Apparatus for monitoring surroundings of a vehicle

摘要

The vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus is provided with an imaging device and a device that transforms captured image to digital image. A first edge extraction mask is applied to detect multiple horizontal edges. The apparatus further includes a detector that detects upper end of the head of the object by detecting a horizontal edge having a highest edge intensity out of the multiple horizontal edges. A second edge extraction mask is used to detect the lower end of the head of the physical object by detecting multiple vertical edges and matching the positional variation of the multiple vertical edges with predetermined patterns.

主权项

1. An apparatus for monitoring surroundings of a vehicle, comprising: an imaging device that is mounted on a vehicle and captures an image around the vehicle; and an image processing unit having a processor and a memory; wherein the image processing unit is configured to: transform a grayscale image acquired by the imaging device to a multi-value image; detect an upper end of a head of a physical object in the multi-value image by determining a horizontal edge having a maximum edge intensity in a region of a first edge extraction mask applied to the multi-value image; detect multiple vertical edges in the multi-value image by applying a second edge extraction mask extending downwards from the detected upper end of the head of the physical object; detect a lower end of the head of the physical object based on a positional variation of the detected multiple vertical edges; and to identify a head region of the physical object based on a space between the upper end of the head and the lower end of the head of the physical object.