Vehicular front monitoring apparatus
US6265991A · kind A · utility
Assignees
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 9, 2000 |
| Grant date | Jul 24, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 9, 2020 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG01S2013/93271
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
A vehicular front monitoring apparatus which can reliably recognize a road configuration ahead of an own-vehicle through simpler computation. The apparatus comprises a distance measuring unit for radiating electromagnetic waves or the likes in plural directions, and detecting distances from an own-vehicle to a plurality of objects around the own-vehicle and lateral positions of the objects relative to a running direction of the own-vehicle, thereby measuring object positional data on coordinates defined by the running direction and a transverse direction of the own-vehicle; a road curvature estimating unit for estimating a curvature of a road ahead of the own-vehicle through Hough transform of the object positional data measured by the distance measuring unit; and a vehicle's own lane determining unit for determining whether other vehicles running ahead are in the same lane as the own-vehicle or not based on the curvature of the road estimated by the road curvature estimating unit.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.