Patent ID: 7711147
Filing Date: 2010-05-04
Classification: G06K,G06T,G08G

Abstract:
1. A time-to-contact estimation device for estimating a time to contact of a moving body to an object in surroundings of the moving body, comprising: an image sensor provided on the moving body, and continuously capturing time-varying images of the surroundings of the moving body; a brightness change calculation unit calculating brightness changes in pixels between the time-varying images captured one after another; and a time-to-contact calculation unit calculating optimized brightness gradients based on the brightness changes calculated by the brightness change calculation unit, and calculating the time to contact of the moving body to the object based on the optimized brightness gradients; wherein the time-to-contact calculation unit calculates the time to contact of the moving body to the object in different ways by classifying cases depending on whether at least either one of degree of freedom of the object and degree of freedom of the moving body is constrained or none of them is constrained; and wherein, when no degrees of freedom of the object and the moving body are constrained, the time-to-contact calculation unit calculates the time to contact of the moving body to the object by executing an iteration process including plural calculations in which either one of an orientation of the object and a translation path of the moving body is assumed to be fixed in each of the calculations.