Patent Document ID: 9158738
Application ID: 13808120
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An apparatus mounted on a vehicle for monitoring vicinity of the vehicle, comprising: imaging means for capturing a time series of images of the vicinity of the vehicle; extracting means for extracting an object candidate from the captured time series of images; means for calculating distance (Z 0 or Z 1 ) from the vehicle to the object candidate at one point of time from the image captured at the one point of time under the assumption that the extracted object candidate has a size which is predetermined for an object of a desired category, and calculating distance (Z 0 or Z 1 ) from the vehicle to the object candidate at an other point of time on the basis of a velocity of the vehicle and the distance (Z 0 or Z 1 ) at the one point of time; means for producing a virtual object which has a size (Ghv) determined by multiplying the size (Ghd 0 or Ghd 1 ) of the object candidate in the image captured at the one point of time by a ratio of the distance at the one point of time and the other point of time; comparing means for generating a comparison of the size (Ghv) of the virtual object with the size (Ghd 1 or Ghd 0 ) of the object candidate in the image captured at the other point of time; and means for determining that the extracted object candidate is an object of the desired category if the comparison substantially matches.