident when the signal processor detects an accident. Vehicle accident information recording apparatus comprising a volatile data storage means. The method of claim 1, The signal processing unit, An interface manager connected to the image acquisition unit and the acceleration sensor and receiving an image signal and an acceleration signal at regular intervals; A main processor for processing an image and an acceleration signal input through the interface manager and controlling the entire signal processor; A lane recognition unit which receives the image signal from the main processor to calculate lane recognition information and transmits the calculated lane recognition information to the main processor; A data manager which receives driving information and image information including acceleration information and lane recognition information from the main processor, and stores the driving information and image information in the data buffer and the data storage means; Vehicle accident information recording device, characterized in that consisting of. The method of claim 2, The main processing unit, And calculating an acceleration change amount during a unit time from an input acceleration signal, and determining that an accident has occurred when the acceleration change amount is equal to or greater than a reference value.

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