3D vision system for vehicles

Throughout this decade, several works about automated driving systems have been dedicated to collision avoidance, and it has already been proved that image technology can be useful in this area. Effectively, image technology provides additional information to the driver of a vehicle to easily understand driving or parking situations. For example, a backing assistance system using a rear video camera was developed by AISIN two years ago. This system is used to realize a safe and easy parking system: the back guide monitor. At the same time ITS related systems were developed to improve, convenience and safety for the users of vehicles. We propose here the next generation of circumstance recognition system. This system provides the driver with a 3D representation of the scene surrounding his vehicle, from images acquired by a rear CCD camera. The most important drawback of current back view 2D systems is that the driver can never see the whole scene at one time. Moreover, our technology is able to memorize in a 3D model, parts of the scene already observed from several shots taken while the vehicle is moving. Using this virtual 3D model, the scene can be observed by the driver from any point of view at every moment.