KR101942179B1 - Lane visibility improvement device in rain - Google Patents

Abstract

More particularly, the present invention relates to a lane visibility improvement apparatus for raising a lane, and more particularly, to a lane lane visibility improvement apparatus for raising a visibility of a vehicle caused by an increase in visibility by raising the recognition rate of a lane and displaying it in connection with a display device provided in the vehicle, The present invention relates to a lane visibility improvement device for preventing a safety accident and ensuring driving safety.

Description

[0001] Lane visibility improvement device in rain [0002]

More particularly, the present invention relates to a lane departure-time visibility improving apparatus for raising a lane, and more particularly, to a lane departure- The present invention relates to a lane visibility improvement device for preventing a safety accident and ensuring driving safety.

On a rainy day, especially at night, the lane is almost invisible and the risk of a safety accident during driving is very high.

This is because of the formation of the water due to the rainwater, the bright light of the surroundings, such as the headlights of vehicles coming in front, the rear taillights, brakes, etc., It is very difficult to distinguish the lane because of the sudden drop.

In order to solve such a problem, the prior art has mainly focused on improving the lane painting method and paint, and for example, there are techniques using glass beads for raising the retroreflectivity.

However, there is a problem that the retroreflectivity is lowered due to the loss of the glass bead, and the cost is increased so that the glass bead can not be easily lost.

As another example, there have been attempts to increase the visibility by blocking the reflected light by using a polarizing filter. However, in this case, it is necessary to install two horizontal and vertical polarizing cameras and to control the synthesized luminance and the polarizing ratio finely. In addition, the cost is increased. In particular, since the intensity of the light is weak due to the polarization, the screen is darkened, and even if the lane is separated, the entire display is dark and thus the effect of increasing the visibility is not obtained.

Korea Patent Registration No. 10-1706682 (Aug. 20, 2017) 'Image providing device for curved roads with improved visibility' Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2016-0090519 (2016.08.01.) 'Head-up Display (HUD) Device of Vehicle'

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems in the prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle display device and a display device, which can improve the recognition rate of a lane in a situation where a lane in a bad weather, The main object of the present invention is to provide a lane visibility improvement device in a rainy weather condition in which a safety accident of a vehicle due to an improvement in visibility is prevented and a driving safety is ensured.

According to the present invention, there is provided an image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup unit provided in a vehicle at a position higher than a field of view of a driver; And a display device provided on the vehicle so as to display the lane information.

At this time, the display device is also one of a display device for outputting visual output, an alarm device for outputting sound, or a vibration device for outputting vibration.

The lane recognition system is further provided with a lane detection algorithm for extracting lane information from the information photographed by the image pickup unit.

Further, the image pickup unit is further provided with a polarizing filter.

At this time, the image pickup unit is also configured to be capable of adjusting the photographing direction and the height.

Also, the display device is one of a head-up display, an LED screen, and a general touch panel screen type display.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image pickup apparatus comprising: an image pickup unit provided in a vehicle at a position higher than a field of view of a driver; A lane recognition system mounted with a lane detection algorithm for extracting lane information from the information photographed by the imaging unit; And a small LED plate on which a plurality of LEDs arranged on a bonnet or a dashboard of the vehicle so as to be visible through the windshield window are displayed or laid down on the basis of the extracted lane information under the control of the lane recognition system It also provides a lane visibility improvement device in case of rain.

Further, the image pickup unit is also a camera which is one of a monocular camera capable of capturing moving images and a stereo camera capable of capturing moving images.

The image pickup unit may be a combination of a mirror and a camera. The image pickup unit may include a housing mounted on a roof of the vehicle; A mirror inclined inside the housing; A rack integrally provided on a rear surface of the mirror; A pinion coupled with the rack to move the mirror; A supporting base fixedly supported on a lower portion of the housing and having a mineral oil passage formed therein; And a camera which is installed directly under the mineral oil passage and captures light reflected from the mirror.

The image pickup unit may be a combination of a mirror and a camera. The image pickup unit may include a housing mounted on a roof of the vehicle; A mirror inclined inside the housing; A rotating shaft formed on both sides of the middle of the length of the mirror and rotatably fixed to the inner wall surface of the housing; A supporting base fixedly supported on a lower portion of the housing and having a mineral oil passage formed therein; And a camera which is installed directly under the mineral oil passage and captures light reflected from the mirror.

The present invention also provides a vehicle comprising: a housing installed on a roof of a vehicle; An inner hollow square bar fixed upright on the bottom of the housing and having a front and a rear side cut into a sled slot; An elevating motor installed on the inner bottom surface of the square block; A ball screw coupled to the motor shaft of the lift motor; A flow block inserted through the slide slot and screwed together so that the ball screw penetrates up and down; A motor base fixed to the tip of the flow block; An angle adjusting motor fixed to the motor base; A lane recognition system including a lane detection algorithm for extracting lane information from information photographed by the image pickup unit, the lane recognition system including an image pickup unit fixed to a motor shaft of an angle adjusting motor passing through a motor base; And a display device installed in the vehicle so as to display the lane information extracted under the control of the lane recognition system.

According to the present invention, it is possible to distinguish the lane more clearly in case of a rainy day, and an effect of preventing a vehicle accident can be obtained.

In addition, since the visibility is maximized in rainy weather, it is possible to secure the driving safety.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating the principle of implementation of a lane visibility improvement apparatus in a rainy day according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of a lane visibility improvement device in a rainy day according to the present invention.
3 is an illustration of a head-up display implementing a lane visibility improver in the event of a rainstorm according to the present invention.
4A and 4B are views illustrating an example of a modified lane lane visibility improver according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is an exemplary view showing another example of a head-up display constituting an apparatus for improving lane visibility in a rainy day according to the present invention.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Before describing the present invention, the following specific structural or functional descriptions are merely illustrative for the purpose of describing an embodiment according to the concept of the present invention, and embodiments according to the concept of the present invention may be embodied in various forms, And should not be construed as limited to the embodiments described herein.

In addition, since the embodiments according to the concept of the present invention can make various changes and have various forms, specific embodiments are illustrated in the drawings and described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the embodiments according to the concept of the present invention are not intended to limit the present invention to specific modes of operation, but include all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention.

First, the concept of visibility enhancement associated with the implementation of the device according to the present invention will be described.

1 (a), the upper part of the lane 30, which is applied to the road surface 20 on the basis of the reference point with respect to a point (hereinafter referred to as a "point of view") equal to the driver's eye level at the time of driving the vehicle 10 in a rainy (40) is formed.

Therefore, the light emitted from the lane 30 is refracted at the interface between the water film 40 and the air, a part of the light is reflected and a part of the light is reflected, and the transmitted light reaches the viewpoint so that the driver recognizes the lane 30 do.

However, when the ambient light is present at night in the state where the water film 40 is formed in the rain, a part of the ambient light reaching the upper part of the water film 40 reaches the point of view after being reflected as shown in FIG. 1 (b) .

At this time, the light which is reflected on the water film 40 and reaches the viewpoint, and the light which is emitted from the lane 30 and reaches the view point after passing through the water film 40, So that the lane 30 can not be clearly seen.

Of course, in the case of a clear day rather than a rainy day, the lane 30 can be easily identified because the lane 30 does not exist, and the lane 30 can be easily identified, This makes it easier to recognize this lane (30).

Here, as the incident angle of the light emitted from the lane 30 and penetrating the water film 40 reaches the viewpoint as shown in (a) of FIG. 1, the smaller the incident angle with respect to the reference point, the higher the transmittance and the better the visibility. This is because the larger the incident angle, the greater the reflectance becomes exponentially and the transmission becomes poor.

Therefore, the incident angle indicated by the solid line in FIG. 1 (a) is smaller than that indicated by the broken line in FIG. 1 (a), indicating that the transmission is better.

For this reason, the greater the height of the viewpoint, the smaller the angle of incidence with respect to the reference point of the light emitted from the lane 30, and the greater the amount of light reaching the viewpoint, the greater the visibility.

Therefore, if the viewpoint is located at a higher position than the viewpoint at the eye level in the state where the driver is seated in the driver's seat, the visibility of recognizing the lane 30 is significantly increased, and if the viewpoint exists on the roof of the vehicle 10, The lane 30 can be seen.

1B, if the incident angle of the light reaching the surface of the water film 40 with respect to the reference point is minimized, the reflectance becomes smaller and the transmittance becomes larger, so that the amount of light reaching the viewpoint is reduced, The light emitted from the lane reaches the point of stronger intensity at the point of time), so that the visibility of the lane 30 can be improved dramatically .

Therefore, even in this case, the higher the viewpoint, the more advantageous.

The most important feature of the present invention is that the viewpoint is located on the roof of the vehicle 10 as shown in FIG. In addition, one side or both sides of the bonnet of the vehicle 10 can be configured to raise the viewpoint using a support.

In other words, the main feature of the present invention is that the viewpoint is located at a position higher than the normal eye level of the driver.

At this time, an image pickup unit 50 is fixedly supported by a support body 52 so as to perform the view point function.

In this case, the image sensing unit 50 may be a monocular camera capable of capturing a moving image or a stereo camera capable of capturing moving images. The support body 52 may be an image sensing unit 50 using a cylinder, a ball screw, a damper, It is better if it is configured to be able to adjust the height and the direction of gaze.

The image sensing unit 50 is connected to the lane recognition system 60 mounted on the vehicle 10 so as to be capable of transmitting the image sensing information and the lane recognition system 60 is provided in the vehicle 10 The display device 70 controls to output the lane 30 through the display device 70. The display device 70 may be a display device of various types such as a head-up display, an LED screen, a general touch panel screen type display, An oscillation device for outputting an oscillation signal, or an oscillation device for oscillation.

Here, the lane recognition system 60 detects an edge on an image using, for example, Canny edge detection, and then performs a Hough (Hough) conversion on a portion representing the lane among the edges it is preferable to use a system equipped with a known lane detection algorithm that recognizes a lane by transforming the lane detection algorithm.

As shown in FIG. 3, when the display device 70 is used, the display device 70 can display not only the currently available head-up display method, but also a method of displaying a virtual image in front of 5 meters, It is possible to make various modifications such as a head up display through an eye tracking sensor after being adjusted, a direct reflection of the OLED screen after attaching a reflection film to the windshield of a vehicle, and a transparent LCD screen directly installed on the windshield of a vehicle will be.

In addition, in order to further maximize the visibility, the image pickup unit 50, in particular, a polarizing filter (FT) in front of or behind the lens in the case of a camera, may be further provided so as to reach a point of time when only some light (light) is extracted.

In this case, since the polarizing filter FT installed in the present invention is in a state where the intensity of light is increased, that is, the intensity is remarkably improved, the screen does not become dark even if the polarizing filter FT is used, There is an advantage that the lane separation effect according to the polarization can be further increased by attaching only one polarization filter (FT) simply without using two polarization cameras having a horizontal polarization function.

In addition, when the image pickup unit 50 is a camera, a separate camera housing may be provided to protect the camera, and a camera may be mounted in the camera housing.

On the other hand, as in the example of FIG. 4A, the image pickup unit 50 may be a form utilizing a mirror and a camera.

For example, referring to FIG. 4A, a housing H is provided on the roof of the vehicle 10, and a mirror M is installed in the interior of the housing H such that light is incident on the front of the mirror M, A rack L is formed on the rear surface of the mirror M and the rack L is coupled to the pinion P so as to be movable and a mineral oil passage K is provided below the housing H And a camera C capable of picking up the light reflected from the mirror M is installed in the lower right section of the mineral oil passage K to constitute the image pickup unit 50 It is possible.

In this case, in the case of the housing H, an emergency guide provided on the roof of a taxi can be used as a preferred example, and the height of the support S can be adjusted to maximize visibility.

Particularly, in the case of a taxi, the height of the housing H can be adjusted, and the height of the height of the housing H will be increased accordingly.

In addition, the mirror M may be configured to adjust the angle. In this case, it is possible to provide a rotation axis in the middle of the length of the mirror M, and to adjust the angle around the rotation axis. In this case, it is preferable to eliminate the height adjustment function by the rack and pinion.

In addition, the reason why the camera C is located at the lowest position is to prevent the expensive camera C from being easily broken when the vehicle 10 is hit by an accident or the like. If the vehicle 10 is installed in a simple exposed structure on the upper part of the vehicle 10, it may be easily damaged by external interference or a vehicle accident. Therefore, the camera C is installed on the roof or inner ceiling of the vehicle 10 as much as possible so that the camera C is not exposed.

As another example, as shown in FIG. 4B, a camera C may be installed on the roof of the vehicle 10, and a housing H may be provided to protect the camera C and installed inside the housing H, And the housing H is fixed to the vehicle by providing an inner hollow support S which can be wired on the lower surface of the housing H to open the front surface.

Of course, it is also possible to transmit information captured by the camera C to the control unit of the vehicle 10 wirelessly, not wirelessly.

The control unit UT may further include an internal hollow square bar 22 at the bottom of the housing H so as to allow the user to adjust the viewing direction and the height of the camera C, The elevation motor 24 is installed on the inner bottom surface of the square bracket 22 and the ball screw 22b is coupled to the motor shaft of the elevation motor 24, The ball screw 22b is inserted into the slide slot 22a and inserted into the slide slot 22a. The ball screw 22b is screwed in a state that the ball screw 22b is vertically penetrated. A motor base 26a is fixed to the front end of the flow block 26. An angle adjusting motor 26b is fixed to the motor base 26a and a motor 26b of the angle adjusting motor 26b is fixed to the motor base 26a. The shaft passes through the motor base 26a and is rotatably mounted on one side of the body of the camera C It may be of a type that is not fixed.

Accordingly, when the angle adjusting motor 26b is rotated, the viewing direction of the camera C can be adjusted. When the elevating motor 24 is rotated, the height of the camera C can be adjusted.

As another example, the display device 70 may be replaced with a small LED plate 80 as in the example of Fig.

This is disadvantageous in that, in the case of a display device among the display devices 70, a head-up display requires a high installation cost. Therefore, there is a need for a structure capable of performing the same function although it is inexpensive within a range where the cost increase is not large in the viewpoint of the consumer.

For this, in the present invention, the display device 70 may be a small LED plate 80. In this case, the small LED plate 80 may be mounted on a bonnet or a dashboard or may be laid down, It is possible to display the information of the lane 30 by turning on the LEDs 82 arranged at regular intervals in the small LED plate 80 in accordance with the information of the lane 30 among the information received from the lane information 50.

In addition, when the small LED plate 80 is installed upright, it can be installed so as to be visible at a position that does not obstruct the view of the driver as much as possible. When the LED plate 80 is laid down on the dashboard, It is possible to implement such that the lane marking that lights up with the app laid down is displayed in the head-up display style.

In addition, it may be implemented as a display style installed inside the vehicle so as to show the screen form to the driver.

As described above, according to the present invention, by applying the transmittance characteristic according to the incident angle and the reflection angle, that is, the incident angle, the viewpoint is arranged at a position higher than the actual eye level of the driver and the lane information is imaged through the viewpoint, Thereby maximizing visibility and enabling safe driving.

10: vehicle 20: road surface
30: Lane 40:
50: imaging unit 60: lane recognition system
70: Display device 80: Small LED plate

Claims (9)

An image pickup unit which is installed in a vehicle at a position higher than the view of the driver and includes a housing formed to surround the outside of the camera; And
And a display device for visually outputting information so as to display information using the data acquired by the image pickup unit;
A lane recognition system mounted with a lane detection algorithm for extracting lane information from the information photographed by the imaging unit; And
And a control unit capable of adjusting a viewing direction and a height of the camera,
The display device
A small LED plate installed on the bonnet or dashboard of the vehicle so that the extracted lane information is displayed under the control of the lane recognition system so as to be visible through the windshield, or a plurality of LEDs arranged in the longitudinal and lateral directions at regular intervals Head-up display,
The adjustment unit
A square bracket fixed upright on the bottom of the housing and having an internal hollow shape;
A lift motor installed on the inner bottom surface of the square bar;
A ball screw coupled to the motor shaft of the lift motor;
A slide slot formed on the front and rear surfaces of the square bracket with a predetermined width;
A flow block inserted through the slide slot and screwed together so that the ball screw penetrates up and down;
A motor base fixed to the tip of the flow block;
And an angle adjusting motor fixed to the motor base,
The camera
And is fixed by the motor shaft of the angle adjusting motor passing through the motor base.
delete delete The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the image pickup unit is further provided with a polarizing filter.
delete delete delete delete delete

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