Patent ID: 7397496
Filing Date: 2008-07-08
Classification: B60R,H04N

Abstract:
1. A system for recording optically viewablie conditions or activities around the entire perimeter of an automotive vehicle, comprising, in combination: (a) a vehicle body having front and rear corners; (b) four sets of digital camera apparatus, each being fixedly mounted with respect to a corresponding corner of the vehicle body; (c) each set of camera apparatus including a pair of viewing lenses that are fixedly mounted with their major viewing axes in a horizontal plane in generally perpendicular relation to each other, and being capable of viewing objects that are visible from the corresponding vehicle corner within at least about a quarter of a circle such that the collective viewing areas of all of the sets of camera apparatus will provide redundant views of conditions and activity around the entire perimeter of the vehicle; (d) a central digital recording medium, including a hard disc drive having a plurality of separate tracks, to provide a complete record of the views about the perimeter of the vehicle; (e) a digital camera for receiving optical data from said four sets of corner camera apparati; (f) cable means for feeding the optical data from all of the eight viewing lenses of said four sets of digital camera apparati to said digital camera on a continuous and concurrent basis; (g) a time multiplexer cooperatively associated with the cable means and the digital camera for sequentially dividing the outputs from the camera apparati for recordation into separate tracks of the hard disc drive; and (h) wherein the digital recording medium in conjunction with the time multiplexer is operable to record the outputs of the eight viewing lenses in separate node files on separate tracks of the hard disc.