Patent ID: 7542835
Filing Date: 2009-06-02
Classification: G01C,G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. A vehicle image processing device comprising: an image capturing section configured to capture an image of an area in front of a host vehicle in which the vehicle image processing device is installed; a host vehicle behavior detecting section configured to obtain behavior information of the host vehicle; a preceding vehicle position predicting section configured to estimate information relating to a distance between the host vehicle and a preceding vehicle and information relating to a future path of the host vehicle based on the behavior information of the host vehicle, and configured to predict a potential preceding vehicle position of the preceding vehicle based on the information relating to the distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle and the information relating to the future path of the host vehicle; a processing region setting section configured to reduce image processing load by setting an image processing region within the image, which is less than an entire area of the image, based on the potential preceding vehicle position; and a preceding vehicle detecting section configured to detect if an actual preceding vehicle is present within the image processing region of the image based on processing of the image processing region of the image, that has been set by the processing region setting section.