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KR-102962206-B1 - Intelligent front lighting system using event based sensor of vehicle

KR102962206B1KR 102962206 B1KR102962206 B1KR 102962206B1KR-102962206-B1

Abstract

The present invention relates to an intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, and more specifically, to an intelligent front lighting system for increasing driving stability by controlling headlights based on the results of recognizing the surrounding environment.

Inventors

  • 하마다 카즈유키

Assignees

  • 현대자동차주식회사
  • 기아 주식회사

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20210322

Claims (9)

  1. An event-based sensor mounted on a vehicle that operates using a change in luminance occurring in front of the vehicle as a trigger, and detects 2D coordinate information and time information of a pixel whose amount of change in luminance in front of the vehicle exceeds a predetermined threshold, and outputs it as event data; A headlight mounted on the front of a vehicle and selectively operated to illuminate the front of the vehicle; It includes a control unit that detects the appearance and state of a detection target existing in front of the vehicle based on event data received from the above-mentioned event-based sensor, and controls the headlight according to the state of the detection target. An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the above-described control unit determines and controls the light reduction amount of the headlight for the upper part of the detection target to a predetermined first light reduction amount when the detection target in front of the vehicle is a moving object and a self-luminous object, and determines and controls the light reduction amount of the headlight for the lower part of the detection target to a predetermined third light reduction amount that is smaller than the first light reduction amount.
  2. In claim 1, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the above-described control unit estimates an optical flow for each event data and clusters the event data based on the direction and magnitude of the optical flow to detect the external shape of a detection target.
  3. In claim 1, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the above-described control unit detects event data of a stationary object among detection targets based on the vehicle's moving speed and direction of movement, and detects a moving object based on the remaining event data after excluding the event data of the stationary object from the event data acquired through the event-based sensor.
  4. In claim 1, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the above-described control unit determines whether a detection target in front of the vehicle is a self-luminous object based on a first acquisition count in which the headlight is turned on and event data is acquired from an event-based sensor, and a second acquisition count in which the headlight is turned off and event data is acquired from an event-based sensor.
  5. In claim 4, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the control unit determines that an object in front of the vehicle is a self-luminous object if the reduction rate of the second acquisition count relative to the first acquisition count is less than a predetermined first reduction rate, and determines that an object in front of the vehicle is a non-luminous object if the reduction rate of the second acquisition count relative to the first acquisition count is greater than or equal to the first reduction rate.
  6. delete
  7. In claim 1, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the control unit determines and controls the light reduction amount of the headlight for the upper part of the detection target to a second light reduction amount, which is smaller than the first light reduction amount, and determines and controls the light reduction amount of the headlight for the lower part of the detection target to a third light reduction amount, which is smaller than the second light reduction amount, when the detection target in front of the vehicle is a moving object and a non-luminous object.
  8. In claim 7, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the above-described control unit determines and controls the amount of light reduction of the headlight for the upper part of the detection target to the second amount of light reduction when the detection target in front of the vehicle is a stationary object and a self-luminous object, and does not reduce the basic amount of light irradiation of the headlight for the lower part of the detection target.
  9. In claim 1, An intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, characterized in that the above-described control unit does not reduce the basic illumination amount of the headlight for the front of the detected object when the detected object in front of the vehicle is a stationary object and a non-luminous object.

Description

Intelligent front lighting system using event-based sensor of vehicle The present invention relates to an intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, and more specifically, to an intelligent front lighting system for increasing driving stability by controlling headlights based on the results of recognizing the surrounding environment. Generally, vehicles are equipped with headlights mounted on the front of the vehicle to illuminate the front, and a tailgate mounted on the rear of the vehicle to illuminate the rear. Recently, a system for controlling vehicle headlights based on images captured by a camera to improve driving stability has been disclosed, and specifically, there is Japanese Patent Publication No. 2010-132053. In the case of Japanese Patent Publication No. 2010-132053, a reference optical flow is generated based on a road shape detected based on an image captured by a camera, a bright spot optical flow is measured for a target bright spot in the image, and by comparing the reference optical flow and the bright spot optical flow to estimate the attributes of the bright spot optical flow, appropriate light distribution control of the headlight is performed without being distracted by oncoming vehicles or preceding vehicles. However, when detecting a vehicle ahead (an oncoming vehicle or a preceding vehicle) through processing based on an image captured by a camera as in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2010-132053, a time lag occurs during actual headlight control as processing for headlight control is performed based on the captured image by the camera, and when the headlight light of the vehicle ahead is directly incident on the camera, the camera sensor becomes saturated, causing overexposure and ghosting, which results in the inability to recognize the vehicle ahead or the problem of mistaking the ghost for the vehicle ahead. As described above, if the vehicle ahead cannot be recognized or a ghost is mistaken for the vehicle ahead, there is a risk that the area requiring headlight illumination may be dimmed or turned off, and consequently, the speed at which the driver recognizes the danger is delayed, thereby increasing the risk of collision. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of an intelligent front lighting system according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram showing the mounting location of an event-based sensor according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the output data of an event-based sensor according to the present invention compared with the output data of a general camera. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the operating principle of an event-based sensor that outputs data based on the amount of change in brightness of a detection target according to the present invention. Figure 5 is a drawing showing a comparison between a frame image captured by a standard camera and a frame image generated by integrating event data. FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a headlight control method using a front lighting system according to the present invention. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating, as an example, the optical flow of a stationary object in front of a vehicle having a correlation with the vehicle's moving speed and direction of movement in the present invention. FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a headlight control method according to the detection target state of the present invention. FIG. 9 is a drawing for explaining a method for detecting the external shape of a moving object according to the present invention. Figure 10 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a general optical flow estimation method. Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The details depicted in the accompanying drawings are schematic drawings intended to facilitate the explanation of the embodiments of the present invention and may differ from the actual implemented forms. Throughout the specification, when a part is described as "including" a certain component, this means that, unless specifically stated otherwise, it does not exclude other components but may include additional components. The present invention relates to an intelligent front lighting system using an event-based sensor of a vehicle, which recognizes and determines the environment in front of the vehicle through an event-based sensor mounted on the vehicle and controls the headlights according to the determination result, thereby enhancing driving stability. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the front lighting system according to the present invention comprises an event-based sensor (10) mounted on a vehicle, a headlight (20), and a control unit (30). The event-based sensor (10) is a sensor that operates by triggering a change in brightness, detects real-time brightness in a predetermined area in front of a vehicle equipped with the event-based sensor (10), and outputs two-dimensional coordinate information and