Patent ID: 7134688

Claim:
A safety apparatus for automobile crash, comprising: at least one imaging means for repeatedly picking up a passenger's head image including a passenger on a seat; extracting means for extracting passenger's information on the basis of the passenger's head image; safety means for protecting said passenger from said automobile crash; and controlling means for controlling said safety means on the basis of said passenger's information, wherein said extracting means: stores reference images similar to head outlines, a part of which is a part of an ellipse; detects a head ellipse from the passenger's head image outputted from said imaging means at a first time; stores the detected head ellipse of the first time in a form of parameters defining the head ellipse; judges whether the head ellipse of the first time stored in the form of the parameters is almost the same as one of said reference images; decides the passenger's information responsive to one of the reference images when the head ellipse of the first time is almost the same as the one of the reference images; outputs said decided passenger's information of the first time to the safety means; stores the detected head ellipse as a reference image: detects a head ellipse from the passenger's head image outputted from said imaging means at a second time coming after the first time only in a region including the head ellipse detected at the first time; stores the detected head ellipse of the second time in a form of parameters defining the head ellipse; judges whether the head ellipse of the second time stored in the form of the parameters is almost the same as one of said reference images; when the head ellipse of the second time differs from any of the reference images, detects a head ellipse from the passenger's head image at a third time coming after the second time in a whole of a two-dimensional image area; stores the detected head ellipse of the third time in the form of the parameters; judges whether the head ellipse of the third time is almost the same as one of said reference images; decides the passenger's information responsive to one of the reference images when the head ellipse of the third time is almost the same as the one of the reference images; and outputs the decided passenger's information of the third time to the safety means.