Patent ID: 6985075

Claim:
An obstacle detection apparatus, comprising; a first camera inputting a first image including a predetermined plane and a second camera inputting a second image including the predetermined plane; an image memory configured to sequentially store the first image and the second image; an image conversion unit configured to project a coordinate of each pixel of the predetermined plane from the first image onto a corresponding coordinate of a corresponding pixel of the second image, the projected first image being a third image; a feature conversion unit configured to emphasize a plurality of edges included in the first image, the second image and the third image, wherein the edge-emphasized first image, the edge-emphasized second image and the edge-emphasized third image respectively constitute a first feature conversion image, a second feature conversion image and a third feature conversion image; a similarity calculation unit configured to set a plurality of areas of which bases are different pixel lines along a horizontal direction on the predetermined plane of the second feature conversion image; to determine a corresponding area of the first feature conversion image by inversely projecting each of the areas of the second feature conversion image onto the first feature conversion image, the inverse-projection representing an inverse-conversion of the projection by said image conversion unit; to calculate a first similarity between each of the areas of the second feature conversion image and the corresponding area of the first feature conversion image; and to calculate a second similarity between each of the areas of the second feature conversion image and a corresponding one of the areas of the third feature conversion image; and an obstacle decision unit configured to detect an obstacle based on the first similarity and the second similarity.