Navigation Landmark Obstruction Detection for Reliable Route Guidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users of navigation devices may become bewildered when landscape objects they can visually recognize are obstructed by vehicles or newly constructed buildings, leading to difficulty in recognizing these features during route guidance.
Innovation Solution
A notification apparatus that includes an image obtaining unit to capture surrounding images and a notifying unit to inform users about the type of obstructing objects based on map information, ensuring features are visible by providing guidance on how to overcome obstructions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If route guidance uses visually recognizable landscape objects as features, then guidance accuracy is improved, but user bewilderment increases when these features are obstructed by vehicles or buildings
Solution Approach 1:
The system captures surrounding images via camera, compares them with map information to detect obstructions, and provides feedback to the user about the obstruction type and location. This closed-loop feedback mechanism allows the system to adapt to changing visual conditions and maintain guidance reliability even when landscape objects are obstructed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary system (image processing and obstruction detection mechanism) between the landscape object and the user. Instead of directly relying on the user's visual perception of the object, the system mediates by detecting obstructions and providing compensated guidance information, thus maintaining guidance accuracy despite visual obstructions.
2Reliability
If the system continuously monitors surrounding images to detect obstructions, then user guidance reliability is improved, but device complexity and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-storing map information about landscape objects and their expected positions. When monitoring surrounding images, it compares against this pre-established data, which simplifies the real-time processing requirements and reduces the complexity of the monitoring system while maintaining reliable obstruction detection.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a copy of the map information (digital representation of landscape objects and their positions) to compare against actual surrounding images. This copying approach allows the system to detect obstructions without requiring complex real-time 3D modeling or sophisticated object recognition algorithms, thus reducing device complexity while maintaining guidance reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A notification apparatus includes an image obtaining unit and a notifying unit. The image obtaining unit obtains a surrounding image as an image of a surrounding of a moving body photographed from the moving body. The notifying unit notifies information regarding a type of an object when an object different from a predetermined feature appears in a first area where the predetermined feature is expected to appear inside the surrounding image. The first area is determined based on map information including position information of the predetermined feature and a position of the moving body at a time when the surrounding image is photographed.