Patent ID: 8005266

Claim:
A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which monitors the surroundings of a vehicle by using an image captured by a camera mounted on the vehicle, comprising: a first image portion extraction process unit which extracts a first image portion likely to be an image of a head of a human in a real space from the captured image; a reference mask area setting process unit which sets a predetermined area including the first image portion as a reference mask area in the captured image; a comparative mask area setting process unit which sets a left-hand mask area near the left side of the reference mask area and a right-hand mask area near the right side of the reference mask area in the captured image; a lower search area setting process unit which sets a lower search area under the reference mask area, the left-hand mask area, and the right-hand mask area in the captured image; a second image portion search process unit which searches for a second image portion having a preset feature value corresponding to a leg of a human within the lower search area; and an object type determination process unit determines that a type of object in the real space corresponding to the first image portion is “pedestrian” in the case where a luminance difference between the reference mask area and the left-hand mask area is equal to or greater than a first predetermined level and a luminance difference between the reference mask area and the right-hand mask area is equal to or greater than a second predetermined level, wherein the object type determination process unit causes the second image portion search process unit to search for the second image portion within the lower search area in the case where the luminance difference between the reference mask area and the left-hand mask area is smaller than the first predetermined level or in the case where the luminance difference between the reference mask area and the right-hand mask area is smaller than the second predetermined level and, in the case where a plurality of the second image portions are detected, it determines that the type of object in the real space corresponding to the first image portion is “pedestrian.”