Patent ID: 8232895
Filing Date: 2012-07-31
Classification: B60Q,G06K

Abstract:
1. A vehicle detection apparatus that detects vehicles during hours of darkness, the apparatus comprising: an image acquisition unit that repeatedly acquires an image of a road; a light source detection unit that detects one or more light sources which are an order of magnitude more than a predetermined brightness from each acquired image; a variation detecting unit that repeatedly detects a brightness of each light and an area occupied by, each of the one or more detected light sources within the total area of each acquired image, and determines that a given detected light source is a variable brightness light source if the brightness of that light source is changed within a reference time beyond a predetermined brightness variation reference value and determines that a given detected light source is a variable area light source if the area occupied by that light source is changed within a reference time beyond a predetermined area variation reference value; and a determining unit that counts the number of times a given detected light source is determined to be a variable brightness light source and the number of times the given detected light source is determined to be a variable area light source, and determines whether a vehicle exists in the acquired image based on the number of times that the given detected light source is determined to be the variable brightness light source and the number of times that the given detected light source is determined to be the variable area light source; wherein, the determining unit determines that the vehicle exists only when the number of times for the given detected light source that the variable brightness is detected is more than a first threshold of the number of times and the number of times for the given detected light source that the variable area is detected is more than a second threshold of the number of times.