Patent · US Expired

Position measuring apparatus using a pair of electronic cameras

US6477260B1 · kind B1 · utility

331Cited by
5References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateOct 26, 1999
Grant dateNov 5, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 26, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04N2013/0081
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A distance measuring apparatus applicable to a mobile body such as an automotive vehicle which detects a position of an obstacle (a target object) without influence of an ambient environment such as a white line and determines positions of lateral ends of the obstacle is disclosed. In the distance measuring apparatus, a pair of electronic cameras are mounted on the mobile body, optical axes of both of the cameras being mutually parallel to each other and being directed toward a forward direction or toward a rearward direction and horizontal axes of their photograph planes being aligned to the same line. Using a new stereophotographic image processing, deriving a parallax for each window from a calculated difference in position between one image and another image, voting to each position in a table of parallax x lateral position, calculating a distance to the obstacle on the basis of the value of the parallax at any one of horizontal positions in the table at which a result of voting indicates a higher value, deriving a horizontal range on the one image on the basis of the horizontal positions of respective windows corresponding to any positions in the table at each of which the res…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.