Docking assistant

US7336805B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Daimlerchrysler AG · US

Inventors

• Ottmar Gehring · Stuttgart, DE
• Harro Heilmann · Esslingen am Neckar, DE
• Frederic Holzmann · Stuttgart, DE
• Andreas Schwarzhaupt · Oberrot, DE
• Gernot Spiegelberg · Heimsheim, DE
• Armin Sulzmann · Oftersheim, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 16, 2005
• Grant date: Feb 26, 2008
• Expiry date: Aug 29, 2026

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06V10/255
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Many day-to-day driving situations require that an operator of a motor vehicle guide the motor vehicle along a specific course and bring the vehicle to a stop at a specific location, for example in a parking bay or at a loading platform. To assist a vehicle operator in such situations, a method and a suitable device for implementing this method, include detecting the potential target objects in the image data of an image sensor and identifying the potential target objects as potential destinations in a multi-stage exclusionary method, whereupon a trajectory describing an optimized travel path is computed at least in relation to the most proximate destination. By using the multi-stage exclusionary method according to the present invention, it is possible to reliably identify potential destinations in complex image scenarios solely on the basis of their geometric form, even when the destinations have not been encoded by specific symbols.