Patent Document ID: 7567687
Application ID: 11058305
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An outside-vehicle monitoring system comprising: a three dimensional visual light image-pickup device that generates a signal representative of an image of an object outside a vehicle by using solid state image pickup elements; a three-dimensional-object recognition processor that recognizes a three-dimensional object outside the vehicle by processing the signal representative of the image generated by the three dimensional visual light image-pick up device and detects a prospective pedestrian by extracting three-dimensional object data from the recognized three-dimensional object and comparing the extracted three-dimensional object data with a predetermined width-range; a plurality of thermal infrared elements that detect a temperature value of the recognized three dimensional object detected by the three dimensional visual light image-pickup device in a detection field overlapping a field of view of the three dimensional visual light image-pickup device, the plurality thermal infrared elements being arranged in a line along a width-direction of the vehicle; and a pedestrian-determination processor coupled to said three-dimensional-object recognition processor and said plurality of thermal infrared elements that determines whether the prospective pedestrian is an actual pedestrian according to fluctuations in the value of the detected temperature in a detection-direction at which the prospective pedestrian was detected, wherein the pedestrian-determination processor determines the prospective pedestrian is the actual pedestrian when the temperature-detection value detected by the plurality of thermal infrared elements in the detection direction is higher than a predetermined amount of the previous temperature-detection value detected by the plurality of thermal infrared elements in the detection-direction.