US-12627894-B2 - Head-wearable visual recognition apparatus

Abstract

The present invention proposes a head-wearable visual recognition apparatus capable of widening a wearer's field of view. The head-wearable visual recognition apparatus includes: a pair of line-of-sight passing units attached to a head belt worn on the wearer's head; and a camera disposed adjacent to the one line-of-sight passing unit. The one line-of-sight passing unit includes a prism in a horizontally-long cuboid shape, through which the wearer's line of sight passes forward, and which refracts an optical axis of the camera to the front. The other line-of-sight passing unit includes a prism in a horizontally-long cuboid shape, through which the wearer's line of sight passes forward. According to such a configuration, it is possible to widen a field of view in a horizontal direction of each of the line-of-sight passing units through the prism and to improve workability of the wearer.

Inventors

• Takehito KONDO

Assignees

• KONDO LABO, INC.

Dates

Publication Date

20260512

Application Date

20241007

Priority Date

20240301

Claims (1)

1. 1 . A head-wearable visual recognition apparatus comprising: a head-wearing section configured to be worn on a wearer's head; a line-of-sight passing member that is attached to the head-wearing section and through which a line of sight of at least one of the wearer's left and right eyes passes forward; and imaging means disposed adjacent to the line-of-sight passing member and configured to capture an image of an object through the line-of-sight passing member, wherein the line-of-sight passing member includes a prism having a horizontally-long cuboid shape through which the line of sight of at least one of the wearer's left and right eyes passes forward and which refracts an optical axis of the imaging means forward, wherein a horizontal direction of the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism of the line-of-sight passing member coincides with a left-right direction of the wearer's field of view, and allows the wearer to move the wearer's own line of sight in the left-right direction within a range of a width of the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism, wherein a height of the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism is shorter than a height of a cubic prism having a same width as the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism, wherein the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism of the line-of-sight passing member includes two right-angled prisms that are integrated by superimposing oblique surfaces of the two right-angled prisms, each of the oblique surfaces being inclined downward or upward toward a front of the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism, wherein the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism is provided with transmission and reflection means, which divides light incident from the front into transmitted light passing through the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism toward a rear of the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism and reflected light directed upward or downward, and wherein the imaging means is disposed above or under the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism, and an optical axis of the imaging means is refracted forward by the oblique surface of the horizontally-long cuboid shaped prism.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a head-wearable visual recognition apparatus capable of capturing an image of an object seen by a wearer. BACKGROUND ART As disclosed in Patent Literature 1, the present inventors have proposed a head-wearable camera that uses a cubic prism arranged in front of a wearer's eyes to transmit the wearer's line of sight forward and refract an optical axis of a camera arranged on a side of the prism to match the line of sight. According to such a conventional configuration, an image of an object seen by the wearer can be captured with the wearer's line of sight. Thus, by displaying the image captured by the camera on an image display device such as a monitor, the object can be seen from the same line of sight as the wearer. CITATION LIST Patent Literature Patent Literature 1: Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3,231,356 SUMMARY OF INVENTION Technical Problem By the way, in the above-described conventional configuration, the wearer sees the object through the cubic prism. Thus, the wearer's field of view through the prism is determined by a size of the prism. This requires the wearer to move his/her head in order to view the outside of the field of view through the prism. Due to such a reason, in the configuration of seeing through the cubic prism, it is necessary to increase vertical and horizontal sizes of the prism to expand the field of view through the prism. However, since the increase in the size of the prism results in increased weight of the prism, which increases a burden on the wearer. The present invention proposes a head-wearable visual recognition apparatus capable of widening a wearer's field of view while suppressing a burden on the wearer due to increased weight. Solution to Problem The present invention is a head-wearable visual recognition apparatus including: a head-wearing section worn on a wearer's head; a line-of-sight passing member that is attached to the head-wearing section and through which at least one of left and right lines of sight of the wearer passes forward; and imaging means disposed adjacent to the line-of-sight passing member and capable of capturing an image of an object through the line-of-sight passing member. The line-of-sight passing member includes a prism in a horizontally-long cuboid shape through which the wearer's line of sight passes forward and which refracts an optical axis of the imaging means forward. In such a configuration, since the horizontally-long prism is provided, it is possible to widen the wearer's field of view in the horizontal direction through the prism. Since human vision is generally wider in the horizontal direction than in an up-down direction, the horizontally-long prism widens the wearer's field of view. Thus, it is possible to improve use comfort and dramatically improve workability of the wearer. In addition, compared to the above-described conventional cubic prism that is increased in size, the horizontally-long prism in this configuration is at least smaller in a vertical size and thus is lighter. Accordingly, it is possible to suppress a burden on the wearer by weight of the prism, and such a head-wearable visual recognition apparatus is suitable for use over a relatively long time. Furthermore, since the horizontally-long prism widens a range within which the wearer can move his/her eyes (line of sight) in the horizontal direction, this contributes to improvement in the workability and improvement in use comfort. Here, a human eye generally has a wider range of movement and is easier to move in the horizontal direction than in the vertical direction (up-down direction), there is a superior advantage that the wearer can easily feel an improved effect of the workability and use comfort. In the above-described head-wearable visual recognition apparatus of the present invention, such a configuration is proposed that t the prism of the line-of-sight passing member has a horizontally-long cuboid shape in which two right-angled prisms are integrated by superimposing oblique surfaces thereof, each of which is inclined downward or upward to the front, and is provided with transmission and reflection means, which divides light incident from the front into transmitted light passing therethrough to the rear and reflected light reflected upward or downward, and that the imaging means is disposed above or under the prism, and the optical axis is refracted forward by the oblique surface of the prism. Here, in the case where the prism is formed of the right-angled prism having the oblique surface inclined downward to the front, the transmission and reflection means on the oblique surface divides the light incident from the front into the transmitted light and the reflected light reflected upward. For this reason, the imaging means is disposed above the prism. Meanwhile, in the case where the prism is formed of the right-angled prism having the oblique surface inclined upward to the front, the transm