Patent ID: 7362351

Claim:
A method for detecting an object in a zone situated proximate to an interface between two liquid media and/or gaseous media having different refractive indices, the method comprising: creating at least one video image of the interface and of the zone from at least one observation point, each observation point being situated on one side of the interface; producing electrical signals representative of each video image; digitizing the electrical signals to produce data corresponding to each video image; processing the data, for the purpose of discriminating the data corresponding to the video image of a real object from those that correspond to an apparent video image generated by the interface; generating calottes from each video image; associating characteristics with each calotte; deducing a presence of an object when the characteristics exceed a predetermined threshold; iterating, at specified time intervals, the operation of deducing the presence of an object; calculating a number of times that the object is detected during a first specified time period; discriminating, at a point of the zone, between an object that is present a number of times larger than a first specified threshold as a stationary object, and an object that is present a number of times smaller than the first specified threshold as a moving object; performing a stereoscopic analysis of the object that is stationary relative to the interface; determining whether a stationary object is situated on an other side of the interface, on a same side of the interface, or at the interface, relative to one of the observation points, each video image being recorded from the observation point at specified time intervals.