Patent ID: 7916169

Claim:
A face image capture apparatus for a vehicle, the apparatus comprising: a camera configured to repeatedly capture a face image which is an image of a face of an occupant in the vehicle; a floodlight configured to irradiate the face of the occupant; a floodlight control device configured to control the floodlight with respect to at least one of (i) switching between turning on a light and turning off a light and (ii) a quantity of light at turning a light, so as to perform an adjustment of an irradiation state of a light radiated to the face of the occupant; an image capture control device configured to control a capturing time for capturing the face image in synchronization with the adjustment of the irradiation state; a difference image generation device configured to generate a difference image indicating a difference in a luminance between a bright face image and an environment light face image, the bright face image being captured by the camera in an irradiation state where a light of the floodlight is mainly radiated, the environment light face image being captured by the camera in an irradiation state where an environment light is mainly radiated; an image output device configured to repeatedly output the difference image generated by the difference image generation device, the image output device including an output condition determination unit configured to determine whether a condition is satisfied for outputting at least one face image of (i) the bright face image and (ii) the environment light face image, wherein when it is determined that the condition is satisfied, the image output device is configured to output the at least one face image in addition to the difference image; and a sleepiness determination device configured to determine presence or absence of a sleepiness of the occupant based on (a) the difference image, which is outputted by the image output device, and (b) at least one face image of (i) the bright face image and (ii) the environment light face image, which are outputted by the image output device.