Patent ID: 8842884

Claim:
A lane detection method, wherein a digitized image of a lane in which a vehicle is traveling is evaluated, comprising the following steps: detecting edges in the image by performing horizontal edge filtering and vertical edge filtering which produce horizontal edge components and vertical edge components, determining angles of the detected edges with respect to a vertical reference edge, by computing a quotient of the horizontal edge components and the vertical edge components, determining an orientation of the detected edges in the image; removing nearly vertical edges from the plurality of detected edges when the vehicle is located in the lane, the nearly vertical edges having angles which lie within a predetermined angle section with respect to the vertical reference edge, wherein the angles of the nearly vertical edges differ from the vertical reference edge by a predetermined threshold such that the orientations of the nearly vertical edges do not exactly coincide with an orientation of the vertical reference edge; maintaining the nearly vertical edges from the plurality of detected edges when the vehicle is located outside of the lane; and detecting the lane based on the nearly vertical edges that have been maintained and the remaining edges of the plurality of detected edges, the remaining edges having angles which lie outside the predetermined angle section with respect to the vertical reference edge.