Patent ID: 8670036

Claim:
An image-based vehicle maneuvering assistant system, comprising: (i) an image sensing device, disposed on a carrier, adapted for obtaining a first image relating to a surrounding environment of the carrier at a first time point, and a second image relating to the surrounding environment of the carrier at a second time point; (ii) a controller, connected to the image sensing device, adapted for: selecting a datum area from the first image; performing a search in the second image for locating a comparison area in the second image that corresponds to the datum area in the first image so as to acquire a motion vector measure between the comparison area and the datum area; and determining a moving trajectory of the carrier according to the motion vector, wherein the search in the second image for locating the comparison area that corresponds to the datum area comprises: calculating a first characteristic value relating to the datum area; and comparing each area in the second image with the datum area with respect to the first characteristic value to search and select an area whose sum of absolute differences (SAD) is the smallest to be used as the comparison area, wherein the search and selection of the area whose SAD is the smallest to be used as the comparison area comprises: (a) designating an area in the second image to be a detection area; (b) calculating the SAD between a second characteristic value of the detection area with the first characteristic value; (c) designating another area in the second image to be a detection area; (d) repeating step (b) to step (c) so as to obtain a plurality of SADs accordingly; and (e) selecting the minimum from the plural SADs; and wherein the calculating of the SAD is proceeded by the following formula: SAD i ( p,q )=Σ X,YεA i |I ( t− 1, X,Y )− I ( t,X+p,Y+q )|, while the minimum of the plural SADs is selected according to the following formula: min p,q SAD i ( p,q ); and (iii) a display unit, connected to the controller for displaying the images from the image sensing device and the moving trajectory of the carrier from the controller.