Patents by Inventor Osamu Shibata

Osamu Shibata has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20190219891
    Abstract: An imaging control device includes a controller and an input section. The controller causes an image sensor to, during at least one first frame period, capture at least one first multiple exposure image by using a first exposure signal that contains a plurality of pulses having a plurality of pulse widths different from one another; the image sensor is configured to capture an image by making multiple exposure. The input section receives the at least one first multiple exposure image. The controller selects one pulse width from the plurality of pulse widths, based on the first multiple exposure image received by the input section and then causes the image sensor to, during a second frame period, capture the image by using a second exposure signal that contains a pulse having the selected pulse width; the second frame period follows the first frame period.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 24, 2017
    Publication date: July 18, 2019
    Inventors: HIROSHI IWAI, OSAMU SHIBATA, KAZUKO NISHIMURA, YASUO MIYAKE, YOSHIAKI SATOU
  • Publication number: 20190198540
    Abstract: An image generation device includes a receiver and a controller. The receiver receives travel information about the travel state of a movable-body apparatus. The controller selects, based on the travel information, a first partial region from an entirety of a plurality of pixels of an image sensor or an entirety of image data captured by the image sensor, and generates image data in which a region other than the first partial region has a resolution lower than the resolution of the first partial region. The image sensor is to be mounted to the movable-body apparatus and is configured to capture an area in a traveling direction of the movable-body apparatus.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 6, 2019
    Publication date: June 27, 2019
    Inventors: OSAMU SHIBATA, HIROSHI IWAI, KAZUKO NISHIMURA, YASUO MIYAKE, YOSHIAKI SATOU
  • Publication number: 20190118823
    Abstract: There is provided a road surface detection apparatus which can precisely estimate a road surface grade. The road surface detection apparatus includes: an inputter that receives an input of an image signal from an imaging apparatus; a distance measurer that divides a road surface into a plurality of cells based on the image signal, and derives a distance to a representative point of each of the cells by a time of flight distance measurement method; and an estimator that estimates a gradient of the road surface based on the distances to a plurality of representative points.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 24, 2018
    Publication date: April 25, 2019
    Applicant: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Tetsuro OKUYAMA, Hiroshi IWAI, Osamu SHIBATA, Takehiro TANAKA
  • Publication number: 20190113332
    Abstract: A driving control system includes: an imaging device that is installed on a moving body and that images a target object in a first frame period a plurality of times to generate a multiple-exposure image data including a first image data and a second image data; and a processor that detects a relative motion state of the moving body with respect to the target object, based on the first image data and the second image data. The imaging device images the target object with a first sensitivity in a first exposure period in the first frame period to generate the first image data and images the target object with a second sensitivity in a second exposure period in the first frame period to generate the second image data, the second exposure period being different from the first exposure period, the second sensitivity being different from the first sensitivity.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 12, 2018
    Publication date: April 18, 2019
    Inventors: KAZUKO NISHIMURA, YASUO MIYAKE, YOSHIAKI SATOU, OSAMU SHIBATA, HIROSHI IWAI
  • Publication number: 20190072648
    Abstract: There is provided an imaging control apparatus which can improve distance measurement precision of a time of flight distance measurement method. The imaging control apparatus includes: a clustering processor which clusters a region from which a feature point is extracted based on an infrared image or a distance image obtained by an imaging apparatus; and a distance measurer which derives a distance to a target corresponding to the region by a time of flight distance measurement method based on information of each pixel in the region clustered by the clustering processor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 31, 2018
    Publication date: March 7, 2019
    Applicant: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hiroshi IWAI, Tetsuro OKUYAMA, Osamu SHIBATA, Takehiro TANAKA
  • Patent number: 10186479
    Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a metal plate capacitor that includes a heat-resistant metal plate and a capacitor unit including a sintered dielectric formed on at least one surface of the heat-resistant metal plate, a semiconductor chip disposed on the metal plate capacitor, a connector configured to electrically connect the semiconductor chip and the metal plate capacitor, and a protector configured to protect the semiconductor chip, the metal plate capacitor, and the connector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2019
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hidenori Katsumura, Shinya Tokunaga, Masaya Sumita, Hiroyoshi Yoshida, Yasuhiro Sugaya, Kazuhide Uriu, Osamu Shibata
  • Publication number: 20180343373
    Abstract: An imaging device includes: an imager that includes first pixels having sensitivity to visible light and second pixels having sensitivity to non-visible light, the imager acquiring first image data from the first pixels and acquiring second image data from the second pixels, each of the first image data and the second image data containing an image of an object that displays a code through non-visible light; and an image processor. The image processor performs a correction process including a process of multiplying at least either the first image data or the second image data by a correction factor, generates third image data from a difference between a pair of image data obtained by the correction process, and extracts the code on the basis of the third image data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 22, 2018
    Publication date: November 29, 2018
    Inventors: YOSHIAKI SATOU, KAZUKO NISHIMURA, YASUO MIYAKE, OSAMU SHIBATA, HIROSHI IWAI
  • Publication number: 20180278861
    Abstract: An objective is recognition of the travel direction of an object captured in an image frame. An image generating apparatus includes: a receiver circuit that receives a single exposure frame created by a single exposure and a multiple exposure frame created by multiple exposures after the single exposure frame, the single exposure frame and the multiple exposure frame being output from an image sensor; and a control circuit that specifies a starting point of a motion track of an object in the multiple exposure frame in accordance with a position of the object in the single exposure frame and a position of the same object in the multiple exposure frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2018
    Publication date: September 27, 2018
    Applicant: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LT D.
    Inventors: Osamu SHIBATA, Hiroshi IWAI, Kazuko NISHIMURA, Yasuo MIYAKE, Yoshiaki SATOU
  • Publication number: 20180278862
    Abstract: An object is to extract the motion tracks of other vehicles from an image taken from a target vehicle. An image generating apparatus includes: a determiner circuit that determines whether surroundings of the target vehicle are in a dark place; and a control circuit that causes an image sensor including a high-sensitivity cell and a highly-saturated cell to create a highly-saturated frame by multiple exposures through the highly-saturated cell, the highly-saturated cell having lower sensitivity and larger charge storage capacity than the high-sensitivity cell, when the determiner circuit determines that the surroundings of the target vehicle are in the dark place.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2018
    Publication date: September 27, 2018
    Applicant: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LT D.
    Inventors: Osamu SHIBATA, Hiroshi IWAI, Kazuko NISHIMURA, Yasuo MIYAKE, Yoshiaki SATOU
  • Publication number: 20180275279
    Abstract: An environment monitoring system being mountable on a vehicle and including: a light source that emits invisible light; a plurality of first optical/electrical converters that output a signal indicating an amount of incident light, upon reception of invisible light emitted from the light source and reflected off a target in a first visual field that is a part of visual field in surroundings of the vehicle; a plurality of second optical/electrical converters that constitute a optical/electrical converter array together with the plurality of first optical/electrical converters and output a signal indicating an amount of incident light, upon reception of visual light from a second visual field containing the first visual field; and a control device that derives a distance to the target in accordance with output signals from the plurality of first optical/electrical converters. The light source emits invisible light toward the first visual field.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 26, 2018
    Publication date: September 27, 2018
    Applicant: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hiroshi IWAI, Osamu SHIBATA, Tomohiro HONDA, Tomohito NAGATA
  • Patent number: 10054679
    Abstract: A radar system includes: control circuitry that generates a beam control signal; a first radar device including a first transmission antenna and first beam formation circuitry that causes the first transmission antenna to perform a first scan including a second scan from left to right by changing an emission angle and a third scan from right to left by changing an emission angle in such a manner that a part of the second scan and a part of the third scan are performed alternately one after another; and a second radar device including a second transmission antenna and second beam formation circuitry that cause the second transmission antenna to perform a fourth scan in such a manner that a phase of the fourth scan is opposite to a phase of the first scan.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2018
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Osamu Shibata, Yoshiyuki Saito
  • Publication number: 20180136310
    Abstract: A time of arrival t and a carrier wave phase ? of a positioning pulse that is transmitted from a mobile station in each posteriori period and that is received by each of at least three fixed stations are input. Then, by using an error reduction algorithm, a time of arrival tk+1 of the positioning pulse in the following posteriori period is predicted by using a carrier wave phase difference ?? of the positioning pulse. Then, by using the predicted time of arrival t of the positioning pulse, the location of the mobile station is calculated. A time interval dt of a posteriori period is set to a time interval with which a difference ??nm between the carrier wave phase differences, which is changed by the movement of the mobile station at an assumable maximum movement speed, is no greater than 180°.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 16, 2018
    Publication date: May 17, 2018
    Inventors: Osamu Shibata, Koichi Ichige
  • Publication number: 20170162490
    Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a metal plate capacitor that includes a heat-resistant metal plate and a capacitor unit including a sintered dielectric formed on at least one surface of the heat-resistant metal plate, a semiconductor chip disposed on the metal plate capacitor, a connector configured to electrically connect the semiconductor chip and the metal plate capacitor, and a protector configured to protect the semiconductor chip, the metal plate capacitor, and the connector.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 7, 2017
    Publication date: June 8, 2017
    Inventors: HIDENORI KATSUMURA, SHINYA TOKUNAGA, MASAYA SUMITA, HIROYOSHI YOSHIDA, YASUHIRO SUGAYA, KAZUHIDE URIU, OSAMU SHIBATA
  • Patent number: 9648273
    Abstract: A transmitter apparatus is provided with a first multi-value signal generator to convert the non-video signal of natural number “a”×natural number M bits other than a video signal into a multi-value signal of a multi-value number 2aM and to output a resulting signal, a second multi-value signal generator to convert the video signal of natural number “a”×natural number N bits into a multi-value signal of a multi-value number 2aN larger than the multi-value number 2aM and to output a resulting signal, and a transmission driver circuit to transmit the multi-value signal of the multi-value number 2aM in at least partial time interval of a blanking time interval and to transmit the multi-value signal of the multi-value number 2aN in an active time interval.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2017
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Yasumichi Takai, Tsutomu Niiho, Osamu Shibata
  • Patent number: 9549142
    Abstract: A video data transmitter apparatus generates and transmits a multi-value amplitude modulation signal by performing a multi-value amplitude modulation of a plurality of N bits per one symbol according to video data of a video signal or a color signal constituting the video signal, or a brightness signal and a color-difference signal. A data separator portion separates the video data into first to N-th pixel data, a difference calculator portion calculates (N?1) pieces of predetermined difference information based on the separated first to N-th pixel data, and a multi-value amplitude modulator portion performs a multi-value modulation so that predetermined N-bit data corresponds to a multi-value signal level closest to an intermediate level having an intermediate value between a maximum level and a minimum level of the multi-value signal level of the multi-value amplitude modulation signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2017
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Tsuyoshi Ikushima, Osamu Shibata, Hiroshi Tanaka
  • Publication number: 20160187479
    Abstract: A radar system includes: control circuitry that generates a beam control signal; a first radar device including a first transmission antenna and first beam formation circuitry that causes the first transmission antenna to perform a first scan including a second scan from left to right by changing an emission angle and a third scan from right to left by changing an emission angle in such a manner that a part of the second scan and a part of the third scan are performed alternately one after another; and a second radar device including a second transmission antenna and second beam formation circuitry that cause the second transmission antenna to perform a fourth scan in such a manner that a phase of the fourth scan is opposite to a phase of the first scan.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 22, 2015
    Publication date: June 30, 2016
    Inventors: OSAMU SHIBATA, YOSHIYUKI SAITO
  • Publication number: 20160128423
    Abstract: A shoe midsole is composed of a base plate (1), a cover (2), a plurality of blades (3), and liquid (4). The blades (3) are formed in such a manner as to rise within a first region (11) of the base plate (1). The blades (3) are each composed of a plurality of flat-shaped blade elements (32, 33) separated each other by slits (31), and are tilted toward the toe side or the heel side. The flat-shaped blade elements (32, 33) are disposed in such a manner as to be divergent toward the toe side or the heel side. The base plate (1) and the cover (2) are joined together, thereby forming a closed space (5), and the liquid (4) is sealed in the closed space.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 22, 2013
    Publication date: May 12, 2016
    Applicant: HIMIKO CO., LTD.
    Inventors: OSAMU SHIBATA, MASAO SHIBATA
  • Patent number: 9288418
    Abstract: In a video signal transmitter apparatus that removes a part of a blanking interval of a video signal, generates a converted video signal, based on the video signal including an active interval including video data and the blanking interval excluding the video data, a frequency divider divides a frequency of a pixel clock in synchronization with the video signal by a ratio of transmission frequency division, generate and output a frequency-divided clock as a converted pixel clock. A controller controls a first storage unit to write the video signal for the active interval of the video signal, and read the video signal for the active interval of the converted video signal and output a read video signal as the converted video signal, and to remove a part of a signal included in a horizontal blanking interval existing periodically every horizontal line for the blanking interval of the video signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Tsuyoshi Ikushima, Osamu Shibata
  • Patent number: 9191251
    Abstract: A multilevel signal transmitting apparatus determines a voltage level indicating an original data signal, and generates a multilevel data signal including a plurality of unit time intervals each having the determined voltage level. The multilevel signal transmitting apparatus assigns an even number of voltage levels to each unit time interval, assigns a smaller number of voltage levels than a maximum number of voltage levels, to a unit time interval next to a unit time interval to which the maximum number of voltage levels are assigned, and determines one of the assigned voltage levels, as the voltage level indicating the original data signal. A multilevel signal receiving apparatus detects the voltage level of the multilevel data signal, and reproduces the original data signal, based on the assigned voltage levels and the detected voltage level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2015
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Osamu Shibata
  • Patent number: 9093733
    Abstract: A signal transmission device includes a differential driver, a first single-ended driver circuit block, a second single-ended driver circuit block, a control circuit, and a common-mode filter. In the case where two-channel single-ended transmission is performed by using the first and second single-ended driver circuit blocks, the control circuit controls a driving capability of the first single-ended driver circuit block and a driving capability of the second single-ended driver circuit block in accordance with a combination of a change in a logical value of an output signal of the first single-ended driver circuit block and a change in a logical value of an output signal of the second single-ended driver circuit block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2015
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hiroshi Suenaga, Yutaka Taguchi, Atsushi Shinkai, Takaharu Yoshida, Osamu Shibata, Chie Sasaki