Abstract: A vehicle periphery monitoring device comprises: an in-region object detecting unit which detects an in-region object present in contact determination regions on the basis of a photographic image from a camera per prescribed control cycle; and a warning control unit which performs warning control processing to give warning of a detected in-region object when an in-region object was not detected in the last control cycle, but the in-region object was detected in the present control cycle, and to restrain warning of a new in-region object when an in-region object was detected in the last control cycle and the new in-region object different from the in-region object detected in the last control cycle has been detected in the present control cycle.

Abstract: A vehicle periphery monitoring device comprises: an in-region object detecting unit which detects an in-region object present in contact determination regions on the basis of a photographic image from a camera per prescribed control cycle; and a warning control unit which performs warning control processing to give warning of a detected in-region object when an in-region object was not detected in the last control cycle, but the in-region object was detected in the present control cycle, and to restrain warning of a new in-region object when an in-region object was detected in the last control cycle and the new in-region object different from the in-region object detected in the last control cycle has been detected in the present control cycle.

Abstract: A living body recognizing device is equipped with a captured image acquiring unit which acquires captured images from infrared cameras having a characteristics that a luminance of an image portion of a target object becomes higher as a temperature of the target object becomes higher than a background, and vice versa, according to a temperature difference between the background and the target object, a living body image extracting unit which executes a first living body image extracting processing of extracting the image portion of the target object assumed as a living body, from a region in the captured image where the luminance is equal to or lower than a first threshold value, and a living body recognizing unit which recognizes an existence of the living body, based on the image portion of the target object extracted by the living body image extracting unit.

Abstract: Category determination is performed on an object candidate extracted from a captured image after an exclusion process is performed in advance. In the exclusion process, a distance from a vehicle to the object candidate is calculated based on a size of the object candidate in a current image, a moved distance of the vehicle occurring in a time interval from a time a previous image was captured to a time the current image is captured is calculated, the size of the object candidate in the current image is decreased at a change ratio based on the distance to the object candidate and the moved distance, and a size of the object candidate in the previous image and a size of the object candidate decreased at the change ratio are compared. The object candidate with difference between them being determined to be larger than a predetermined value is removed.

Abstract: An object recognition device including a binarization processing unit 32 which classifies pixels, which are obtained by excluding pixels having luminance values equal to or lower than a predetermined value Yex indicating pixels on which the sky is projected in an image captured by an infrared camera 11R, into low-luminance pixels and high-luminance pixels according to a binarization-use second threshold Yth2 (>Yex); and an object image extraction unit 35 which extracts an image portion of an object from an image region composed of the low-luminance pixels.

Abstract: In a target-object distance measuring device and a vehicle on which the device is mounted, a human body detection device is utilized for calculating a distance between an image capturing device and a human body candidate in an actual space based on the size of the human body candidate in the image. The head width is approximately 15-16 cm. A body height in the actual space of the human candidate in the image is estimated based on the ratio between the head-width in the extracted image and at least one size of the human body feature, such as total height, in the extracted human body candidate region, and the distance from the image capturing device to the human body candidate in the actual space is calculated based on the estimated body height in the actual space and the body height of the human body candidate in the image.

Abstract: When it is determined that a type of a physical body in real space corresponding to an image portion is a crossing pedestrian, a distance calculating unit 13 performs a first distance calculating process of calculating a distance between a vehicle 1 and the physical body, on the basis of a correlative relationship between the distance from the vehicle 1 set on assumption of a height of the pedestrian and a height of the image portion, according to the height of the image portion. When it is determined that the type of the physical body is not the crossing pedestrian, then the distance calculating unit 13 performs a second distance calculating process which calculates the distance between the physical body and the vehicle, on the basis of a change in size of the image portions of the physical body extracted from time-series captured images.

Abstract: An apparatus for monitoring the surroundings of a vehicle is provided with a second display unit that visually represents information on the presence of monitored objects by the display or lack of display of marks. When at least one monitored object is detected in a picked-up image, the marks are displayed in different forms in accordance with the hazard the monitored object poses to the vehicle.

Abstract: A living body recognizing device is equipped with a captured image acquiring unit which acquires captured images from infrared cameras having a characteristics that a luminance of an image portion of a target object becomes higher as a temperature of the target object becomes higher than a background, and vice versa, according to a temperature difference between the background and the target object, a living body image extracting unit which executes a first living body image extracting processing of extracting the image portion of the target object assumed as a living body, from a region in the captured image where the luminance is equal to or lower than a first threshold value, and a living body recognizing unit which recognizes an existence of the living body, based on the image portion of the target object extracted by the living body image extracting unit.

Abstract: Bicycles present before a vehicle are identified. A picked-up image having intensity values that are in accordance with the temperatures of objects is acquired to extract image regions having intensity values representative of higher temperatures than a background. An object, which includes a pair of first object portions (legs) and a second object portion (a tire), would be identified as a bicycle if the pair of first object portions, which have greater dimensions in length in the vertical direction than in width in the horizontal direction and the distance between which is less than a predetermined value in the horizontal direction, are detected from the extracted image regions and further if the second object portion, which has a different intensity value from any one of the first object portions and also has a length greater than a predetermined value in the vertical direction, is existent between the pair of first object portions.

Abstract: When it is determined that a type of a physical body in real space corresponding to an image portion is a crossing pedestrian, a distance calculating unit 13 performs a first distance calculating process of calculating a distance between a vehicle 1 and the physical body, on the basis of a correlative relationship between the distance from the vehicle 1 set on assumption of a height of the pedestrian and a height of the image portion, according to the height of the image portion. When it is determined that the type of the physical body is not the crossing pedestrian, then the distance calculating unit 13 performs a second distance calculating process which calculates the distance between the physical body and the vehicle, on the basis of a change in size of the image portions of the physical body extracted from time-series captured images.

Abstract: Category determination is performed on an object candidate extracted from a captured image after an exclusion process is performed in advance. In the exclusion process, a distance from a vehicle to the object candidate is calculated based on a size of the object candidate in a current image, a moved distance of the vehicle occurring in a time interval from a time a previous image was captured to a time the current image is captured is calculated, the size of the object candidate in the current image is decreased at a change ratio based on the distance to the object candidate and the moved distance, and a size of the object candidate in the previous image and a size of the object candidate decreased at the change ratio are compared. The object candidate with difference between them being determined to be larger than a predetermined value is removed.

Abstract: The device for monitoring surroundings of a vehicle is provided with means for detecting objects in the surroundings of the vehicle based on image acquired by an imaging device, display devices for displaying on display screens display images that are produced based on the captured image, and alerting means for alerting a driver of the existence of an object through the display devices when an object is detected. The display devices are placed at a plurality of locations visible from the driver. The alerting means reduces volume of information to be displayed on the display screen of the display device that requires large movement of line of sight of the drive for the driver to recognize the display screen from the reference line of sight that looks straight ahead.

Abstract: In a target-object distance measuring device and a vehicle on which the device is mounted, a human body detection device is utilized for calculating a distance between an image capturing device and a human body candidate in an actual space based on the size of the human body candidate in the image. The head width is approximately 15-16 cm. A body height in the actual space of the human candidate in the image is estimated based on the ratio between the head-width in the extracted image and at least one size of the human body feature, such as total height, in the extracted human body candidate region, and the distance from the image capturing device to the human body candidate in the actual space is calculated based on the estimated body height in the actual space and the body height of the human body candidate in the image.

Abstract: A vehicle periphery monitoring device includes: a parallax calculating unit which extracts a first image section that contains a target object in real space from a first image imaged by a first imaging unit at a predetermined time and extracts a second image section correlated to the first image section from a second image imaged by a second imaging unit at the predetermined time, and then calculates the parallax between the first image section and the second image section; a parallax gradient calculating unit for calculating a parallax gradient based on a time series calculation of the parallax of the identical target object in real space by the parallax calculating unit; and a first distance calculating unit for calculating the distance from the vehicle to the target object on the basis of the parallax gradient and the velocity of the vehicle.

Abstract: Provided is a device for monitoring the surrounding area of a vehicle. The device separates and extracts an object around the vehicle in better precision from the background. The device detects the ambient temperature of the vehicle, and determines a temperature difference between the ambient temperature and an object surface temperature estimated on the basis of the ambient temperature. On the basis of the brightness value of the background of a captured image obtained by an infrared camera and a brightness difference corresponding to the temperature difference, the brightness value of the object is calculated. The captured image is binarized by using the brightness value of the object as a threshold value, and the object is extracted. Since the binary threshold value is set on the basis of the relation between the ambient temperature and the object surface temperature, the object can be separated and extracted in the better precision from the background.

Abstract: Bicycles present before a vehicle are identified. A picked-up image having intensity values that are in accordance with the temperatures of objects is acquired to extract image regions having intensity values representative of higher temperatures than a background. An object, which includes a pair of first object portions (legs) and a second object portion (a tire), would be identified as a bicycle if the pair of first object portions, which have greater dimensions in length in the vertical direction than in width in the horizontal direction and the distance between which is less than a predetermined value in the horizontal direction, are detected from the extracted image regions and further if the second object portion, which has a different intensity value from any one of the first object portions and also has a length greater than a predetermined value in the vertical direction, is existent between the pair of first object portions.

Abstract: A vehicle periphery monitoring device includes: a parallax calculating unit which extracts a first image section that contains a target object in real space from a first image imaged by a first imaging unit at a predetermined time and extracts a second image section correlated to the first image section from a second image imaged by a second imaging unit at the predetermined time, and then calculates the parallax between the first image section and the second image section; a parallax gradient calculating unit for calculating a parallax gradient based on a time series calculation of the parallax of the identical target object in real space by the parallax calculating unit; and a first distance calculating unit for calculating the distance from the vehicle to the target object on the basis of the parallax gradient and the velocity of the vehicle.