US-12621560-B2 - Method for operating a vehicle interior monitoring system, control device, vehicle interior monitoring system and vehicle

Abstract

The disclosure relates to a method for operating a vehicle interior monitoring system including at least one camera unit. A control device sets an adjustable camera parameter of the camera unit by a camera-specific control command in the camera unit and receives and evaluates at least one image recorded by the camera unit, and a result of the evaluation is output as a camera-specific result datum. The control device generates a general control command that sets the adjustable camera parameter of the camera unit, the general control command is converted based on a camera configuration of the camera unit saved in the control device into the camera-specific control command, the camera-specific result datum is converted based on the camera configuration of the camera unit saved in the control device into a general result datum, and the general result datum of the camera unit is provided to a data fusion device.

Inventors

• Octavian Tirla

Assignees

• CARIAD SE

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20230524

Priority Date

20220525

Claims (10)

1. 1 . A method for operating a vehicle interior monitoring system including at least one camera unit, the method being performed by a control device and comprising: setting an adjustable camera parameter of the at least one camera unit by way of at least one camera-specific control command that causes the at least one camera unit to adapt an image recording to record at least one image according to a plurality of image settings of a selected evaluation algorithm that detects movement of a driver of the vehicle and/or detects a viewing direction of the driver of the vehicle; receiving the at least one image recorded by the at least one camera unit; evaluating the at least one image recorded by the at least one camera unit according to the selected evaluation algorithm that detects movement of the driver of the vehicle and/or detects the viewing direction of the driver of the vehicle; outputting a result of the evaluating as a camera-specific result datum; generating at least one general control command that sets the adjustable camera parameter of the at least one camera unit according to the image settings of the selected evaluation algorithm by a predetermined adaptation algorithm; converting the general control command based on at least one camera configuration of the at least one camera unit saved in the control device by a predetermined converting method into the camera-specific control command; converting the camera-specific result datum based on the camera configuration of the at least one camera unit saved in the control device by a predetermined generalization method into a general result datum, wherein the general result datum includes coordinates referenced to a reference point in the vehicle interior, and wherein the coordinates referenced to the reference point in the vehicle interior are transformed from coordinates referenced to the at least one camera unit included in the camera-specific result datum; and providing the general result datum to a data fusion device.
2. 2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the vehicle interior monitoring system includes at least two camera units.
3. 3 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising: selecting the selected evaluation algorithm based on the at least one camera configuration.
4. 4 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the vehicle interior monitoring system includes at least two camera units, and wherein respective general result data of the at least two camera units are combined by the data fusion device according to a predetermined data fusion method to form one fusion datum.
5. 5 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising: retrieving at least one camera parameter of the at least one camera unit from the at least one camera unit; and storing the at least one camera parameter in the at least one camera configuration.
6. 6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one camera configuration includes a position of a particular one of the at least one camera unit in the vehicle interior monitoring system.
7. 7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the vehicle interior monitoring system includes at least two camera units, and wherein the method further comprises: assigning respective weighting values to respective general result data of the at least two camera units based on respective camera configurations; and providing the respective weighting values together with the respective general result data to the data fusion device, wherein the respective general result data are combined based on the respective weighting values by the data fusion device according to a predetermined data fusion method to form one fusion datum.
8. 8 . A control device for a vehicle interior monitoring system, the control device comprising: at least one processor; and a memory storing program code which, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the control device to: set an adjustable camera parameter of at least one camera unit of the vehicle interior monitoring system by way of at least one camera-specific control command that causes the at least one camera unit to adapt an image recording to record at least one image according to a plurality of image settings of a selected evaluation algorithm that detects movement of a driver of the vehicle and/or detects a viewing direction of the driver of the vehicle, receive the at least one image recorded by the at least one camera unit, evaluate the at least one image recorded by the at least one camera unit according to the selected evaluation algorithm that detects movement of the driver of the vehicle and/or detects the viewing direction of the driver of the vehicle, output an evaluation result as a camera-specific result datum, generate at least one general control command that sets the adjustable camera parameter of the at least one camera unit according to the image settings of the selected evaluation algorithm by a predetermined adaptation algorithm, convert the general control command based on at least one camera configuration of the at least one camera unit stored in the control device into the camera-specific control command by a predetermined converting method, convert the camera-specific result datum based on the at least one camera configuration of the at least one camera unit stored in the control device to a general result datum by a predetermined generalization method, wherein the general result datum includes coordinates referenced to a reference point in the vehicle interior, and wherein the coordinates referenced to the reference point in the vehicle interior are transformed from coordinates referenced to the at least one camera unit included in the camera-specific result datum, and provide the general result datum to a data fusion device.
9. 9 . The control device according to claim 8 , further comprising the vehicle interior monitoring system.
10. 10 . The control device according to claim 9 , further comprising a vehicle.

Description

BACKGROUND Technical Field The disclosure relates to a method for operating a vehicle interior monitoring system, a control device, a vehicle interior monitoring system, and a vehicle. Description of the Related Art Vehicles have vehicle interior monitoring systems which are adapted to monitor a vehicle interior and persons present in a vehicle interior. Thanks to the monitoring, it is possible to ascertain the presence and/or position of a passenger. With vehicle interior monitoring systems it is possible, for example, to detect the viewing direction of a driver or gestures of a passenger. Vehicle interior monitoring systems of the prior art usually comprise two camera units, which monitor respective detection regions of the vehicle interior. The camera units take single or multiple consecutive images of the respective detection region and provide these to a control device for evaluation, which carries out the desired evaluations of the images. The evaluation of the recorded images and the actuation of the respective camera units by the vehicle interior monitoring systems needs to be adapted to the respective camera units. It is necessary to program the control device of the vehicle interior monitoring system so that it can actuate the respective camera units in order to optimize camera parameters and thus ensure a recording of images which fulfill the image settings of a particular evaluation algorithm. Since the camera units and/or their camera drivers may differ from each other, the corresponding algorithms must be adapted to the particular camera units and/or their camera drivers. This means that the corresponding development expense increases with the many kinds of camera units used, since there is no unified and universal actuation of the camera units. The evaluation algorithms which are used to evaluate the images provided by the camera units must likewise be adapted to the camera parameters of the camera unit, such as the resolution or the place of installation of the camera unit in the vehicle interior. When combining measurement data based on images of respective camera units, the individual properties of the camera units must be taken into consideration. Given the anticipated increase in camera units in vehicle interior monitoring systems and an increase in variants of camera units and arrangements of the camera units in the vehicle interiors, the problem arises that extensive adaptations are required in the software in order to ensure an operation of a vehicle interior monitoring system. WO 2020/161610 A2 describes a monitoring of a vehicle compartment with a single 2D-camera and an adapted use of monitoring algorithms. It is proposed to select a monitoring algorithm from a list of monitoring algorithms based on the condition of a passenger as determined on the basis of a first set of images of an image sequence of the vehicle compartment. The monitoring algorithm is applied to a second set of images of the image sequence, the second set of images containing images which follow upon the first set of images, in order to make possible a monitoring of the vehicle. US 2020/0143560 A1 describes a driver monitoring system having a lighting source, emitting invisible light which illuminates at least one portion of the driver of the vehicle, a reflector arranged on the vehicle and within the line of sight of the illuminated portion of the driver, and a camera which is arranged in the vehicle and has a visual field encompassing the reflector, and a controller with an image processor, which processes the image data recorded by the camera. BRIEF SUMMARY Embodiments of the disclosure provide a solution making possible a reduced expense for the adapting of a vehicle interior monitoring to different systems. A first aspect of the disclosure relates to a method for operating a vehicle interior monitoring system. The vehicle interior monitoring system comprises at least one camera unit, which is provided for the monitoring of one particular monitoring region in the vehicle interior. The method is carried out by a control device of the vehicle interior monitoring. In a first step of the method, the control device sets an adjustable camera parameter of the camera unit by way of at least one camera-specific control command in the camera unit, in order to adapt the image recording to record at least one image by the camera unit according to image settings of a selected evaluation algorithm. The recording of the at least one image can also involve a recording of a sequence of images. In other words, the at least one camera unit is actuated by the control device. Thanks to the actuation of the camera unit, the at least one adjustable camera parameter of the camera unit is adapted. The at least one adjustable camera parameter can be, for example, an adjustable exposure time when recording the image, an image region to be recorded when taking the picture, or the color setting. The setting of the at least one adjustabl