APPARATUS FOR DETECTING DIRECTION OF IMAGE PICKUP DEVICE AND MOVING BODY COMPRISING SAME

摘要

Using a polarization camera capable of acquiring a polarization image and a color image simultaneously, a blue sky polarization image, which is polarization information of a portion of sky, is acquired by a blue sky polarization image acquisition unit (100).  Using information from a sun position acquisition unit (1301) which acquires the position of the sun at the time of photographing, a camera direction estimation unit (101) obtains the direction and region in the whole sky of a polarization pattern of the blue sky polarization image.  The direction of a camera (image pickup device) on the earth is output.  Accordingly, the direction of the camera, and the relative positional relationship between the camera and the sun can be obtained without providing a separate sensor, and without capturing the whole sky or the sun.