Dynamic Bird's Eye View for Retractable Vehicle Mirrors
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional vehicle surroundings monitoring systems face issues in generating a suitable bird's eye view when side mirrors are extended or retracted, leading to regions that cannot be displayed due to changes in camera imaging regions, resulting in incomplete views of the vehicle surroundings.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus with multiple imaging units installed at the front grille, side mirrors, and rear, which adjusts the extraction range and boundary positions of combined images based on the extension or retraction of side mirrors, ensuring a consistent display of the vehicle's surroundings by compensating for imaged regions with data from other units.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the cutout region is fixed based on side mirror extension/retraction, then the imaging region changes with mirror position, but regions that cannot be displayed are generated when overlap region is smaller than cutout region
Solution Approach 1:
The cutout region is made dynamic by changing its position and size based on the side mirror extension/retraction position. The image combined unit adjusts the cutout region for each side mirror position to ensure complete coverage of the imaging region, preventing generation of undisplayable regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The parameters of the cutout region (position and size) are changed according to the side mirror position. When the side mirror extends or retracts, the cutout region parameters are adjusted accordingly to match the imaging region boundaries, ensuring complete display coverage.
2Stability of the object's composition
If the same imaging direction is displayed regardless of side mirror extension/retraction, then display consistency is maintained, but a suitable bird's eye view cannot be obtained
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the cutout region parameters based on side mirror position while maintaining the overall bird's eye view composition. This allows the display to adapt to different mirror positions while preserving the consistent bird's eye view perspective.
Solution Approach 2:
The image combined unit is designed to handle multiple side mirror positions universally by adjusting the cutout region parameters. A single system can generate appropriate bird's eye views for both extended and retracted side mirror positions, providing multi-position adaptability.
3Reliability
If multiple imaging units are used to cover all regions, then complete coverage is achieved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The field of view is segmented into multiple regions that can be captured by a reduced number of imaging units. The image combined unit processes and combines images from these units with adjusted cutout regions to achieve complete coverage equivalent to having more units, thereby reducing device complexity while maintaining reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus includes: a plurality of imaging units which capture an external region of a present-vehicle and output images; a display unit which is installed in an interior of the present-vehicle; an image combined unit which combines the images output from the imaging units and outputs a combined image; and a display control unit which displays the combined image output from the image combined unit on the display unit, wherein at least one of the imaging units is installed at a retractable side mirror of the present-vehicle, and the image combined unit extracts extracted images of an extraction range determined for respective images output from the imaging units, combines the extracted images to generate the combined image, and changes the extraction range and a boundary position between the extracted images constituting the combined image depending on extension and retraction of the side mirror.