KR20140111138A - System and method for operating tail gate - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are a system and a method for operating a tail gate. A tail gate operating system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a smart key recognition unit for recognizing a smart key of a user positioned within a predetermined region from a vehicle; a face recognition sensor for automatically recognizing face information through a face image of a person photographed by a camera module, and comparing a feature of the recognized face information and the face information of the user registered in advance, to certify the registered user; a gate driving unit for opening or closing the tail gate by a driving member according to an applied control signal; and a control unit for controlling an opening or closing operation of the gate driving unit if the user certification is successful in the recognition of the face recognition sensor.

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING TAIL GATE

The present invention relates to a vehicle tailgate operating system and method.

Generally, users of Recreation Vehicle (RV) such as Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV) and Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) tend to mount more luggage on a vehicle than users of a general sedan.

In addition, the demand for leisure vehicles (RV) is continuously increasing because the income level is improved and the working conditions for 5 days a week are improved to increase the number of people who enjoy various leisure and hobbies.

Conventionally, when the user approaches the vehicle with his / her hands full, the user must open the tailgate by using the remote control key after placing the baggage on the floor near the vehicle. Here, the tail gate means a power tailgate of a vehicle that is automatically opened or closed.

In addition, there has been an inconvenience that the load must be closed by using the remote control key after lowering the load on the floor as described above in the process of moving a large amount of the load placed on the vehicle to another place.

In order to solve the conventional inconveniences, various techniques have been developed in which a driver operates the gate of a leisure car (RV) without using his or her hand and opens the car automatically.

For example, US Patent Publication No. 2007-0132552 discloses a hand-free door opening device.

This is because when a driver with a load on both hands approaches the vehicle, the driver senses the approach using the smart key system, then touches the sensor on the door handle, kicks the kick switch, It is a technology that intercepts the laser beam and receives the door open input to automatically open the locked door.

However, in the conventional method, the door open input method of the user is simple, so that a malfunction such as an unintentional door opening may occur, and when a heavy load is taken and kick motion is carried out, There is a problem that it is not easy to use because excessive recognition time occurs during motion recognition.

In addition, the patent document only describes the opening of the door, and there is a problem that it is impossible to control the load of the door, which is used to move a large amount of the load placed on the vehicle, to the door.

Patent Document 1: United States Patent No. 2007-0132552 (published on June 14, 2007)

An embodiment of the present invention is to provide a power tailgate operation system and a method thereof, which can reduce a risk and an excessive recognition time occurring in an existing motion process by operating a power tailgate only by user's face recognition.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a tailgate operating system of a vehicle includes a smart key recognizing unit for recognizing a smart key of a user located in a certain area from a vehicle; A facial recognition sensor unit for automatically recognizing facial information through a facial image of a person photographed by the camera module, for comparing facial information of the recognized facial information with facial information of a user registered in advance, and for authenticating a registered user; A gate driver for opening / closing the tail gate by using driving means according to an applied control signal; And a control unit for controlling the gate driving unit to be opened or closed if the user authentication is successfully performed according to the recognition of the facial recognition sensor.

The face recognition sensor unit may include: a camera module installed on a rear side of the vehicle; And a display module for displaying at least one of a standby state of the face recognition sensor unit, a face recognition state, and face position guidance information through a graphic image, a character, or a combination thereof.

In addition, the tailgate operating system of the vehicle communicates with the user terminal for registering the face information of the user, receives the image for face recognition of the user photographed through the image registration application for face recognition of the user terminal, And a communication unit for storing the data.

Also, the communication unit may be connected to the user terminal through at least one of Bluetooth or ZigBee, which is connected through a wireless Internet network or used hands-free.

In addition, the tailgate operating system of the vehicle may further include an emergency lamp that visually displays an operational process of the tailgate that automatically opens or closes by blinking the emergency lamp; And a speaker for audibly outputting an operation processing step of the tail gate.

Meanwhile, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method of operating a tailgate of a tailgate operating system of a vehicle includes the steps of: a) activating a facial recognition sensor by recognizing a smart key and confirming that a user approaches the vehicle; b) automatically recognizing facial information through a facial image of a person photographed by a camera module of the facial recognition sensor; c) authenticating the registered user by comparing features of the facial information recognized and facial information of a user registered in advance; And d) if the user authentication is successful, controlling the tail gate to an opening operation or a closing operation.

Meanwhile, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method of operating a tailgate of a tailgate operating system of a vehicle includes the steps of: a) activating a facial recognition sensor by recognizing a smart key and confirming that a user approaches the vehicle; b) recognizing facial information by selecting a facial image that is easy to extract the feature of the facial information from a plurality of human facial images successively photographed in the camera module of the facial recognition sensor; c) authenticating the registered user by comparing features of the facial information recognized and facial information of a user registered in advance; And d) if the user authentication is successful, controlling the tail gate to an opening operation or a closing operation.

The method may further include registering the facial information of the user based on the face recognition image received from the user terminal before the step a).

The registering of the face information of the user may include: establishing communication with the image registration application for facial recognition of the user terminal; Receiving an image for facial recognition of a user photographed through the facial image recognition application; And a step of extracting facial information of the user from the face recognition image and registering the face information in the database.

Also, the step a) may include a step of maintaining the inactive state of the facial recognition sensor when the vehicle is in operation or the smart key is not recognized.

In addition, the step a) may include displaying a user recognition waiting icon according to activation of the face recognition sensor through a display module.

In addition, the step (d) may be operated by opening the tailgate when the tailgate is closed, and may be closed when the tailgate is open, and may display each operation state through an emergency light and a speaker.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, since it is only required to look at the face recognition sensor, user recognition is easy and unstable operation such as kick motion in the related art can be omitted, so that stability and recognition waiting time can be reduced.

In addition, since the tailgate can be operated only by the user registered through the user terminal as well as the authentication using the smart key, the security can be improved compared to the conventional technology.

In addition, it is possible to automatically open the tailgate automatically when the user can not use both hands, as well as a fully automatic open / close function that can automatically close the door. .

1 is a conceptual diagram showing a tailgate operating system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a tailgate operating system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a flow chart schematically illustrating a method of operating a tailgate according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 illustrates a UI screen when registering facial recognition information of a user according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of registering facial recognition information of a user according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art can easily carry out the present invention. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. In order to clearly illustrate the present invention, parts not related to the description are omitted, and similar parts are denoted by like reference characters throughout the specification.

Throughout the specification, when an element is referred to as "comprising ", it means that it can include other elements as well, without excluding other elements unless specifically stated otherwise. Also, the terms " part, "" module," and " module ", etc. in the specification mean a unit for processing at least one function or operation and may be implemented by hardware or software or a combination of hardware and software have.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A tailgate operating system and method according to an embodiment of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 is a conceptual diagram showing a tailgate operating system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a tailgate operating system 100 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is configured to operate a tailgate automatically in a situation where a user can not use his / her hands to solve a conventional inconvenience .

For this purpose, the tailgate operating system 100 can easily operate the tailgate by recognizing the user's face (face) through the facial recognition sensor unit 120 installed in a leisure vehicle (RV) such as MPV and SUV (Open) or close (close) operations.

In this case, the face recognition sensor unit 120 is installed on the rear side of the vehicle in view of the characteristic that the tail gate opens or closes to the rear of the vehicle, thereby inducing the user not to be positioned behind the vehicle in which the tail gate is operated. .

Hereinafter, the detailed configuration of the tailgate operating system 100 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 2 below.

2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a tailgate operating system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2, the tailgate operating system 100 includes a smart key recognizer 110, a facial recognition sensor 120, a tail gate driver 130, an emergency light 140, A speaker 150, a communication unit 160, and a controller 170.

The smart key recognizing unit 110 recognizes that the user is located within a predetermined area from the vehicle by performing short-distance communication with the smart key possessed by the user.

The face recognition sensor unit 120 automatically recognizes facial information through a face image of a person photographed by the camera module 121. [ Then, the facial information registered in advance in the database (not shown) is compared with the recognized facial information to judge the user as a registered user if they are the same. Here, the camera module 121 may include an automatic flash function for shooting in a dark environment.

In addition, the facial recognition sensor unit 120 includes a small display module 122 for displaying an operation state for facial recognition.

The display module 122 is installed at the same position as the camera module 121 to display the operation standby state, facial recognition state, facial position guidance information, and the like in a state where the facial recognition sensor unit 120 is activated, Or a combination thereof.

For example, the operation standby state or the facial recognition state can be displayed through a simple icon, and the face location guidance information indicates directions of arrows in the up, down, left, right, and diagonal directions, 121 in the photographing area.

When the user authentication through the facial recognition sensor unit 120 is successful, the tail gate driver 130 automatically opens and closes the gate using driving means such as a motor and an actuator according to a control signal applied thereto.

Since the tail gate driver 130 can use a known technique before the application, detailed description thereof will be omitted.

The emergency light 140 blinks the emergency lamp to visually display an operation processing step in which the tail gate is automatically opened or closed by the operation of the tail gate driving unit 130. [

The speaker 150 audibly outputs the overall tailgate operation processing step like the emergency light 140. [

The display and output operations of the emergency light 140 and the speaker 150 warn that the tailgate is operated so as to prevent an accident that a person located at the rear of the vehicle is placed on the tailgate.

The communication unit 160 communicates with the user terminal to register the face information of the user, receives the captured image from the user terminal, and stores the received image in a database (not shown). In this case, the communication with the user terminal may be connected through a wireless Internet network or a short-distance communication such as Bluetooth or ZigBee used in a hands-free manner.

The controller 170 controls the overall operation of each configuration according to a programmed algorithm for automatic operation of the tailgate through facial recognition.

The control unit 170 can recognize that the legitimate user is located at a position close to the vehicle through the recognition information of the smart key recognition unit 110. [

The control unit 170 controls the gate driving unit 130 to be an opening operation or a closing operation when the facial recognition sensor unit 120 has successfully authenticated the user.

The tail gate operating method based on the configuration of the tail gate operating system 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

3 is a flow chart schematically illustrating a method of operating a tailgate according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, a tailgate operating system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention controls a tailgate to an open or close operation based on a gate operation algorithm and a user facial recognition result.

The tailgate operating system 100 controls the facial recognition sensor unit 120 to be in an inactive state when the vehicle is in operation or the user is distant and the smart key is not recognized (S101).

The tailgate operating system 100 recognizes the smart key in the smart key recognizing unit 110 and confirms that the user approaches the vehicle (S102; YES), activates the facial recognition sensor unit 120, The icon is displayed through the display module 122 (S103).

The tailgate operating system 100 recognizes the face information of the user through the facial recognition sensor unit 120 when the user approaches the sensing distance (S104). At this time, the facial recognition sensor unit 120 can automatically recognize the facial information, which is characterized by the digital image of the person photographed by the camera module 121.

When the tailgate operating system 100 determines that the recognized face information and the previously registered face information are compared with each other (S105; YES), the tailgate operating system 100 displays a user recognition success icon through the display module 122 The tail gate is controlled to be opened or closed (S107).

In this case, the tail gate driver 130 can operate as an open state when the tail gate is closed, and can be closed when the tail gate is open, and can display the operation state through the emergency light 140 and the speaker 150.

On the other hand, if the smart key is not recognized in step S102 (No in step S102), the face recognition sensor unit 120 is maintained in an inactive state (S101).

If it is determined in step S105 that the user is not a registered user (S105; No), a user recognition failure icon is displayed (S106), and the process returns to the user recognition waiting state (S103).

Meanwhile, in order to operate the tailgate according to the embodiment of the present invention, the process of registering face information of the user in the vehicle through the user terminal should be performed in advance and will be described with reference to FIG. 4 and FIG.

4 illustrates a UI screen when registering facial recognition information of a user according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of registering facial recognition information of a user according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 4, the user terminal according to the embodiment of the present invention may be a smart phone or tablet PC capable of wireless communication with the vehicle, and it is assumed that the face recognition image registration application 10 is installed.

Referring to FIG. 5, a face recognition image registration application (hereinafter referred to as an image registration application) 10 installed in a user terminal is executed (S201).

The image registration application 10 determines whether an existing registered vehicle exists for a wireless communication connection with the vehicle (S202; YES), and connects the communication with the vehicle (S204).

On the other hand, if the existing registered vehicle does not exist (S202: NO), the image registration application 10 registers the vehicle connection information (S203), and returns to the step S202.

The image registration application 10 captures a face image of the user using the camera of the user terminal (S205). At this time, the image registration application 10 can automatically execute the front camera of the user terminal as shown in FIG. 4, so that the face of the user can be captured accurately.

When the image registration application 10 requests registration as a facial recognition image by user's confirmation input (S206), the image registration application 10 extracts the feature of the user facial image and verifies whether registration is possible for facial recognition.

If the image registration application 10 is able to register for face recognition (S207; Yes), the image registration application 10 pops up the facial recognition image transmission and transmission completion message to complete the image registration for facial recognition of the user (S209).

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S207 that the user's face image is in bad state and can not be registered as a face recognition image (S207: NO), the registration failure message is popped up (S208) (S205).

Meanwhile, the tailgate operating system 100 of the vehicle extracts the face information of the user from the face recognition image received through the communication unit (), registers and stores the face information in the database, and uses it as information for the face recognition of the user.

FIG. 6 is a comparison chart of the prior art compared to the tail gate operation technique according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 6, the present invention is advantageous in that stability can be improved because the ease of motion is greatly increased because there is no need to look at the face recognition sensor, and there is no unstable motion such as a kick motion in the related art.

In addition, since the present invention requires only a face to be recognized by the camera, there is no separate motion operation for recognizing the kick and the step, which is advantageous in that the waiting time for the operation process is significantly reduced as compared with the prior art.

In addition, since it is possible to use not only the authentication using the smart key but also the user registered through the user terminal, there is an advantage that the security can be greatly improved compared to the conventional technologies.

In addition, it provides a fully automatic open / close function that can automatically open the tailgate automatically from the automatic opening of the tailgate in a situation where the user can not use both hands, thereby having an effect to be distinguished from the competition vehicles of the conventional technology .

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications are possible.

For example, in the above-described embodiment of the present invention, the facial recognition sensor unit 120 automatically recognizes facial information through a facial image of a person photographed by the camera module 121. [

At this time, the face recognition sensor unit 120 continuously captures a face image of a person in a very short time (for example, 1 second) through the camera module 121 to acquire a plurality of face images, And may capture a plurality of frames for the face image.

In addition, facial information can be recognized by selecting a facial image that is easy to extract the feature of the facial information from among a plurality of facial images.

Accordingly, there is an advantage that the face information recognition rate of the user can be increased.

The embodiments of the present invention are not limited to the above-described apparatuses and / or methods, but may be implemented through a program for realizing functions corresponding to the configuration of the embodiment of the present invention, a recording medium on which the program is recorded And such an embodiment can be easily implemented by those skilled in the art from the description of the embodiments described above.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments, It belongs to the scope of right.

100: Tail gate operation system 110: Smart key recognition unit
120: facial recognition sensor unit 121: camera module
122: Display module 130: Tail gate driver
140: Emergency light 150: Speaker
160: communication unit 170:

Claims (12)

In a tailgate operating system of a vehicle,
A smart key recognition unit for recognizing a smart key of a user located in a predetermined area from the vehicle;
A facial recognition sensor unit for automatically recognizing facial information through a facial image of a person photographed by the camera module, for comparing facial information of the recognized facial information with facial information of a user registered in advance, and authenticating the registered user;
A gate driver for opening / closing the tail gate by using driving means according to an applied control signal; And
And a controller for controlling the gate driver to open or close if the user authentication is successfully performed according to the face recognition sensor recognition,
And a tether gate operating system. The method according to claim 1,
The face recognition sensor unit,
A camera module installed on a rear side of the vehicle; And
A display module for displaying at least one of a standby state of the facial recognition sensor unit, a facial recognition state, and face orientation information through a graphic image, a character, or a combination thereof. 3. The method according to claim 1 or 2,
Further comprising a communication unit for communicating with the user terminal to register the face information of the user and receiving a face recognition image of the user photographed through the image registration application for facial recognition of the user terminal and storing the image in a database, . The method of claim 3,
Wherein,
Wherein the mobile terminal is connected to the user terminal through at least one of Bluetooth or ZigBee which is connected through a wireless Internet network or used hands free. The method according to claim 1,
An emergency light for visually displaying an operation processing step of the tail gate which is automatically opened or closed by blinking the emergency lamp; And
Further comprising a speaker for audibly outputting an operation processing step of the tail gate. A method of operating a tailgate of a vehicle tailgate operating system,
a) activating the facial recognition sensor upon recognizing the smart key and confirming that the user is approaching the vehicle;
b) automatically recognizing facial information through a facial image of a person photographed by a camera module of the facial recognition sensor;
c) authenticating the registered user by comparing features of the facial information recognized and facial information of a user registered in advance; And
d) if the user authentication is successful, controlling the tail gate to an opening operation or a closing operation
/ RTI > A method of operating a tailgate of a vehicle tailgate operating system,
a) activating the facial recognition sensor upon recognizing the smart key and confirming that the user is approaching the vehicle;
b) recognizing facial information by selecting a facial image that is easy to extract the feature of the facial information from a plurality of human facial images successively photographed in the camera module of the facial recognition sensor;
c) authenticating the registered user by comparing features of the facial information recognized and facial information of a user registered in advance; And
d) if the user authentication is successful, controlling the tail gate to an opening operation or a closing operation
/ RTI > 8. The method according to claim 6 or 7,
Prior to step a)
Further comprising the step of registering the face information of the user based on the face recognition image received from the user terminal. 9. The method of claim 8,
The step of registering the face information of the user includes:
Setting a communication with an image registration application for facial recognition of the user terminal;
Receiving an image for facial recognition of a user photographed through the facial image recognition application; And
And extracting facial information of the user from the face recognition image and registering the face information in a database. 9. The method of claim 8,
The step a)
Maintaining the disabled state of the facial recognition sensor if the vehicle is in operation or the smart key is not recognized. 9. The method of claim 8,
The step a)
And displaying a user recognition waiting icon according to activation of the face recognition sensor through a display module. 8. The method according to claim 6 or 7,
The step d)
Wherein the tailgate is operated to open when the tailgate is closed and closed when the tailgate is open, and wherein each operation state is displayed through an emergency light and a speaker.

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