Over a decade, various attempts that automate recognition of the surrounding of the vehicle have been undertaken for drive the vehicle safely. Most of such attempts are aiming at ACC, Collision Avoidance, Lane Keeping and Automated Driving System. The image technology has been used in this area and will continue to be developed. While on the other hand, the authors have focused on the vision assistance area familiar to them for the application of such image technology. In this area, the vehicle surrounding recognition is also necessary and they can find out the value of utilization of image processing and recognition technology. When using the image technology, it is possible to provide "recognition assistance" for informing the driver of the vehicle of the outer conditions and additional information for the view ahead to understand the situations. Further, it can be possible to extend the area into "judgment assistance" for giving the driver an easy judgment whether the amount or timing of his or her driving operation is proper or not. The authors proposed and actually installed the Backing Assistance System in a currently sold vehicle. This system provides rear view image by using CCD camera and displaying the estimated locus of the driving vehicle. Further, they developed the Lane Departure Warning System by constituting the Backing Assistance System as a platform.
Abstract