Vehicle Or Traffic Control (e.g., Auto, Bus, Or Train) Patents (Class 382/104)
  • Patent number: 10861144
    Abstract: The present subject matter refers an image-processing method comprises receiving a first-image of an object captured by a range-imaging device at a first viewing location. The transforming the first-image into a second image of the object, said second image corresponding to an image captured based on range-imaging at a second viewing location with respect to the object. The gaps in the second-image are identified based on comparison with the first image, such that the identified gaps within the second image are complemented to result in a complemented second image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Xibeijia Guan, Jeevan Kumar Guntammagari, Myo Htun, Ariel Beck, Myo Min Latt, Roy Eng Chye Lim
  • Patent number: 10860021
    Abstract: The present disclosure discloses method and an autonomous navigation system for guiding an autonomous vehicle in forward path in real-time. The method comprises instructing the vehicle to terminate autonomous steering in a forward path, on identifying an angular difference, between a current orientation of the vehicle and orientation of a generated path, to be greater than a predefined threshold value and performing estimation of a frontal area for the vehicle based on a current speed, an orientation, and a width of the vehicle, calculation of a forward turning angle based on the angular difference and a length of the frontal area and guiding vehicle to manoeuvre steer at the forward turning angle within the frontal area, for every predefined time interval, until the angular difference is less than the predefined threshold value. Thus, the present disclosure provides an efficient method for guiding autonomous vehicle in forward path in real-time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Wipro Limited
    Inventors: Balaji Sunil Kumar, Manas Sarkar
  • Patent number: 10854072
    Abstract: An automatic calibration system for a traffic system includes at least one position determining device, at least one image capturing device, a matching and tagging module, an image analysis module, and a calibration module. The position determining device detects a vehicle in violation of traffic rules and activates the image capturing device to capture images of the vehicle. The vehicle is matched and tagged in the images according to vehicle-related information detected by the position determining device by the matching and tagging module. The image analysis module analyses a plurality of images selected from the images to obtain an analysis result. The analysis result is compared with the vehicle-related information by a processor. If the analysis result is different than the vehicle-related information, the position determining device is calibrated by the calibration module. If the analysis result is the same as the vehicle-related information, a calibration is not performed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Inventor: Akif Ekin
  • Patent number: 10852727
    Abstract: An automotive vehicle includes at least one actuator configured to control vehicle steering, shifting, acceleration, or braking, at least one sensor configured to provide signals indicative of road geometry in the vicinity of the vehicle, and a controller in communication with the sensor and the actuator. The controller is configured to selectively control the actuator in an autonomous driving mode based on signals from the sensor. The controller is configured to automatically determine a first time parameter based on a distance to a merge location between a current driving lane of the vehicle and a target lane adjacent the current driving lane in response to signals from the sensor, to automatically determine a second time parameter based on a calculated merge completion time, and to automatically discontinue autonomous control of the actuator based on a difference between the first time parameter and the second time parameter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC
    Inventors: Kevin A. O'Dea, Sami Ahmed, Paul R. Williams
  • Patent number: 10854109
    Abstract: Accommodation for color or visual impairments may be implemented by selective color substitution. A color accommodation module receives an image frame from a host system and generates a color-adapted version of the image frame. The color accommodation module may include a rule based filter that substitutes one or more colors within the image frame with one or more corresponding alternative colors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.
    Inventors: Ashish Singh, Justice Adams, Arindam Jati, Masanori Omote
  • Patent number: 10853668
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are methods and systems for determining a location of an object within an environment. An example method may include determining a three-dimensional (3D) location of a plurality of reference points in an environment, receiving a two-dimensional (2D) image of a portion of the environment that contains an object, selecting certain reference points from the plurality of reference points that form a polygon when projected into the 2D image that contains at least a portion of the object, determining an intersection point of a ray directed toward the object and a 3D polygon formed by the selected reference points, and based on the intersection point of the ray directed toward the object and the 3D polygon formed by the selected reference points, determining a 3D location of the object in the environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: Wan-Yen Lo, David I. Ferguson
  • Patent number: 10846544
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an automotive prediction system includes a processing circuitry to obtain labels labelling media content elements identified in road-scene media content sequences, each label including a content descriptor selected from different content descriptors describing at least one media content element, the different content descriptors including a first and second content descriptor, calculate a correlation of the first and second content descriptor based on a count of occurrences of the first content descriptor being used for labelling after, but within a given temporal distance of the first content descriptor being used for labelling in the road-scene media content sequences, and populate an automotive prediction database with the correlation of the first and second content descriptor for use in making decisions during driving of a vehicle. Related apparatus and methods are also described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: Cartica AI Ltd.
    Inventors: Igal Raichelgauz, Karina Odinaev
  • Patent number: 10846878
    Abstract: A smart guide display system identifies, for a subject object, a nearest candidate reference object in each of multiple directions (e.g., to the top, the right, the bottom, and the left of the subject object). The smart guide display system also determines the distance from the subject object to each of those nearest candidate reference objects. The smart guide display system displays equal spacing smart guides to the nearest candidate reference objects along two different axes if the distances between the subject object and those nearest reference objects are approximately equal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: Adobe Inc.
    Inventors: Vinay Pareek, Mohan Sharma
  • Patent number: 10846540
    Abstract: Lane level traffic levels are determined based on traffic camera images. A controller aligns a three-dimensional map with a traffic camera view, and identifies multiple lanes in the traffic camera view based on lane delineations of the three-dimensional map. The controller calculates a traffic parameter based on the multiple lanes in image frames from the traffic camera view and provides a traffic graphic based on the traffic parameter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: HERE GLOBAL B.V.
    Inventors: Xin Chen, Xiang Ma, Roman Ostrovskiy, Terence Zhao
  • Patent number: 10846542
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for augmenting upright object detection. In one implementation, a system for augmenting detection of objects in an environment of a vehicle may include at least one processing device. The at least one processing device may be programmed to: receive, from an image capture device, a first image frame, the first image frame including an attention area associated with a suspected upright object indication; warp, using a level road plane model, an area in a second earlier image frame that corresponds to the attention area; track a plurality of image patches across the warped area and the attention area; compute a road plane model fit to the tracked image patches; and determine whether to suppress the upright object indication based on the tracked image patches being more consistent with a road plane model than with an upright object model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: MOBILEYE VISION TECHNOLOGIES LTD.
    Inventors: Jack Kario, Tomer Baba, Erez Dagan
  • Patent number: 10846843
    Abstract: A device receives images of a field on a farm, and filters the images of the field to generate filtered images. The device isolates planting lanes in the filtered images, where the planting lanes include lanes formed by crops in the field, and the planting lanes are isolated via a masking technique or a sliding windows technique. The device identifies plant gaps in the planting lanes, where the plant gaps correspond to portions of the planting lanes that are missing crops, the plant gaps are identified based on a heat map when the masking technique is utilized to isolate the planting lanes, and the plant gaps are identified based on sliding windows when the sliding windows technique is utilized to isolate the planting lanes. The device superimposes the plant gaps over the images to generate a visual representation of stressed areas in the field, and performs an action based on the visual representation of the stressed areas.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: Accenture Global Solutions Limited
    Inventors: Adalberto Gonzalez, Badri Lokanathan, Artemis Koutsorodi, Ankur Mathur, Brandon Webber
  • Patent number: 10834986
    Abstract: A safety system is configured to be worn by a user. The safety system includes a helmet, a transparent display screen coupled to the helmet and configured to provide eye safety for the user, the transparent display screen configured to display graphical information to the user in substantially real time. According to one embodiment, if a hazard is identified in a first route, the apparatus communicates an identification of the hazard for display to the user via the transparent display screen. Further, if the hazard is identified in the first route, the apparatus communicates an identification of a second route for display to the user via the transparent display screen, the second route avoiding the hazard with each of the first route and the second route rendered in the transparent display screen.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Inventor: Sarah Nicole Ciccaglione
  • Patent number: 10839303
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer-readable device embodiments for automatically correcting erroneous license plate numbers generated by automatic license plate recognition. An embodiment operates by selecting a set of adjacent license plate recognition (LPR) stations comprising a first LPR station, a second LPR station, and a third LPR station, accessing an error pattern probability matrix for at least the third recognized license plate number accessed in relation to at least one of the first recognized license plate number or the second recognized license plate number differing from the third recognized license plate number, and determining a corrected license plate number based on the error pattern probability matrix. In some embodiments, LPR correction may be accurately realized even when an erroneous license plate numbers are missing characters, such as by visual obstruction from an LPR camera or sensor, or has no characters in common with the real license plate number.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: SAP SE
    Inventors: Chang Yi, Qiong Luo, Guangji Zhu, Chao Yu, Qiwei Zhang, Yinling Ni
  • Patent number: 10831279
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for use in a vehicle, comprising determining a distance of a predetermined gesture from a reference location within a vehicle, and initiating an operation responsive to the gesture, wherein a mode of the operation is determined based upon the distance of the gesture from the reference location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: JAGUAR LAND ROVER LIMITED
    Inventors: Richard Powell, Urmila Mistry, Laura Millen
  • Patent number: 10832415
    Abstract: Provided are a method and an apparatus for detecting door image, and the method includes extracting an outline from the drawing; detecting an end point of the outline; detecting a directionality of the end point; detecting a peak adjacent the end point using the directionality; and detecting at least one window image using at least one of the number and position of the peak.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: ARCHIDRAW. INC.
    Inventors: Jusung Lee, Jongseon Hong
  • Patent number: 10825157
    Abstract: Techniques to improve the quality of captured images by reducing the effects of undesired objects (e.g., screen glare) are disclosed. The techniques may involve the use of face detection to localize the likely position of screen glare within the captured images (e.g., on a user's eyeglasses), as well as an awareness of the content that is being displayed on a display screen (or other light-projecting element projecting light into the scene) at the moment of capture of the respective image. The techniques may then model the position, size, and/or distortion of the screen contents (or other projected light) reflected by the user's eyeglasses (or other reflective surface in the captured scene environment). Once the appearance of the undesired screen glare has been modeled in the captured image, the techniques may perform an image modification operation to remove or reduce the undesired glare from the originally-acquired image in an efficient manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Nader W. Moussa
  • Patent number: 10824885
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a method and apparatus for detecting a braking behavior of a front vehicle of an autonomous vehicle. A specific implementation of the method comprises: extracting a vehicle image from a vehicle area in an image acquired by the image acquisition device; converting a color space of the vehicle image to generate a first vehicle image; setting a pixel value of a pixel point in the first vehicle image meeting any condition in a preset condition group to a first preset value to generate a second vehicle image; analyzing the second vehicle image to determine a candidate vehicle light area group; and detecting, based on the candidate vehicle light area group, whether a vehicle indicated by the vehicle image is braking, and generating a detection result. The implementation improves the detection efficiency for the braking behavior of the front vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Han Gao, Tian Xia
  • Patent number: 10821883
    Abstract: A control unit of a headlamp control device for a vehicle is configured so that, when an occupant of the vehicle performs a predetermined interruption operation while the illumination mode of a headlamp is a high beam mode during automatic illumination control, the control unit sets the illumination mode to a low beam mode until an interruption time passes. The interruption time is set to a smaller value as a vehicle speed correlation value is larger. The vehicle speed correlation value is a value that increases as a speed at which the vehicle has been traveling since the start of the interruption operation is higher.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Yukimi Murase, Kazuhiko Nakashima, Yoshiharu Okabe, Tomonari Sawada, Tomoyuki Watanabe, Haruya Iwatsuki
  • Patent number: 10825186
    Abstract: According to an embodiment, an information processing device includes a memory and processing circuitry. The processing circuitry is configured to acquire a peripheral image of a moving object, set a cell in response to a plurality of traveling candidate lines of the moving object in a peripheral area of the moving object, specify a type of an object included in the cell using one or more partitioned areas smaller than the cell included in the peripheral image, and determine whether or not the moving object can progress for the cell based on the type of the object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventors: Kaoru Sugita, Tomoki Watanabe, Satoshi Ito
  • Patent number: 10821988
    Abstract: Provided is a vehicle control system based on human face recognition, which relates to vehicles. The vehicle control system includes an image acquisition device, a storage, a processor and an actuator. It acquires current human face image information by the image acquisition device, stores known human face image information and pre-stored vehicle function configuration information corresponding thereto by the storage, computes and determines human face image information matching the current human face image information in the known human face image information by the processor, and configures a vehicle according to corresponding vehicle function configuration information by the actuator. By pre-storing passenger data, the vehicle control system may employ a touch-type manipulation system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignees: ZHEJIANG GEELY HOLDING GROUP CO., LTD, ZHEJIANG GEELY AUTOMOBILE RESEARCH INSTITUTE CO., LTD
    Inventor: Shufu Li
  • Patent number: 10825183
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides an analyzing and processing method and device for a road. In the analyzing and processing method for a road provided by the present disclosure, a slope value of a ground surface is obtained and image data of the ground surface is collected, and then the image data is analyzed and processed by using a pre-trained landform analysis model, so as to determine a landform type corresponding to the image data. A traveling condition is then determined based on the slope value of the ground surface and the landform type, and command information is generated according to the traveling conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: BOE TECHNOLOGY GROUP CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hailan Jin, Yang Han, Hui Du, Qi Yang
  • Patent number: 10820161
    Abstract: A method, system and product for mapping objects on movable platforms, including, obtaining sensor information from sensors of user devices, wherein the sensor information indicates that the user devices are in proximity to anchor stations; defining a timeframe for analysis based on an indication extracted from the sensor information that the movable platform is stationary throughout the timeframe; determining a relative location of the anchor stations within the movable platform, whereby automatically determining a mapping of the anchor stations within the movable platform; obtaining a reading from a user device when the user device is located in proximity to at least one of the anchor stations; and determining a relative location of the user device within the movable platform based on the mapping of the anchor stations within the movable platform and based on the reading from the user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: ANAGOG LTD.
    Inventors: Gil Levy, Yaron Aizenbud
  • Patent number: 10817054
    Abstract: An electronic apparatus is disclosed. The electronic apparatus includes an inputter configured to receive a binocular image which is a captured image of both eyes of a user and a stereo image which is an image of a direction corresponding to a gaze of the user captured at locations spaced apart from each other, and a processor configured to detect a watch point of a user in the stereo image by using the binocular image, obtain a disparity map in the input stereo image, and compensate the detected watch point using the obtained disparity map.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Korea University Research and Business Foundation
    Inventors: Kang-won Jeon, Sung-Jea Ko, Tae-young Na, Mun-Cheon Kang, Sung-Ho Chae
  • Patent number: 10817714
    Abstract: A method for predicting walking behaviors includes: encoding walking behavior information of at least one target object in a target scene within a historical time period M to obtain a first offset matrix for representing the walking behavior information of the at least one target object within the historical time period M; inputting the first offset matrix into a neural network, and outputting by the neural network a second offset matrix for representing walking behavior information of the at least one target object within a future time period M?; and decoding the second offset matrix to obtain the walking behavior prediction information of the at least one target object within the future time period M?.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: BEIJING SENSETIME TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD
    Inventors: Shuai Yi, Hongsheng Li, Xiaogang Wang
  • Patent number: 10817751
    Abstract: A learning data creation method acquires items of still image data or moving image data as event data and non-event data, presents first data that is still image data or moving image data that is of a predetermined time before an event and included in the event data and still image data or moving image data, presents non-event data as second data, receives a judgment result as to whether the first data and second data are similar, (a) stores the event data as positive data, (b) stores the non-event data as positive data if the first data and second data are similar, and (c) stores the non-event data as negative data if the first data and second data are not similar.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Toru Tanigawa, Yukie Shoda, Junichi Imoto, Yusuke Tsukamoto, Seiya Imomoto
  • Patent number: 10809361
    Abstract: Systems and methods for detecting and classifying objects proximate to an autonomous vehicle can include a sensor system and a vehicle computing system. The sensor system includes at least one LIDAR system configured to transmit ranging signals relative to the autonomous vehicle and to generate LIDAR data. The vehicle computing system receives the LIDAR data from the sensor system. The vehicle computing system also determines at least a range-view representation of the LIDAR data and a top-view representation of the LIDAR data, wherein the range-view representation contains a fewer number of total data points than the top-view representation. The vehicle computing system further detects objects of interest in the range-view representation of the LIDAR data and generates a bounding shape for each of the detected objects of interest in the top-view representation of the LIDAR data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: UATC, LLC
    Inventors: Carlos Vallespi-Gonzalez, Ankit Laddha, Gregory P Meyer, Eric Randall Kee
  • Patent number: 10810410
    Abstract: An information providing device and an information providing method capable of providing information according to a driving load while alleviating or eliminating a sense of discomfort of a user of a vehicle is provided. An information providing device includes an emotion determination unit that determines virtual emotion of a vehicle, and an output control unit that determines one or both of content and an output mode of the information that the output unit is caused to output according to the virtual emotion of the vehicle. The emotion determination unit determines predetermined emotion to be the virtual emotion of the vehicle when a condition that a period in which the traveling state of the vehicle detected by the traveling state detection unit is a predetermined traveling state has continued for a predetermined period or longer is satisfied.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Eisuke Soma, Hiromitsu Yuhara, Keiichi Takikawa, Shinichiro Goto, Satoshi Imaizumi
  • Patent number: 10810749
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes: a distance histogram information generating means configured to generate distance histogram information representing a frequency distribution of distance values in each of a plurality of row regions obtained by division of a captured image in an up-down direction; and a movement surface information processing means configured to: extract a group of distance values matching a feature represented by distance values of the movement surface for each of a plurality of segments obtained by segmentation of the distance histogram information according to the distance values; execute, for a segment where a group of distance values extracted does not satisfy a predetermined error condition, processing of generating information on the movement surface using the group of distance values; and execute, for a segment where a group of distance values extracted satisfies the predetermined error condition, predetermined error processing without using the group of distance values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
    Inventors: Shinichi Sumiyoshi, Naoki Motohashi, Toshifumi Yamaai, Sadao Takahashi
  • Patent number: 10803600
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to an information processing device, an information processing method, and a program capable of performing continuous estimation of a self-position. An information processing device according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes: a main imaging unit that includes a stereo camera mounted on a moving body, and captures moving images at a predetermined frame rate to output a pair of stereo main images as time-series images; a plurality of sub imaging units each of which is so mounted on the moving body as to have an imaging direction different from an imaging direction of the main imaging unit, and captures moving images at a predetermined frame rate; and a final pose determination unit that estimates a pose of the moving body on the basis of the pair of stereo main images captured by the main imaging unit, and sub images captured by the sub imaging units. For example, the present disclosure is applicable to a self-position sensor for in-vehicle use.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Akihiko Kaino, Shingo Tsurumi, Masashi Eshima, Takaaki Kato, Masaki Fukuchi, Tatsuki Kashitani, Shunichi Homma
  • Patent number: 10796570
    Abstract: A vehicle control device (100) includes: a detection device having a detection area in an advancement direction of a vehicle; and a crossing recognizer (132) determining whether or not a concave part extending in a direction intersecting the advancement direction is present on the basis of an output of the detection device and recognizing presence of a crossing in the advancement direction of the vehicle in a case in which a concave part is determined as being present.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hiroshi Miura, Makoto Ishikawa, Masamitsu Tsuchiya, Koji Kawabe
  • Patent number: 10789728
    Abstract: A method of analyzing autonomous vehicle data comprising recording a video of a vehicle environment utilizing one or more vehicle cameras, identifying corner points of objects in the video, identifying a forward-tracked location of one or more corner points in each frame from an earlier frame to a later frame of the recorded video played in forward, identifying a reverse-tracked location of one or more corner points in each frame from the later frame to the earlier frame of the recorded video played in reverse, comparing the forward-tracked location of the earlier frame and reverse-tracked location of the later frame, and adjusting a descriptor defining characteristics of one or more pixels of the corner point in response the comparison indicating an error rate exceeding a threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: DENSO INTERNATIONAL AMERICA, INC.
    Inventor: Shawn Hunt
  • Patent number: 10789489
    Abstract: A vehicle exterior environment recognition apparatus includes a three-dimensional object region identifier and a specific part identifier. The three-dimensional object region identifier identifies a three-dimensional object region by monocular recognition based on a luminance image. The three-dimensional object region includes a three-dimensional object. The luminance image is generated by an image capturing unit that captures an image of vehicle exterior environment. The specific part identifier correlates the three-dimensional object region with a distance image, to identify a specific part of the three-dimensional object region on the basis of distance information. The distance image is generated from the luminance image. The distance information is calculated on the basis of the distance image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: SUBARU CORPORATION
    Inventor: Aito Kanno
  • Patent number: 10783350
    Abstract: A method for controlling a driver assistance system by using a stereo camera system having a first and a second camera, the method having a step of reading in, a first image being read in from the first camera and a second image being read in from the second camera. The method furthermore comprises a step of forming, a cost function being generated by using the first and the second image. Furthermore, in a further method step of determining, a frontoparallelity parameter representing the frontoparallelity of an object with respect to the stereo camera system is determined by using a global minimum of the cost function. Finally, the method comprises a step of using, the frontoparallelity parameter being used to control the driver assistance system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2020
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventor: Thomas Schoeberl
  • Patent number: 10783382
    Abstract: A method of performing lane detection without the use of a frame buffer may include capturing image frames with an image sensor in a vehicular imaging system. Feature extraction circuitry in the vehicular imaging system may analyze a frame to detect features corresponding to possible lane markers. The features may be extracted and stored in memory for further processing, while the rest of the frame may not be stored in memory and may not undergo further processing. Processing circuitry may perform a first estimation of lane marker location based on a continuous feature that is present in multiple different image frames and may perform a second estimation of lane marker location based on multiple features in a single image frame that form a connected feature. The processing circuitry may determine the presence of a lane marker based on the continuous feature and the connected feature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2020
    Assignee: SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC
    Inventor: Yan Zhai
  • Patent number: 10776632
    Abstract: For detecting a free area located inside a parking lot using at least one video camera, in particular a stereo-video camera, which is fixedly installed inside the parking lot, the visual range of the video camera including a section of the floor of the parking lot, a method includes: recording a camera image and/or an image sequence of camera images of at least a section of the floor of the parking lot using the video camera; comparing the camera images to a reference in order to identify a change in the section of the floor of the parking lot; and detecting a free area if no change is identified.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventors: Andreas Lehn, Stefan Nordbruch
  • Patent number: 10776655
    Abstract: The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for estimating color of vehicles on a roadway. The color can be at least estimated from captured imagery, such as, frames of a video stream. The captured imagery can be captured by variably configured traffic cameras, other public cameras, private cameras (e.g., CCTV), or virtually any other camera, etc., which may have different operating conditions. Color confidence scores can be derived based on image characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: Banjo, Inc.
    Inventors: Joshua J. Newman, Ravi Shankar Kannan, Krishnamohan Pathicherikollamparambil
  • Patent number: 10776644
    Abstract: Systems and methods for using image analysis techniques to assess unsafe driving conditions by a vehicle operator are discloses. According to aspects, a computing device may access and analyze image data depicting the vehicle operator. In analyzing the image, the computing device may measure certain visible metrics as depicted in the image data and compare the metrics to corresponding threshold values, and may accordingly determine whether the vehicle operator is exhibiting an unsafe driving condition. The computing device may generate and present alerts that indicate any determined unsafe driving condition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
    Inventors: Dingchao Zhang, Yuntao Li, Jeffrey S. Myers
  • Patent number: 10776637
    Abstract: An image processing device includes a first extracting unit, a second extracting unit, a face detecting unit, a first apex detecting unit, and a decider. The first extracting unit is configured to extract, based on distance information regarding an object, a first area representing the object. The second extracting unit is configured to extract contour directions of a contour of the first area. The face detecting unit is configured to detect a first face in the first area, based on the contour directions extracted by the second extracting unit. The first apex detecting unit is configured to detect a first apex indicating a boundary of the first face. The decider is configured to decide on a principal face of the object represented by the first area, based on at least the first face and the first apex.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
    Inventors: Seiya Amano, Hiroyoshi Sekiguchi, Soichiro Yokota
  • Patent number: 10771665
    Abstract: A vehicle includes an image sensor having a field of view, an illuminator aimed at the field of view; and a computer including a processor and a memory storing instructions executable by the processor. The computer is programmed to illuminate an object external to the vehicle; determine that the object has a known optical property; determine the optical property of the object from a database; calculate luminance of the illuminator based at least on the optical property of the object; and adjust at least one of the illuminator, the image sensor, and the computer based at least on the luminance of the illuminator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: David Michael Herman, Ashwin Arunmozhi, Venkatesh Krishnan
  • Patent number: 10769460
    Abstract: The driver condition detection system includes a driver monitor camera capturing a face of a driver of a vehicle and generating a facial image of the driver, and a driver condition detection part configured to detect a condition of the driver based on the facial image. If a part of face parts of the driver is hidden in the facial image, the driver condition detection part is configured to detect a condition of the driver based on face parts of the driver not hidden in the facial image. The face parts of the driver are a mouth, nose, right eye, and left eye of the driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Takeshi Matsumura
  • Patent number: 10762128
    Abstract: Each of vehicles acquires its own position, and transmits an image of a nearby outside taken by an own camera and a piece of information of the own position. An information center communicatable wirelessly with the vehicles receives the images and the pieces of information of the vehicles' positions transmitted by the vehicles, and recognizes pieces of first character information appearing in the received images, respectively. Based on the received pieces of information of the vehicles' positions as well as at least either points of interest or areas stored as collection target information, the information center determines at least either points of interest or areas for the recognized pieces of first character information, respectively, and stores association information where the pieces of first character information are associated with the determined at least either points of interest or areas.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Masakazu Nomura
  • Patent number: 10755428
    Abstract: Machine vision systems/methods and related application systems/methods are provided that includes steps/control sections including capturing pairs of multiple images from at least two cameras having overlapping fields of views and camera settings, first and second category depth estimation (DE) modules (DEM) that generates a first and second depth estimate (z), DE neural network trainer (NN) trigger system, a camera setting module, and an application that uses outputs from the first or second category DEM. The first category DEM includes featuring matching, structure from motion (SFM), depth from defocus (DFD), ratios of depth (RoD) and relative blur estimates (RBE) generators, systems of equations (SoEs) based on camera model projective geometry equations and thin lens equations module, and multiple SoE variable elimination modules using the RoDs and RBEs to reduce variables in the SoEs. The second DEM includes a NN DE trainer/use system. Also uses a reinforcement learning camera setting selection system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2020
    Assignee: The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
    Inventor: Buddy Aswin
  • Patent number: 10748012
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are disclosed to facilitate environmental visibility determination. An example vehicle comprises a sensor and a processor and memory. The sensor is to generate road image information. The processor and memory are in communication with the sensor and are configured to: detect vanishing points of lane markings in the road image information, convert an average pixel row value of the vanishing points to a distance value, and if the distance value is below a threshold, stop execution of at least one road condition monitoring feature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2020
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Jonathan Diedrich, Eric L. Reed, Adil Nizam Siddiqui, Mark Gehrke
  • Patent number: 10748076
    Abstract: It is an object of the present invention to provide a predictive traffic law enforcement profiler apparatus and method which incorporates a means to determine current location, time, velocity and also incorporates a means to utilize a database derived from historic traffic law enforcement records, crowd sourced records and historical traffic data and also incorporates a predictive processing means to provide historic traffic law enforcement records and estimates of enforced speed limits and enforcement profiles, patrol locations and schedules of traffic law enforcement to a driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2020
    Inventor: Steve Dabell
  • Patent number: 10739142
    Abstract: An apparatus, method, and computer readable medium related to determining the position of a device, for example determining the pose of a camera. Varying embodiments discuss the use of sensors and captured images to construct an environment property map, which provides reference information in the form of environment properties that are associated with positions, such as camera poses. Embodiments of the disclosure discuss using the environment property map online (e.g. in real time) in order to determine the position of a device. In some embodiments, the environment property map provides a coarse position that is used to refine or limit the necessary work for determining a more precise position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Peter Meier, Christian Lipski
  • Patent number: 10740592
    Abstract: An apparatus comprises three-dimensional object detecting means for detecting a three-dimensional object in a taken image, temporarily determining means for calculating, based on parallax information, a lower end height from a road surface to a lower end of the object, for temporarily determining that the object is a ground-contacting object when the lower end height is less than or equal to a threshold, and for temporarily determining that the object is a floating object when the lower end height exceeds the threshold, and finally determining means for finally determining whether the object is a ground-contacting object or a floating object. The finally determining means finally determines that the object is a ground-contacting object at the current computation timing when the object is determined to be a ground-contacting object in at least one of the temporary determination at the current computation timing and the final determination at the previous computation timing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2020
    Assignees: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA, DENSO CORPORATION
    Inventors: Naohide Uchida, Fumio Sugaya, Ken Tanabe, Hirotake Ishigami, Masaki Kuwahara
  • Patent number: 10733463
    Abstract: Examples disclosed herein may involve a computing system that is configured to (i) obtain previously-derived perception data for a collection of sensor data including a sequence of frames observed by a vehicle within one or more scenes, where the previously-derived perception data includes a respective set of object-level information for each of a plurality of objects detected within the sequence of frames, (ii) derive supplemental object-level information for at least one object detected within the sequence of frames that adds to the previously-derived object-level information for the at least one object, (iii) augment the previously-derived perception data to include the supplemental object-level information for the at least one object, and (iv) store the augmented perception data in an arrangement that encodes a hierarchical relationship between the plurality of objects, the sequence of frames, and the one or more scenes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 4, 2020
    Assignee: Lyft, Inc.
    Inventors: Ashesh Jain, Yunjian Jiang, Mushfiqur Rouf, Henru Wang, Lei Zhang
  • Patent number: 10733890
    Abstract: A method to be implemented by a computer system includes: transforming each of training images into a respective transformed training image; calculating a classification loss value based on detection results that are acquired from parking status prediction results obtained by performing feature extraction on the transformed training images; and adjusting candidate spatial transforming parameters, candidate feature extraction parameters and candidate logistic regression parameters when it is determined that a combination of the aforementioned parameters is not optimal based on the classification loss value, followed by repeating above-mentioned steps using the adjusted parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 4, 2020
    Assignee: National Chung Cheng University
    Inventors: Ching-Chun Huang, Vu-Hoang Tran, Hung-Sheng Cheng
  • Patent number: 10735695
    Abstract: A vehicular control system includes a forward viewing camera disposed at an in-cabin side of a windshield of a vehicle and viewing forward of the vehicle. Road curvature of a road along which the vehicle is traveling is determined responsive at least in part to processing by an image processor of image data captured by the camera. Responsive at least in part to processing of captured image data, a traffic lane of the road along which the vehicle is traveling is determined. Responsive at least in part to processing of captured image data, another vehicle present on the road and forward of the vehicle may be detected. Responsive at least in part to processing of captured image data, the system may determine that the detected other vehicle is travelling in a traffic lane to the left or to the right of the traffic lane along which the vehicle is traveling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: August 4, 2020
    Assignee: MAGNA ELECTRONICS INC.
    Inventors: Kenneth Schofield, Niall R. Lynam
  • Patent number: 10726287
    Abstract: Disclosed are a camera and an object processing apparatus using the same. A camera according to an embodiment of the present invention focuses on moving objects by adjusting the ray distance between a lens and a sensor in a manner whereby a mirror is moved between the lens and the sensor, which are each fixedly installed, or whereby one side end of the sensor is moved, without a mirror.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: Gachisoft Inc.
    Inventor: Hoyon Kim