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US-20260125049-A1 - PARKING ASSIST APPARATUS, PARKING ASSIST METHOD, AND VEHICLE

US20260125049A1US 20260125049 A1US20260125049 A1US 20260125049A1US-20260125049-A1

Abstract

A parking assist apparatus includes: determination circuitry, which, in operation, acquires information on a distance to a peripheral object from a sensor configured to be mounted on a vehicle by a time of flight (TOF) method during traveling of the vehicle in automatic parking, and determines whether an obstacle is present in a space facing a side of the vehicle based on the information, the information being referred to as distance information; and detection circuitry, which, in operation, detects a parking frame for the automatic parking in the space based on a determination result of the determination circuitry.

Inventors

  • Takeo Tomida

Assignees

  • PANASONIC AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS CO., LTD.

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20251031
Priority Date
20241105

Claims (13)

  1. 1 . A parking assist apparatus comprising: determination circuitry, which, in operation, acquires information on a distance to a peripheral object from a sensor configured to be mounted on a vehicle by a time of flight (TOF) method during traveling of the vehicle in automatic parking, and determines whether an obstacle is present in a space facing a side of the vehicle based on the information, the information being referred to as distance information; and detection circuitry, which, in operation, detects a parking frame for the automatic parking in the space based on a determination result of the determination circuitry.
  2. 2 . The parking assist apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the determination circuitry determines that the obstacle is present in a case where the distance information acquired each time the vehicle travels a predetermined distance is within a predetermined range.
  3. 3 . The parking assist apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising: coordinate generation circuitry, which, in operation, generates coordinate information of the obstacle by using a predetermined distance that the vehicle has traveled and first distance information corresponding to the predetermined distance among all pieces of the distance information, wherein, the detection circuitry detects the parking frame in the space based on the coordinate information.
  4. 4 . The parking assist apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein, the coordinate generation circuitry generates first coordinate information by using the predetermined distance that the vehicle has traveled and the first distance information corresponding to the predetermined distance among the all pieces of distance information, and generates second coordinate information by using second distance information corresponding to a principle of triangulation among the all pieces of distance information, and the determination circuitry determines whether the obstacle is present by using the first coordinate information in a case where at least some of the second coordinate information is not generated.
  5. 5 . The parking assist apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein, the detection circuitry: detects a parking frame for perpendicular parking in a case where it is determined that the obstacle is not present within the predetermined range; and detects a parking frame for parallel parking in a case where it is determined that the obstacle is present within the predetermined range.
  6. 6 . The parking assist apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising selection circuitry, which, in operation, selects at least one of a parking frame for perpendicular parking and/or a parking frame for parallel parking in a case where both the parking frame for perpendicular parking and the parking frame for parallel parking are detected by the detection circuitry.
  7. 7 . A parking assist method comprising: acquiring information on a distance to a peripheral object from a sensor configured to be mounted on a vehicle by a time of flight (TOF) method during traveling of the vehicle in automatic parking, the information being referred to as distance information; making a determination of whether an obstacle is present in a space facing a side of the vehicle based on the distance information; and detecting a parking frame for the automatic parking in the space based on a result of the determination.
  8. 8 . The parking assist method according to claim 7 , further comprising: determining that the obstacle is present in a case where the distance information acquired each time the vehicle travels a predetermined distance is within a predetermined range.
  9. 9 . The parking assist method according to claim 8 , further comprising: generating coordinate information of the obstacle by using the predetermined distance that the vehicle has traveled and first distance information corresponding to the predetermined distance among all pieces of the distance information, wherein, the parking frame is detected in the space based on the coordinate information.
  10. 10 . The parking assist method according to claim 8 , further comprising: generating first coordinate information by using the predetermined distance that the vehicle has traveled and first distance information corresponding to the predetermined distance among all pieces of the distance information, and generating second coordinate information by using second distance information corresponding to a principle of triangulation among the all pieces of distance information, wherein, in the determining, whether the obstacle is present is determined by using the first coordinate information in a case where at least some of the second coordinate information is not generated.
  11. 11 . The parking assist method according to claim 8 , further comprising: detecting a parking frame for perpendicular parking in a case where it is determined that the obstacle is not present within the predetermined range; and detecting a parking frame for parallel parking in a case where it is determined that the obstacle is present within the predetermined range.
  12. 12 . The parking assist method according to claim 11 , further comprising: selecting at least one of the parking frame for perpendicular parking and/or the parking frame for parallel parking in a case where both the parking frame for perpendicular parking and the parking frame for parallel parking are detected.
  13. 13 . A vehicle comprising the parking assist apparatus according to claim 1 .

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates to a parking assist apparatus, a parking assist method, and a vehicle. BACKGROUND ART A parking assist apparatus that assists automatic parking of a vehicle in a parking space is known. For example, the related art discloses an apparatus that configures a guide path according to whether an obstacle is a curb or a wall when performing automatic parallel parking. In such related art, an ultrasonic wave is transmitted from a sensor such as a sonar, a reflected wave reflected by an obstacle is received, and a parking frame for automatic parking is detected by using coordinate information of the obstacle generated based on the principle of triangulation. CITATION LIST Patent Literature PTL 1 JP 6625228 SUMMARY OF INVENTION Technical Problem Solution to Problem A parking assist apparatus according to the present disclosure includes: determination circuitry, which, in operation, acquires information on a distance to a peripheral object from a sensor configured to be mounted on a vehicle by a time of flight (TOF) method during traveling of the vehicle in automatic parking, and determines whether an obstacle is present in a space facing a side of the vehicle based on the information, the information being referred to as distance information; and detection circuitry, which, in operation, detects a parking frame for the automatic parking in the space based on a determination result of the determination circuitry. A parking assist method according to the present disclosure includes: acquiring information on a distance to a peripheral object from a sensor configured to be mounted on a vehicle by a time of flight (TOF) method during traveling of the vehicle in automatic parking, the information being referred to as distance information; making a determination of whether an obstacle is present in a space facing a side of the vehicle based on the distance information; and detecting a parking frame for the automatic parking in the space based on a result of the determination. A vehicle according to the present disclosure includes: the parking assist apparatus described above. Advantageous Effects of Invention According to the present disclosure, a parking frame for automatic parking can be accurately detected. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a vehicle to which a parking assist apparatus according to the present embodiment is applied; FIG. 2A is a diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for perpendicular parking; FIG. 2B is another diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for perpendicular parking; FIG. 3A is a diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for parallel parking in the related art; FIG. 3B is another diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for parallel parking in the related art; FIG. 4A is a diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for parallel parking in the present embodiment; FIG. 4B is another diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for parallel parking in the present embodiment; FIG. 4C is still another diagram for describing detection of a parking frame for parallel parking in the present embodiment; FIG. 5 is a flowchart describing an operation example of parking frame detection control in the parking assist apparatus; FIG. 6 is a flowchart describing an operation example of coordinate generation processing in the parking assist apparatus; FIG. 7 is a flowchart describing an operation example of detection processing of a parking frame for perpendicular parking in the parking assist apparatus; FIG. 8 is a flowchart describing an operation example of detection processing of a parking frame for parallel parking in the parking assist apparatus; and FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a vehicle to which a parking assist apparatus according to a variation is applied. DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS Embodiment Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of vehicle 1 to which parking assist apparatus 100 according to the present embodiment is applied. As illustrated in FIG. 1, vehicle 1 has an automatic parking assist function for automatically parking in a parking space, and includes peripheral monitoring sensor 10, storage 20, and parking assist apparatus 100. Peripheral monitoring sensor 10 is, for example, an in-vehicle sensor such as a sonar or a radar, and is a sensor for monitoring a peripheral object of vehicle 1. A plurality of peripheral monitoring sensors 10 are provided, for example, on the side of vehicle 1, and can detect a peripheral object (obstacle) facing the side of vehicle 1. Specifically, peripheral monitoring sensor 10 is provided with a sensor for transmission and a sensor for reception. A detection wave transmitted from the sensor for transmission is reflected