Crosswalk Edge Detection for Visually Impediment Safety
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing walking support systems for visually impaired pedestrians struggle to accurately provide stop notifications when obstacles, such as parked vehicles, cover the crosswalk lines, leading to potential safety issues and incorrect stopping positions.
Innovation Solution
A walking support system equipped with an image acquisition unit, crosswalk detection unit, notification unit, and edge position setting unit, which sets the edge position of an obstacle as the crosswalk position when the actual crosswalk edge is obscured, ensuring appropriate stop notifications by calculating the crosswalk and obstacle gap distances.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the system performs stop notification based on detecting the frontmost white line of the crosswalk, then the pedestrian can stop at the correct position before the crosswalk, but the notification becomes inaccurate when an obstacle covers the white line
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary obstacle detection mechanism that acts as a mediator between the image acquisition unit and the notification unit. When the crosswalk white line is obscured by an obstacle, the system detects the obstacle's edge position as an alternative reference point, allowing the stop notification to remain reliable even when direct crosswalk detection fails
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary obstacle detection and classification before finalizing the stop notification decision. By analyzing whether an obstacle is present on the crosswalk in advance and determining its edge position, the system prepares alternative reference data that can be used if the primary crosswalk detection fails, ensuring continuous reliable operation
2Reliability
If the system performs stop notification when an obstacle is detected on the crosswalk, then safety is improved, but the pedestrian may stop at a position too far from the crosswalk
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by making the stop notification position dynamic rather than fixed. Instead of always notifying at a predetermined distance from the crosswalk, the system adjusts the notification position based on the specific local condition - using the obstacle's edge position as the reference point when an obstacle is present, and using the crosswalk edge position when no obstacle is present. This localized adaptation optimizes both safety and walking efficiency
Data Source
AI summary
When a frontmost white line of a crosswalk cannot be detected due to an obstacle existing on the crosswalk, an edge position of the obstacle closer to a pedestrian in an image acquired by a camera is set as the frontmost white line of the crosswalk. As a result, a vibration generation device vibrates in a pattern that urges the pedestrian to stop at the time when the pedestrian reaches a position before the edge position of the obstacle closer to the pedestrian, so that a stop notification for walking can be appropriately performed to the pedestrian even when the obstacle exists on the crosswalk.